In perpetually lamenting the inordinate burden placed on the United States to provide for NATOs budget, President Trump echoes a recurrent criticism of the organizations structure that casts its primary weakness as pecuniary. But this obscures a more significant weakness, one that plays a contributing factor to underspending on NATO expenditures. NATOs validity is undermined not by an overburdened United States weighed down by the strain of high defense spending for ungrateful allies. Rather, it is the unshared security interests of its member states, exacerbated by a ceaseless drive towards membership expansion, that continues to hinder NATO in the absence of recalibration.

The impetus for a staunch, anti-Communist mutual defense pact disappeared with the Soviet state. However, the United States began the process of further expansion, accumulating members with different security interests even as the organizations initial unifying purpose ceased to exist. Instead of states bound in solemn defense against a specific, shared threat, what emerged was an agglomeration of states with varying interests bound together by a vague purpose of defending democracy. This transition, lacking a definitive attempt at providing direction to its overall purpose, has resulted in fragility and confusion. This is demonstrated by the different ways in which NATO members have reacted to various geopolitical flashpoints over the past decade.

Contradictory security interests and threat perceptions often stymie effective NATO policy. Within Europe, the view of Russia as a threat diminishes the further west the member in question lies. NATO members also view the global effort against terrorism, including the threat from groups such as ISIL, from differing perspectives. Turkeys unilateral decision in 2015 to shoot down a Russian jet that violated its airspace sent tensions soaring at a time when the United States and other NATO members were coordinating military action with Russia against ISIL. The decision by the United States to aid Syrian Kurds in Raqqa in the fight against ISIL put it at odds with Turkey. Ankara views the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), which make up a significant component of the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces, as a terrorist group. Coherent, concerted action in the pursuit of these foreign policy goals becomes a languorous task as a result of divergences in member state perceptions.

NATO was never designed to handle every threat facing its members, but rather the primary threat on which they could all agree. A multi-tiered defense system within NATO would be more complicated than the current status quo, but it would be more adaptable to the realities of the post-Cold War era. Those under the overarching umbrella of the alliance would continue to enjoy the right to defense cooperation as the status quo provides. However, both the Article 5 collective defense trigger and deeper military coordination need to be parceled out pending specific agreements between individual member states. The Baltic States, Poland, the United States, and the United Kingdom, for example, could devise a defense pact that explicitly addresses the appropriate collective response to a Russian military attack against any one of these members. As a general rule, if a country is unwilling to come to the aid of another in the event of a certain threat, it should not benefit from protection against that threat. This is less controversial than it seems. Russias absorption of Crimea exposed existent fissures in the willingness of members to come to the defense of one another as mandated by Article 5.

The issue of membership must be considered carefully in concert with determining threats viewed by members as existential. Expansion for its own sake should cease unless new members share the same unwavering commitment to the specifically stated causes for which NATO stands. Increased membership does not equal greater strength, as the validity of an alliance is built upon a willingness to come to the mutual defense of one another. A multi-tier system would allow for the resolution of outstanding conflicts of interest resulting from the addition of its newer members.

In the interim period between the two World Wars, the collapse of the collective security arrangement provided by the League of Nations in the face of fascism and imperialism showed why principle alone is not a basis upon which mutual defense can be practiced. A similar collapse is possible in the event that NATO faces a serious existential threat. The focus on increasing defense contributions as a panacea to NATOs woes is misguided. More defense spending will not make Turkey come to the defense of Estonia in the event of a Russian military invasion of the Baltics. Neither will an increase in Germanys defense budget make it willing to use extra funds to provide lethal military aid to the Ukrainian army in its conflict against Russia. What is needed to clarify NATOs purpose is a framework that accommodates the varied interests of its members, rather than an expectation to throw money at a threat that some may not view as existent or important.

Zach Dickens is a Fellowship Editor at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP). Zach received a Master's degree in Diplomacy with a concentration in International Terrorism from Norwich University.

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Disunity in Purpose: NATO's Fatal Flaw - HuffPost