Europe’s greatest threat to its security and survival isn’t from some outside barbarian horde, but from its own internal political incompetence and its fatal embrace of far-left ideology.  That ideology views open borders, wealth redistribution, and government dependence as its core political philosophy.  Economist Frederick Hayek famously called it “the fatal conceit.” 

Our own progressive political left is famous for its claim that our Constitution is “living,” by which leftists mean that it must be flexible, that it must “breathe” and reflect changing circumstances.  Some law professors even say our Constitution should be thrown out.  Yet NATO is apparently written in stone and inviolable.  It isn’t.  It dates back to the 1941 Atlantic Charter, and subsequently as an effective post-war foreign aid act, tied conceptually to a larger Marshall Plan.  (Few Americans know that its key drafting was done by a Canadian diplomat and Oxford graduate, Lester Pearson.)  Moreover, unlike an organic constitution, NATO was formed by decree, not by public consent.  And no convention or amendment process is needed to end it.

President Trump is correct that the E.U., and by inference its defense programs, rely ultimately on the United States.  As he succinctly put it, as only he can, the E.U. was established to “screw the United States” (NYT, 6 December). 

Europe needs its own declaration of independence.  That is not likely to happen under its current leadership regime that is ideologically centered in socialism.  Independence is anathema to Brussels.  That is among the reasons Trump is calling for a new slate of European leaders.

If the socialist political left truly believes in “living” government arrangements that must change and adapt, then NATO is its opportunity to prove it. 

Matthew G. Andersson is the author of the forthcoming book Legally Blind, concerning law and policy.  He is a graduate of the University of Chicago. 

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.