People keep acting like NATO is some roving army for hire, and that misses the whole point. The alliance works best when nobody has to use it. Article 5 matters because it makes the cost of attacking a member obvious before a shot is fired. That deterrence is why countries on Russia's border want in, not because they expect NATO to go conquer anything for them. You can debate burden sharing, and Europe should spend more on its own defense, fair enough. But pretending NATO exists to pick fights is backwards. It's basically an insurance policy, and the fact you hope not to cash it doesn't make it fake.