Invite Russia and China to join.... NATO!

 NATO is a treaty. It's an agreement which binds signatories to 14 articles. These are (summarised):

1. Try to settle differences peacefully
2. Be proactive at promoting peace
3. Develop individual and collective defence capabilities
4. Consult with each other over claimed border disputes
5. An attack on one is an attack on all. All members will defend any member under attack
6. Defines where and what is defined as an attack
7. Abide by UN charter
8. Not currently doing anything that conflicts with these articles
9. Form a council to manage membership
10. Be able to unanimously invite other nations to join
11. Process of membership ratification managed by USA
12. Review after 10th year
13. Process to leave managed by USA
14. Documentation about the treaty is stored in USA

It also exists to maintain peace, as the name suggests, in the North Atlantic. So if my idea to invite Russia and China, and maybe every other nation on Earth to join including North Korea and Iran, Article 6 will need to be modified to a planetwide treaty rather than regional... and I admit I don't know what difficulties such territorial expansion might cause.

One of the reasons Russia invaded Ukraine was because NATO was moving Eastwards towards its borders. Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and the Baltic states (and others) all joined NATO after Russia was verbally promised they wouldn't by James Baker, the US Secretary of State in 1990, who made the statement to enable the re-unification of Germany (thereby also adding East Germany to NATO). And now, as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland have also joined. NATO has moved MUCH closer to Russia, against whom as part of the USSR, NATO was originally founded to defend itself. 

Hypothetically if Russia were to join the club (which after the collapse of the USSR, it requested doing but was blocked by the USA who didn't trust them), it would need to withdraw from occupied areas of Ukraine (and perhaps elsewhere) under Article 8. And China would need to let NATO decide if its claim over Taiwan is legitimate (Article 4) - which it won't agree. Equally, under my scenario, North Korea would need to relax about South Korea - and vice-versa. But broadly speaking NO STATE would get away with invading ANYONE. National borders would be frozen FOREVER unless both parties agreed to a unification - or a cessation. And every nation would seek to cooperate and collaborate to protect our limited resources and the state of the planet, without looking over their shoulder to prevent an invasion by an aggressive neighbour. 

If NATO did become a Global Defence Treaty Organisation - maybe integrated with the UN - all nations would be provided with a reassurance that they no longer had sole responsibility to their citizens to defend their borders. It would also mean that firm expenditure rules would need to be policed regarding members maintaining sufficient resources to meet their collective responsibility to defend other members. Not only would proof be required to check they're spending what they should (2% of GDP?), but that it's also maintained in a state of readiness should it be needed. Failure to do either should mean immediate expulsion. Trump was right to demand members anti-up.

Which introduces a circular budget issue into the idea. If everybody is protected from everybody else, the prospect of war anywhere is dramatically reduced - take the example of Russia no longer worrying about encroachment by what they currently see as 'the enemy' from the West. So if the threat is reduced, why spend so much to ensure it remains the case? In centuries to come, military capabilities might become curiosities that only need to exist as pure deterrent reminder, which historically. But then in reality, the world might be too weak to defend a member from an aggressor who has spent more than the minimum required, thereby making the world more dangerous again. Or maybe defence forces will be converted into resources designed to prevent global crimes (so everyone would need to agree what laws are universal), climate change and other shared threats including cyber crimes.

If I'm right, the above means we can get rid of ALL nuclear weapons except 1! It would be floating in space and would be automatically dropped on the capital city of any country who breaks the agreement (which according to Article 4 would need approval by all members). Think this is a bit harsh? Better than a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario between Trump and Putin - each believing the other wouldn't dare... while Xi sits back and watches the continued ascent of China.

Admittedly there are several additional difficulties my idea opens up. For example, for a coordinated military response, there needs to be something called interoperability. Sharing of resources, equipping of civil and military partners, standardisation of communications and sharing of intelligence. Advanced nations, especially the G7, will jealously protect their intellectual property especially where it provides them with a battlefield advantage. Lions will need to be encouraged to lie down with other lions - as well as lambs. Where nations have spent most of past fifty thousand years or so competing with each other over territory and power, they need to learn how to trust their that neighbours and traditional enemies won't ever become a threat. 

Another issue relates to injustices occurring within a nation's borders. It is widely recognised, for example, that Vietnam rescued Cambodia from the horrors being perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. According to Article 5, Vietnam should have been prevented from doing so. Likewise the outrages happening today in Gaza, Congo and Sudan. The latter two need very big fists wielded by someone outside these countries to stop the massacres. And Israel needs someone, probably the USA, to prioritise protecting civilians rather than listen to racist nutters waving old books at the problem.

And on this note, all members needs to respect cultural differences while working to eradicate irrationality and evangelism, especially the brainwashing of children to believe in myths and superstition under the guise of culture and preservation of tradition. There is no place for a divine authority while we kill each other in the belief that our version of it will protect us. 

We need to establish reasons to trust each other without relying on supernatural protectors.