New Year, New Geopolitics

Guest Opinion by Jason Keeley

It’s officially 2026; the ball dropped and everyone made their resolutions. Every new year is a new beginning for many people in many ways.

At the same time, many things are just another day. For the Ukrainian, it’s just another day in the literal trenches. For the Taiwanese, it’s just another day trying not to provoke the wrath of the CCP.

That is all to say, the problems stay the same, but our solutions change. 2026 is a new year for new solutions to old problems.

President Trump’s foreign policy has been strong and America First. We have reasserted the dominance of a unipolar power on what many are now calling a multipolar world. Iran was put in their place with Operation Midnight Hammer, Russia is being forced to the table by sanctions and American arm sales to Ukraine through the EU, and China knows America means business, because our President is back.

In America First fashion, President Trump is avoiding a hardline stance on full Russian withdrawal that would drag out the war and stress American attention and supplies. Even with sales rather than gifts, a factory making for Ukraine is a factory not making for America, and our stockpiles are too low too sustain a proxy war. The war must end; thank God the President knows that.

But there’s a bigger issue behind why Ukraine was not fought like Korea or Vietnam (and should not be). That reason will probably upset some people, but realism often has that effect. Ukraine is just not a critical point of global security.

That is the reality. Whether Russia gets Donbas or Ukraine gets Crimea, it really doesn’t destabilize the world order like a communist Taiwan would. It does have some effects, yes, and, in an ideal-yet-fictional world, Ukraine would regain Crimea, but it is just not important enough to drain stockpiles over achieving that. The President is taking the right course.

That said, the spirit of that course could be taken further. The only reason Russia is a concern is because they’re allies with China. Italy without Germany was nothing in World War II. Putin is just Mussolini. It is Xi Jinping that inherits the role of Führer.

The issue is that 2025 geopolitics just do not recognize this. We are working with outdated systems and agreements that treat Russia like it is still in East Berlin. NATO should not be disolved—that’d be a disaster—but it does need an update.

Let me read Article 5 and show what I am talking about: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” The shorthand “an attack on one is an attack on all” is not actually true. The geographic condition makes it so that if China attacked our Seventh Fleet (which is stationed in Japan), Article 5 would not apply. Rather, Article 4 would apply.

Article 4 reads: “The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”

So, if China attacked the Seventh Fleet—even wiped it out Pearl Harbor style—all we would get are consultations, not protection. Europe would have no legal obligation to protect us.

Poland has full coverage. Germany has full coverage. The Baltics have full coverage. Türkiye has explicit full coverage carved in by Article 6. The United States? No coverage in the Pacific.

This is not sustainable. It’s not America First. It’s a relic of the days where Europe was in ruins and they needed American defense against a bold USSR. The USSR is gone, but Europe grew complacent and entitled.

Not only would they not defend us in a WWIII scenario, but that complacency results today in only 23 out of 32 NATO members reaching the 2% spending goal. In 2021, that was only 6.

They could not defend us if they wanted to. They sacrifice defense to create unaffordable welfare states then criticize us for not having universal everything when our defense spending is the only thing keeping them independent. Yet we legally oblige ourselves to defend them when they wouldn’t do the same for us and have shrugged their own security off onto our shoulders.

As I said, I am not an isolationist. The unipolar order is America as leader, not America alone. The issue is that many of our supposed “allies” do not pull their weight. That’s not America First. That’s America Last as usual. That’s the America Last status quo that we’re sick of. We elected President Trump to throw America Last into the incinerator.

What’s my solution then? Am I just a bitter American ranting and raving about Europe? No, not at all. I welcome you to the Atlantic-Pacific Treaty Organization—APTO.

There are two ways to achieve APTO. Firstly (and preferably), we amend the North Atlantic Treaty to remove all geographic limitations on defense coverage and membership to truly make an attack on one an attack on all and begin procedures to admit Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and any other appropriate Asian allies.

Alternatively, if Europe resists this equalization of the treaty (especially given that it is explicitly in defense against China, which many European countries are willfully economically entangled with), we invoke Article 13, the withdrawal article, and create APTO as a new organization. We’d establish the APTO alliance out of willing NATO members and Asian allies and, after the mandatory one year notice period, leave NATO for APTO.

This is an America First alliance. As is, NATO is outdated and broken. If we fix it, APTO will be the strongest alliance for liberty and freedom the world has ever seen, and everyone will benefit.

Jason Keeley is a political science student at Auburn University at Montgomery. He is the Eagle Forum River Region Action Group leader and is currently an intern for the Barry Moore for Senate campaign. The views expressed here are his own. To contact, email JasonKeeley6@gmail.com.

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