NATO supplies interoperability, common standards, and confidence that members can combine their military power. If it collapsed without a successor, Britain would face the cost of building new alliances while Eastern European states rapidly armed against immediate threats. Germany and France might feel less immediately exposed than Poland and other eastern members, making a unified response harder. In this assessment, existing European political machinery might not resolve those pressures quickly, leaving a dangerous period in which states have lost the strongest guarantor but cannot yet replace its power.
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The danger of a NATO standards vacuum
Britain's worst case is not merely losing American forces but losing NATO's common standards before a credible replacement alliance exists.