The establishment of the NATO alliance by the US was not an act of altruism. The placement of US troops in Germany had two major purposes:
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To ensure that an amphibious assault would not be required if the US decided to invade Europe again, and
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To make sure that any US-USSR conflict was fought “over there” instead of “over here”.
The Germans and Turks were not “protected” by nominating their countries as ground zero for the opening stages of WWIII. Even if NATO had successfully done what it was theoretically supposed to do, and even if the nukes were somehow neutralised, central Europe would have been left as a smoking depopulated ruin.
The appropriate historical analogy for 20th century America is the Delian League. That was also, in theory, a mutually beneficial cooperative defence pact against a tyrannical foreign threat. In practice, it was an imperial protection racket that siphoned wealth and power towards the centre through a combination of threats, economic blackmail and naked force.
