Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton incorrectly cited the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the longest military alliance in the history of the world Monday during the first debate between the two presidential candidates.
In her attempt to emphasize the importance of NATO to U.S. interests, Clinton incorrectly called the alliance the longest in world history, but since NATO was only established as recently as 1949, that claim is most definitely false.
As just one counterexample, the Anglo-Portuguese military alliance has existed since the 14th century, making it countless hundreds of years longer than the NATO alliance, which has only been around for 67 years. Although the Anglo-Portuguese alliance has been frayed at times because of a 60-year union between Spain and Portugal from 1580-1640, the fact is that the alliance has overcome various historical bumps along the way and is still in effect.
Unfortunately, debate moderator Lester Holt of NBC, who fact-checked GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump numerous times during the debate, failed to call Clinton on this obvious falsehood.
Additionally, PolitiFact, with 18 fact-checkers working live throughout the debate, only fact-checked Trump on NATO, saying he had mischaracterized NATO.
Trump has raised the prospect of rethinking NATO as a military alliance and during the debate, he noted that he’s uninterested in seeing the U.S. play the role of world policeman, especially since he said that NATO member countries simply are not contributing their fair share of resources to the arrangement.
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