President Macron has pronounced Nato brain dead (Report, 3 December, theguardian.com). That is an irreversible condition so all that remains is to switch off the life support and bury the corpse.

In the case of Nato, that is long overdue. It originally claimed to be a defensive alliance but it ran into difficulty nearly 30 years ago when the Soviet Union broke up and the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. That left Nato with no enemy to defend anyone against and so no justification for its existence.

The logical step would have been for it also to be dissolved but instead it set about creating an enemy to justify itself. It was quite easy to provoke Russia into being the new enemy by extending membership up to the Russian border and stationing troops not far from St Petersburg (one can imagine the US reaction if China had formed an alliance with Mexico and placed forces on the border with California).Nato now provides the US with a captive market for its expensive weaponry, including, in Britain, entirely useless Trident missiles.

The only complaint the US has about its satellites is that they do not spend enough on this dangerous hardware, pointing out that its own rate of expenditure on its armed forces is around twice theirs. The unfairness of this as perceived by the US could be easily rectified by cutting its own military budget by half. There is plenty that the money could be spent on to greater advantage for the American people – a health service, for example.

Anthony Matthew

Leicester

• Under the heading “What is Nato?” (4 December) a few facts were missed. Nato is a nuclear armed military alliance which has now expanded across the world to Asia and Australasia, even as far as making an agreement with Colombia, which is in a nuclear weapon free zone (Tlatelolco Treaty 1967).

Despite differences between member states, its policies continue to be dominated by the US. Under its policy of nuclear sharing, which breaches the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, there are US nuclear bombs, the B61s, at bases in five “non-nuclear” countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. The latter are based at İncirlik, not far from the border with Syria. At the same time, Erdoğan is saying he would like Turkey to have its own nuclear capability.

The US is planning to upgrade the B61 to a B61-12 which will be more accurate and earth penetrating. Already the B61 could have up to 340 tons of killing power; the Hiroshima bomb was 15 killing tons. Nato still holds a policy of first use of nuclear weapons, slavishly followed by the UK. Next year Nato will be carrying out huge military exercises, entitled “Defender” across eastern Europe. None of the above is likely to bring peace and security for citizens in the member states, nor across the globe.

Rae Street

Littleborough, Lancashire

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