this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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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.
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.
No such thing. There's spending goals, not requirements. The whole framing within the US has been nuts in general, it was framed as if there's a membership fee that's paid to the US, or in a common pot, while the actual spending goals are on each country's own military. There's a common budget for the headquarters and its staff but that has never been in question and everyone is paying their dues, anyway.
And for some reason the US insists on percentage of GDP numbers without even reference to capabilities or, indeed, efficiency. It's kinda easy for the US to rack up gigantic numbers there as you funnel tons of science funding and general subsidies through the military sector.
Correct, it is a spending goal, not a requirement. Or at most a soft requirement. Still, my point still stands, every NATO member on the "frontier" with Russia is meeting or exceeding that 2% goal. They are pulling their own weight. At least from what I recall, the three Baltic nations and Poland are all above the 2% GDP target, and I believe Finland, Romania, and Hungary are or will be as well.
The US and Trumps criticism of "freeloaders" could be seen to apply, but to the countries that aren't anywhere near the frontlines. I think Luxembourg is less than 1% GDP of spending on military, and Canada is around 1.5%. Trumps criticism, if interpreted generously could be taken to mean that the US wouldn't help Belgium, but if Belgium is invaded, there's something big going wrong.
Realistically, Trump's weak assertions would seem to signal that he doesn't care if Latvia is pulling its weight, because it's a small country and small countries deserve to be get eaten by bigger countries. This uncertainty is what would seem to have rattled European NATO countries and reignited the effort for a collective EU defence framework.
The other thing that bugs me with Americans whinging about "NATO freeloaders" is that Article 5, the collective defence clause, has been invoked once in the entire history of NATO. By the US after 9/11. And everyone stepped up. The US can complain about Canada's military spending, but Canadian soldiers that were fighting and dying alongside the Americans in Afghanistan. It's a bit rich coming from Trump, bone-spurs himself, that other NATO countries aren't pulling their own weight.
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.
That’s part of his brand being unpredictable. Why it’s a cute trick. I want a president who’s fairly predictable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/04/bolton-says-trump-might-have-pulled-us-out-nato-if-he-had-been-reelected/
The good go young. Putin will probably live to 100 like the bastard Kissinger if he's not killed or removed from presidency.
Anyways I would not recommend the assumption that the American right will not try and pull out of NATO. Being anti NATO is now a cornerstone for far right populist's in the West.
And of course, Russia cannot do all that much to NATO in its current from, but Putin was betting on the U.S. weakening NATO so he could take the baltics and force NATO into an institutional crisis. He just got unlucky that Trump fucked up so badly he couldn't get a second term, even with trying to steal the election.
Bolton is an idiot. Yes Trump may if the other countries had net met their 2% goal. As an American I’d support pulling out nato if others don’t want to share the burden. If they had met their obligation, not Trump would not have pulled out of nato.
I’m right. I’m just not far right and we have few politicians who are. Most of them have little to no power anyways.
Putin also didn’t realize how bad his army was and how effective the javelin is or how hard the Ukrainians would fight.
I doubt Trump understood how good of a missile it was. He prob thought it was a real javelin.
Ok, and he still represents the warhawk/neocon type of thought in Washington.
How stupid you think he is doesn't really change how Trump already had his mind made up on leaving NATO. I'm no fan of NATO, I think it will collapse eventually. Trump just further cracked an already strained relationship.
Seems like Gaetz just got your speak of house pruned didn't he?
Its not like you have to be particularly far right to support Russia/ oppose arming Ukraine. " centrists " and Warhawks aside there isint too many vocal right wing voices supporting Ukraine.
That situation would have been very different if Trump was in charge of the U.S.A when Russia rolled across the border.
He would have cut a deal with Russia at the expense of Ukranian territory like he did in Syria cutting a deal with Turkey.
The Russian's nearly captured Mykolaiv. Had the Ukranian's not received continued stinger and Jav support + other early equipment the situation could have been different. I don't like playing the alternative history game but I disagree with your assessment of Trump fully.
He would not have played his cards like the Biden admin did.
Considering Trump is the one to arm him javelins. It’s hard to say how it would have played out. That’s a level of support no other president had given until he did it.
Getting the speaker removed isn’t that hard. All the democrats would vote to remove him just to play politics.
It’s hard to say what would have happened since Trump was all over the place. I’m no fan of the man but he wasn’t no a fan of war.
So would he have further armed Ukraine or stopped? Hard to say as he often didn’t know which way was up.
Trump is not a good example of a right politics. He just can republican because he couldn’t get the democrat nomination.
I agree. But there's so much to do for a EU defense... GB is aligned with the US. Germany and a few other countries are entirely trusting the US. Hungary would probably side with Russia at this point.
I wish the war kick-started eu defense better.
I don’t think that we are incapable of doing that. What we have done is a balancing act of assisting Ukraine against Russia without going to war with Russia.
If we were to have sent in troops from the start then it would be a completely different picture. I’m not sure that it would be a better picture though.
It may have been different if there were boots on the ground, sure. But I think their willingness to invade would have been severely diminished if they thought Europe could easily defend Ukraine without the assistance of the US.
Yeah, if we stopped being the world's police we might have tax money for something else.
Taxes don't pay for anything at the federal level. They are deleted. We used to literally burn them back when we collected physical money. We can afford both our current military spending, and every single progressive policy that AOC or Bernie can dream up just fine. (Not saying we should, just that we can. I think we should scale back on certain aspects of the military, but that's a whole other discussion) The government just "prints" more money and deposits it in the appropriate accounts via the Federal Reserve. Taxes are merely an anti-inflationary device to ensure that inflation stays stable. Running deficits doesn't cause inflation. If it did, Japan would have been thoroughly fucked in the last 30 years of running the highest deficit by percentage of any country in the world. In reality they are running the largest deficit economy, and barely fighting off deflation.
Edit: this only applies to a sovereign fiat currency.
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.
we prefer the term "sui generis geopolitical entity" ;)
Political entity. I'm surprised how much I like that label. Thanks for informing me :)
I think the fact the EU steuggles as much as it does in the near future they would be at best a weaker China. Lots of bodies but sub par military capabilities. The benefit we get in the US is that we'd only need to come in as support and military guidance rather than sending a lot of troops. They will still suck at doing things as it will be military by committee so in cases with countries like Russia they will most likely defer to the US to just run things.