Trump adviser proposes new tiered system for Nato members who don’t pay up
- Keith Kellogg proposes a ‘tiered alliance’ in which Article 5 applies to Nato members who meet defence financial obligations
- Trump and his allies have increasingly signalled that they intend to rethink America’s decades-long commitment to Nato
A leading national security adviser to Donald Trump told Reuters that he would push for changes to Nato if the former president returns to power that could result in some member nations losing protection against an outside attack.
Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general and one-time chief of staff of the former president’s National Security Council, said in an interview on Tuesday that if a member of the 31-country alliance failed to spend at least 2 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence, as agreed, he would support removing that nation’s Article 5 protections under the North Atlantic Treaty.
Article 5 states that an attack against one member of the Europe-based alliance will be considered an attack against all, and members of the alliance must respond appropriately.
Without those protections, a member country would not be guaranteed other Nato members would come to its aid.
“Where I come from, alliances matter,” said Kellogg, who also served as former vice-president Mike Pence’s national security adviser. “But if you’re going to be part of an alliance, contribute to the alliance, be part of the alliance.”