Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has long been a critic of continued U.S. membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He’s categorized it as an archaic institution that serves no current purpose and a waste of taxpayer money. On Wednesday, Massie introduced a bill to end the country’s membership in NATO.
“NATO is a Cold War relic. We should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our own country, not socialist countries,” Massie said in a press release and in social media posts. “NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over thirty years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk U.S. involvement in foreign wars.”
Massie’s NATO Act called for:
- Restricting U.S. taxpayer money from being used on NATO’s security budget
- Acknowledging that NATO has adequate “economic and military capacity to provide for their own defense.”
- Asserting that “NATO’s original Cold War purpose no longer aligns with current U.S. national security interests.”
- And requesting for the president to officially notify NATO of the country’s decision to withdrawal from the alliance.
In defending his legislative proposal, Massie said that the country’s continued membership in NATO ran counter to the ideologies the country’s founders supported. He specifically mentioned warnings from the founders cautioning the government not to get involved in foreign affairs.
“Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against,” Massie said. “America should not be the world’s security blanket — especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense.”
Massie’s emphasis on the Founding Fathers’ reluctance to get involved in “foreign entanglements” likely refers to George Washington’s “Farewell Address” delivered in 1796. Washington warned of the dangers of getting involved in European conflicts and the negative impact it could have on the U.S.
“Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?” Washington said in his farewell speech. “Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?”
“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements,” the first president said. “I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them…”
Massie has a history of urging the U.S. to leave NATO. On at least two occasions, he has voted against congressional resolutions affirming support for the alliance.
In June 2017, Massie voted against a resolution pledging U.S. support for NATO’s mutual defense agreement. The resolution was sponsored by House leadership at the time, including then-Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
“The move to expand NATO in Eastern Europe is unwise and unaffordable,” Massie told The Cincinatti Enquirer in 2017. He said the 2017 proposed resolution “was in direct conflict with President Trump’s campaign assertion that NATO is obsolete.”
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He voted against another congressional resolution urging support for NATO in 2022, to “uphold the founding democratic principles of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and establish a Center for Democratic Resilience within the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”
“NATO is a relic of the Cold War,” Massie said on social media at the time. “Why should Americans pay for Europe’s defense?”
