Values provide cohesion and legitimacy, while interests drive adaptability and responsiveness; NATO must balance both
Founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) emerged with an ambitious purpose: to prevent the recurrence of catastrophic global conflict. Over the last 77 years, the Alliance has evolved from a static Cold War bulwark into a dynamic political-military organisation, expanding to 32 members and adapting to an increasingly complex security environment. Yet NATO operates within a fundamental paradox. It is, at once, a guarantor of peace and a structure sustained by the credible threat of force. This duality situates the Alliance between the “holiness” of shared values and the “unholiness” of power politics. Rather than a contradiction, this tension reflects the international system in which NATO operates—a hybrid order shaped by both normative commitments and realist constraints.
At the core of NATO’s perceived “holiness” lies its foundational principle of collective defence. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty has served as a deterrent mechanism and as the cornerstone of a security community. Within this framework, the use of force among members becomes unthinkable. NATO, in this sense, represents more than an alliance of convenience; it embodies a community grounded in political solidarity and mutual trust, a normative dimension that has been central to NATO’s legitimacy.
Yet NATO operates within a fundamental paradox. It is, at once, a guarantor of peace and a structure sustained by the credible threat of force.
However, viewing NATO solely through this “holy” lens would be incomplete. Like most alliances operating in an anarchic international system, it is equally shaped by strategic interests, power asymmetries, and geopolitical calculations. The prominence of the United States (US) within NATO makes this duality particularly visible. NATO’s deterrence posture remains heavily reliant on American military power. As the Alliance’s primary provider of military capabilities and strategic leadership, the US occupies a structurally dominant role that both sustains and complicates NATO’s cohesion, introducing structural imbalances which shape its internal dynamics.
This asymmetry, sharpened after the war in Ukraine, has added a more transactional layer to alliance power politics, underscoring that cohesion rests not only on shared values but also on negotiated expectations. While not new, these dynamics have become more explicit in recent years, particularly during the Trump administration, questioning the conditional nature of US commitments. The possibility of American disengagement does not create this tension within NATO; it exposes it. Traditionally a firm guarantee, American strategic retrenchment introduces uncertainty not by dismantling the alliance, but by reshaping how commitment is interpreted. When security guarantees begin to appear conditional, alliance behaviour recalibrates. This recalibration tends to unfold along three interrelated shifts: from automatic solidarity to calibrated cooperation, from identity-based cohesion to cost-benefit considerations, and from implicit trust to explicit negotiation.
These shifts expose NATO’s enduring instrumental dimension, where strategic interests become more visible alongside normative commitments. Elements of unpredictability are often described in literature as a “madman” posture. In a provocative reading, Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch, the figure who transcends conventional norms and imposes new values, finds a strategic echo in this approach, where deception becomes a deliberate tool to disrupt expectations and assert dominance within an anarchic international system. Within NATO, where cohesion depends on credibility and trust, such unpredictability can both strengthen external deterrence and create internal unease. Managing this tension is essential to ensure that strategic signalling reinforces, rather than undermines, the Alliance’s cohesion.
Over decades, the structural weight of the US has inevitably generated hierarchy within NATO, producing a pattern of dominance and dependency.
In this context, pressures within US political discourse have sought to reframe, not weaken, the alliance. JD Vance argued that greater European responsibility should not be interpreted as a departure from alliance principles, but as a means of reinforcing them. Over decades, the structural weight of the US has inevitably generated hierarchy within NATO, producing a pattern of dominance and dependency. A more balanced distribution of capabilities is not merely a matter of fairness but a strategic necessity. Reducing asymmetry strengthens mutual commitment, enhances credibility, and supports the alliance’s long-term sustainability. Recent debates on burden-sharing and leadership reflect this ongoing recalibration. In a political environment where discourse is easily reduced to spectacle, the remark by the NATO Secretary General at the Hague Summit referring to Trump as “the daddy” of the Alliance was a rhetorical signal of hierarchy, responsibility, and burden-sharing. Yet symbolism alone does not beget leadership, which within NATO is ultimately measured not by rhetoric, but by responsibility. This lies at the heart of NATO’s leadership: managing 32 competing national interests by holding them together—translating divergence into cohesion and pressure into collective purpose.
Under these conditions, alliances may shift from principled solidarity toward conditional cooperation and from identity-based cohesion toward cost–benefit logic. This does not undermine NATO’s normative foundation, but reflects that even value-based alliances operate within a system shaped by uncertainty and competition. At its core, beyond a simple expression of military capability, NATO’s power is fundamentally a moral force—one that derives legitimacy not only from its strength but from how that strength is exercised. Its enduring relevance lies in its alignment with the principle often summarised as “peace through strength,” a doctrine most recently reasserted in contemporary political discourse by President Trump. Strength, here, is not an end in itself, but a condition that enables order, deterrence, and ultimately the protection of human dignity within an unstable international system.
At its core lies a deeper philosophical tension: power as the moral principle of those who prevail in the absence of overarching authority. From Thucydides’ observation that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” to Niccolò Machiavelli’s insistence on the centrality of power politics, international relations have been understood as operating within a ‘state of nature’ where no central authority can fully constrain sovereign actors. In such an environment, survival and security remain the primary concerns of states, regardless of their internal values. NATO’s significance lies precisely in how it engages with this reality. Rather than denying the importance of power, the Alliance seeks to organise and discipline it. Although realism regards power as amoral, it argues that it is structurally necessary under conditions of anarchy. This is where the principle of “peace through strength” acquires deeper meaning—not as a justification for power, but as a mechanism for stabilising an inherently unstable system.
The actions of certain actors reaffirm the persistence of geopolitical rivalry, underscoring the imperative for robust collective defence and strategic coherence.
In a more controversial formulation, as Nietzsche suggests in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, strength, struggle, and tension are intrinsic to growth, transformation, and resilience, thereby preventing stagnation. Translated into contemporary international politics, this insight does not imply that conflict is desirable, but that it is enduring. It is not a reference to master morality, but a recognition that systems which ignore this condition risk fragility while those that adapt to it develop strength. No other alliance in the world except NATO embodies this adaptive logic. It does not seek to eliminate competition but to manage it, to deter escalation while maintaining readiness. In doing so, it turns raw power into a structured force for stability, setting NATO apart from purely coercive alliances and anchoring its legitimacy in guiding principles. This balance between power and purpose becomes particularly critical in the context of renewed great-power competition. The actions of certain actors reaffirm the persistence of geopolitical rivalry, underscoring the imperative for robust collective defence and strategic coherence. Such actors are not temporary disruptions or transit challenges; they are enduring features of the international system.
The central paradox: NATO must continuously reaffirm its identity as a community of values while operating within a system governed by power politics. As structural realists argue, the anarchic international system compels states to prioritise survival and relative advantage. NATO’s challenge is not to escape this logic, but to manage it, ensuring strategic necessity does not erode normative legitimacy. This is why NATO is best understood neither as a “holy” nor as an “unholy” alliance, but as a hybrid structure that moralises power while operating within a realist system. Its resilience stems from that duality. Values provide long-term cohesion and legitimacy, while interests enable adaptability and responsiveness. The risk emerges only when the balance tilts too far in one direction: either when transactional logic undermines trust, or when normative commitments are not backed by credible capabilities.
NATO’s “holiness” lies not in the absence of power, but in its disciplined use, while its “unholiness” reflects the environment in which it operates. The Alliance operates at the intersection of these realities, where ideals meet interests, and peace is maintained not by the absence of conflict, but by the credible capacity to deter it through continuous self- correction.
As the international order evolves through disruption, uncertainty, and rivalry, NATO’s relevance is highly unlikely to diminish. It will outlast leaders, political cycles, and transient crises because it is anchored in structural necessity: the enduring need to organise power in a world where power cannot be abolished. NATO thus endures as a synthesis of both dimensions precisely because it refuses to resolve the tension between strength and legitimacy. Instead, it institutionalises this tension, continuously striving to reconcile the two in a world where neither can be sustained in isolation from the other.
Juxhina Gjoni is a Policy Analyst and CIMIC Subject Matter Expert specialising in civil-military cooperation NATO affairs and resilience.
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Juxhina Gjoni is a Policy Analyst and CIMIC Subject Matter Expert specialising in civil-military cooperation NATO affairs and resilience. She is the founder of Women ...
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