As an American, I agree.
As a Brit, I agree too. Europe is incapable of defending an allied nation within our own continent from invasion. We need to do better.
The military capability of European nations have to improve so we can guarantee our own security and be a more equal partner in NATO rather than a junior partner to the US.
You run into the weird issue, what if America can’t or won’t help.
Right now everyone depends on America to defend them but we may not always be able too.
The moment America cannot act as the unilateral head of NATO is the moment it collapses.
France, Germany, The U.K. and Turkey would then become the defacto " great" powers of Europe and the whole balance of power in the E.U. would be thrown off.
Not likely to happen for the time being, but if Trump somehow manages to get elected again the Europeans would be wise to consider their alternative options.
Trump just wanted everyone to spend more on the military. He wasn’t a threat to nato.
Everyone laughed at him. He gave Ukraine javelin missiles. Obama would not give weapons.
Yet, he turned out to be right. The javelins helped Ukraine immensely. Now Europe is spending more as Russia is on their doorstep.
The only good news so far russia ain’t the capable military they use to be.
I’ve pondered when Putin goes away (he will at someone as we all do) will the next guy be worse or better.
Trump just wanted everyone to spend more on the military. He wasn’t a threat to nato.
Not US-ian, so I’m going to have to disagree hard. Back in 2016 and 2017 he called NATO “obsolete”, although he later changed his mind and said it was “no longer obsolete”, as well as taking a while to affirm US support for Article 5, and even saying “If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes,” when asked if the US would defend the Baltic NATO countries.
Now you could argue that he was using this to push the NATO defence spending requirements, which is a fair critique, but it sent a pretty clear message that under his presidency, the US honouring article 5 was conditional. This wasn’t just a message to the other NATO members; it was a message to Putin as well whether intentional or not.
I believe that the silver lining of Trump’s presidency is now being felt as Europe is seriously taking it’s ability to autonomously defend itself seriously. This is probably why Petr Pavl is musing that it may be necessary to go beyond NATO’s 2% spending targets, because Trump could get elected again, or someone like Trump, and there could always be more conditions added to US NATO commitments.
Everything in life is conditional. Why should American boys die defending people who won’t defend themselves?
Remember Trump is a bullshit artist. He just talks to sound tough. NATO would stand with or without him. It’ll take more than Trump to break nato up.
I’m not a fan of Trump but I do like that he shook some bushes about funding their militaries. It isn’t our job to save their asses because they’re unwilling.
It’s diplomacy though. Some things are better said behind closed doors as it were.
Going back to Cold War brinksmanship, the point of NATO was to loudly say that you were ride-or-die, go-to-the-wall with all your NATO homies. It made the risk of messing with NATO countries too high, likewise with the Warsaw Pact.
Now would all NATO allies go all in? 100%, all the way? Who can say with certainty. Still, so far there’s only been one US president who has said… it depends. For the record, Trump walked that back, but it certainly got a lot of NATO countries closer to Russia to quickly point out that they were over the NATO 2% GDP commitment.
Still, Article 5 has been invoked once in NATO’s history, and it was by the US. It’s why Canada was in Kandahar, Netherlands in Helmand, etc. Too my recollection, every single NATO country participated in Afghanistan at the US’s request.
Also, every NATO country on the frontier (as it were) is well over the NATO 2% GDP minimum. The three Baltic countries, Poland, the UK and the US have been over the 2% GDP minimum for a while. Finland is already well past that before joining, and I believe several more countries will hit the goal in 2023.
As an American, I’ve mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I think I think Europe owning it’s own defense would be a solid move to ensure it’s own sovereignty and independence as a modern nation…thing.
On the other hand, I fear this could lead to US - EU military rivalry. While not necessarily the strongest bond in the world, I do value the relatively positive relationship the US and EU have. I hope that bond is preserved and hope we can grow even closer over time.
nation……thing
we prefer the term “sui generis geopolitical entity” ;)
Europeans starting to realize that NATO is a protection racket is pretty funny.
