The USS Boxer, the USNS Tippecanoe and the USS John P. Murtha transit the Strait of Hormuz, Aug. 12, 2019. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class David L Ortiz)

Every few years, NATO rediscovers an old argument.

The location changes. The actors change. The crises change. Yet the debate remains remarkably familiar: should the Alliance concern itself only with defending Allied territory, or can it legitimately act when developments beyond its borders threaten Allied security?

Today, that question is resurfacing in connection with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. The prospect of some form of NATO involvement in safeguarding freedom of navigation is already prompting predictable objections. Hormuz is not NATO territory. Iran is not attacking an Ally. Therefore, the argument goes, NATO should stay out.

At first glance, this position appears prudent. In reality, it reflects something else: a surprisingly short institutional memory.

For much of the last three decades, NATO has operated on the assumption that Allied security cannot be defined solely by geography. Indeed, for a generation, the Alliance spent more time conducting operations beyond its borders than preparing for major territorial defence within them. From Bosnia and Kosovo to Afghanistan, from Operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean to Operation Ocean Shield off the Horn of Africa, NATO repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to protect Allied interests beyond the boundaries of the Washington Treaty area.

These were not exceptional departures from NATO’s mission. They became part of it.

The Alliance formally codified this evolution. The 1999 Strategic Concept introduced crisis-response operations beyond Allied territory. The 2010 NATO’s Strategic Concept went further, establishing collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security as NATO’s three core tasks. Significantly, the same document identified the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction as direct threats, explicitly highlighting Iran’s missile activities and nuclear ambitions.

This was not an American talking point- it was agreed NATO Allies policy, adopted unanimously.

The suggestion that developments in the Gulf somehow fall entirely outside NATO’s legitimate sphere of concern therefore requires a degree of historical selectivity.

Or, perhaps more accurately, strategic amnesia.

The irony is that the geopolitical logic behind those earlier assessments has only strengthened. The world has become more interconnected, not less. Economic security, critical infrastructure, supply chains, energy resilience, and maritime access have all moved from the periphery of security debates to their very centre. The Alliance itself increasingly speaks the language of resilience, critical dependencies, and systemic vulnerabilities.

Yet when one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints enters the discussion, many suddenly revert to a remarkably narrow geographical definition of security.

The Strait of Hormuz may be geographically distant from Europe. Strategically and economically, it is anything but. A significant share of global energy trade passes through it. Disruption affects energy prices, industrial output, defence production, inflation, and ultimately military readiness across the Euro-Atlantic area. The notion that such developments have no bearing on Allied security is increasingly difficult to sustain.

None of this means NATO should return to the expeditionary ambitions of the early post-9/11 era. Nor does it imply that every crisis requires a NATO operation. Collective defence must remain the Alliance’s primary task. Russia remains the most immediate and consequential military threat to Allied territory. The defence of Europe must remain NATO’s centre of gravity.

But there is a significant difference between maintaining priorities and embracing, as medical psychologists would perhaps say- a strategic tunnel vision.

The increasingly popular “not our war” argument risks doing precisely that. It promises discipline but often produces paralysis. Applied consistently, it becomes difficult to distinguish between strategic restraint and outright disengagement. If Ukraine is Europe’s war, the Middle East is America’s war, and instability elsewhere belongs exclusively to whoever happens to live there, the Alliance gradually loses its ability to address security challenges whose consequences do not respect borders.

NATO has confronted this dilemma before.

Indeed, the famous phrase “out of area or out of business” emerged precisely because the Alliance recognized that relevance required more than territorial defence alone. One may debate the wording, but the underlying insight remains valid. Security challenges rarely ask permission before crossing regional boundaries.

What makes today’s debate particularly peculiar is that Allied practice has already moved ahead of Allied rhetoric. European- even under EU’s command – navies operate routinely close to, in and around the Gulf. NATO maintains partnerships across the region. Individual Allies regularly contribute to maritime security efforts beyond Europe. The practical question was largely settled years ago.

What remains unsettled is the narrative.

A future mission supporting freedom of navigation in Hormuz—whether NATO-led, NATO-enabled, or conducted by a coalition of Allies with NATO political backing—would therefore not represent a revolutionary expansion of the Alliance’s role. It would represent continuity. It would reflect patterns of behavior, strategic assumptions, and political commitments that NATO itself has developed over decades.

The real issue is not whether NATO can operate beyond its borders – it has done so repeatedly.

The real issue is whether the Alliance is prepared to acknowledge openly what its own history demonstrates: that defending Allied security sometimes requires action beyond Allied territory.

Otherwise, NATO risks repeating a familiar mistake. Not mission creep. Not strategic overreach- but rather a strategic amnesia.

And history suggests that forgetting past lessons is often more dangerous than applying them.

is Lithuania’s former Ambassador to NATO, chief policy advisor at GSSC, a Vilnius – based think tank.

This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.