I served with NATO forces in the 1980s. Then it was a noble and necessary bulwark against Soviet aggression. But the Soviets bit the dust in 1991 and since then, as the president has opined, the NATO alliance has become a gathering of many useless backsliders with a non-existent mission whose vast majority of members refuse to spend the very minimum on their own defense. And the United Nations? It’s an anti-American serpentarium.

NATO is so nonimportant to our national security, so silly and weak, so obsolete, that its secretary general is reduced to this:

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So what do we do about these ungainly relics of the Cold War and WWII? We don’t pull out of either at first. We decrease our contributions and participation until they die on the vine. We stay in NATO but ignore it. We eventually leave the UN and kick it out of New York City.

Though if we do that it will leave a hole in our global national security posture. Here’s what we fill it with: A new alliance.

Call it the “United Federation of Democracies” (UNIFED). Its base would be the Five Eyes nations of the Anglosphere: Us, the Brits, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Any nation could join if it meets these requirements: functioning democracy/free republic, free market, already spending 2% GDP on their own defense. You must maintain those statuses to remain in UNIFED.

Possible global partners would be Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, India, Israel, Poland, several European nations, Colombia, Brazil, several Scandinavian nations, and any other country in the world that meets all the requirements. There would be some democracies that meet 2 out of 3. No dice.

How would the Russians and the Chinese, our biggest global competitors, react? The Russians would be tickled we were lessening our involvement in NATO. That is until they realize the new alliance is stronger, more lethal, and would ring them from coast to coast. The Chinese would blow a gasket when we officially recognized and officially allied with Taiwan. Tough. As the president has pointed out, they have been eating our lunch for years on trade. Now they’re making moves in the Pacific to challenge our fleet. This should give them a nice wake up call.

As for the UN, sure, there are decent reasons (most having to do with the compromising of foreign diplomats) to stay in. But if we can replace it with a real organization, not the current Bolshevik talking shop, it would advance the strength of free countries around the world. Thus UNIFED, after a hopefully successful decade, could become a diplomatic organization as well.

And just think of the deep and almost sensual satisfaction of kicking the UN out of New York and watching them relocate to some garden spot like Lagos or Phnom Penh.

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Yes, the proposal is radical. Yes, it would be initially chaotic and redundant to a point. But WWII was over 75 years ago. The Cold War was over almost 30 years ago. It’s time we drove a newer national security vehicle.