Every president after Clinton, and maybe him as well, (yes, including Obama) said that Europe had to become responsible for its defense. During that same time, Europe has insisted that it knows better than the US cowboys. And, Europe certainly doesn't like US global power projection.
So, why does Europe need/want the US in NATO?
It can't be resources - Europe is rich. More to the point, Europe has almost 10x Russia's GDP and about 2.5x the population.
So, unless Europe is worried about Germany, it can handle its defense.
It's about the nukes. Europe doesn't want a world where a lot of countries have nukes so the role of the US in Nato was to provide Europe with a nuclear umbrella.
I'm a Swede and something is going on between France and Sweden related to nuclear weapons. Not sure if it's about placing French Rafael fighter jets with French nukes or some type of collaboration about Gripen fighter jets with Swedish nukes.
> It's about the nukes. Europe doesn't want a world where a lot of countries have nukes so the role of the US in Nato was to provide Europe with a nuclear umbrella.
If anything, it has been proven that unless you have nuclear weapons, your country is at risk of being attacked by nations that have them.
Ukraine learned this the hard way, so did many other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
In its defence, Sweden does have lutfisk, that's a pretty potent deterrent. Not quite as nasty as Norway's strategic surstromming stockpile, but still enough to deter invaders.
For all the jingoism being spouted, it would be nice if somebody had a whisper in Mango Mussolinis ear as to why NATO and the post 1945 order was formed, and who benefits from it (hint: all our democracies).
NATO was formed to counter the threat of the Soviet Union which no longer exists. Russia is nothing like the same threat to the US that the Soviet Union was. The US is now more concerned about China.
Europe was economically and militarily important globally than it now is. Therefore defending it is less important to the US than it used to be, while Asia has become more important to the US.
Russia is not even anything like the same threat to Europe that the Soviet Union was. It has been further weakened by the Ukraine war and it will take many years to recover.
As for nukes, there are two acknowledged nuclear powers in western Europe.
Yeah, recent events have clarified how much Israel and Saudi (and Bahrain, Jordan etc) are real defense priorities for the US. Expended a lot of Patriot interceptors and lost several aircraft on the ground including an incredibly expensive E-3 Sentry.
Does the US really want to be facing a Europe with multiple nuclear powers and thousands of warheads?
Europe is a sleeping giant. America has long seen it advantageous to keep the giant sleeping. Now it is dancing around shouting "nee-naw" while the giant slowly opens its eyes.
> Does the US really want to be facing a Europe with multiple nuclear powers and thousands of warheads?
Why not? There is no causus belli to fear, and Russia and China already have lots of weapons.
Europe is not really a sleeping giant. People here are in denial about the decline of the west (as shown by downvotes) but Europe is simply not the power it used to be. Just look at the GDP of Europe as a a proportion of global GDP. It has been the slowest growing region for decades.
It is probably time for the Cold War relics to leave. It doesn't help their case that the US and Coalition spent much of the past 25 years since 9/11 engaged in an ultimately fruitless war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nobody really wants to look at the Ukraine war in Western Europe. It's very apparent that the degree of caring depends on how far east a country is; Poland are talking about getting the Bomb. The UK has provided significant technical assistance and missiles but the war really is not in the public conversation, and attempts to increase military spending or even fix the Ajax have gone nowhere. Everyone is of course obsessed with refugees, but not at looking where they have come from or what they are fleeing.
The situation got even worse with the new Iran war. Is that going to be a ten or twenty year event? Is the US finally going to get the ground invasion of Iran it has wanted since the Carter administration?
We cannot build a security architecture by looking backwards. We have to look forwards. But I'd settle for looking out of the window at the world as it is today.
> UK has provided significant technical assistance and missiles but the war really is not in the public conversation
Good God! If there has been a "lack of conversation", it is simply because not sporting Ukraine would be utterly unthinkable to us. The UK support for Ukraine has been, and continues to be, one of the largest.
Indeed, under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, UK private citizens allowed 234,000 Ukrainian refugees to come and live with us in our homes and spare rooms. Ukraine flags are flying everywhere in Blighty. Slava Ukraini!
That's what I mean! The practical support has been really good. It doesn't filter back into the Discourse. There's no "having done that, what next?" It doesn't feed into discussions about military readiness or spending. The refugee success doesn't impact the endless small boats discourse.
This is rather like the Cameron administration actually being good on Net Zero.
Yes, the USA said that, but the damage was done. For many decades any inclinations for EU defense contracts to favor EU arms, were greatly frowned upon. France was derided for having made the right decision from go.
Post-WWII USA would give you Pax Americana, as long as you had no domestic defence industry.
The US paid for its alliances, hegemony, and safe shipping lanes by providing a comprehensive nuclear and conventional security umbrella via NATO.
Framing calculated realpolitik as an act of charity that the people of Europe should be grateful for is pretty cynical. It's always been a trade-off. The president has always complained publicly about the cost, precisely because admitting that reality doesn't win votes at home, but narratives about European leeches taking advantage of the US does.
If you want to see what it will look like after the US stops paying the bill for its incredibly privileged position, you can read about how much fun the process was for Britain in the 1950s.
There's is no NATO without the US, it would need to be something else and function differently. That takes years because there's too many countries involved. We would likely get two military unions in EU - North and South, North on helping Ukraine and South trying to distance itself. Furthermore the time is running out until this grows into a bigger conflict, this is just from couple of days ago: "Alarm in Denmark after Russian ship fires at military helicopter"
- nuclear deterrence - like other commenters said, no one really wants a nuclear arms race, but I think it's bound to happen. Poland, the Baltics, Sweden/Norway will probably need to develop their own nuclear deterrence, and obviously Ukraine.
- the US for the most part has been a good friend and ally, and has a lot of weight, and above all it helped to create the EU and wanted the EU to succeed.
- Europe has had a lot of conflicts, and a lot of parties funded by foreign states are seeking to bring EU down, including the US administration. It would be nice for Europeans if it wasn't like that.
Then why did the USA sabotaged every attempt at a European army?
The answer is because you twist American President words: they want Europe to "invest" more in its defense, but stay subversient to the US, not take more "responsibility" as you wrote. Which means, in plain terms: "buy more American weapons". There has never been any honest wish for Europe to shoulder its defense, it is a pure money grabbing scheme.
You just have to see the hissy fit they throw every time Europeans put "buy European" conditions to any rearmament program.
Europe would be fully military autonomous if Europeans listened to the French. The countries that blocked and sabotaged French initiatives and European procurement all have a "special relationship" with the US: the UK first and foremost.
>It can't be resources - Europe is rich.
Oh, suddenly we are not "Europoors" anymore. Funny, that.
> During that same time, Europe has insisted that it knows better than the US cowboys.
Uh, weren't we right? I mean, isn't "no more foreign wars" a big rallying cry of a certain president and especially vice-president that resonated with a lot of the American electorate? On what grounds are you snarky here, exactly?
(We also saw from the beginning Trump was a liar, a conman and an idiot, but I guess you will reproach us with that too)
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is being accused of running away from a bipartisan effort to hold an impeachment vote on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the Republican driver of that effort, accused House GOP leadership of sending lawmakers back to their districts early in order to avoid a vote on his resolution to impeach Hegseth.
That sounds like a brilliant idea. First get all your bases in the Middle East destroyed, then pull out of Europe. And there goes your global power projection.
I suspect Khrushchev was far too sensible to have dreamt of that - he'd have worried about the chaos the sudden American collapse would have unleashed.
Trump should have a street named after him in Moscow. Any Russian asset, historical or present, achieving a tenth of what he has done would had been granted legendary status in Russia. If he is not a Russian asset texting Putin in the middle of the night, then is the most useful tool in the human history.
The seeds of this decline were planted by Reagan (Heritage foundation was not created yesterday) but nobody before has achieved this level of damage inflicted upon USA in so few months. Is impressive if we think about if.
On the other hand, were I an American interested in projecting power across the globe, not so much.
I wonder if it is more of this administration’s fantastic 5d chess. Amazing how quickly a bunch of infantile idiots can dismantle the incredibly powerful US empire of the 50’s and beyond.
What if you are an American who is not interested in projecting power across the globe? What if you would like to stop spending 1/3 of your budget on the military?
I take no pride in being an Empire or hegemon. I know this will be ugly and disorderly and could almost certainly be handled better, but as an American, I am looking forward to the day when problems 5000 miles away from my home are no longer treated as my problem.
If you look at oil prices, the Iran-US-Israel-Saudi war is now everyone's problem globally, whether they're part of the hegemon or not.
It's very difficult to disconnect from the problems of the world when your fuel is imported (+) from the middle east and your chips are imported from the Far east. Trying to be an autarky is .. well, the US might be able to do it, but it will be fearsomely expensive.
(+) US is currently a net exporter of oil/petroleum products, but that is a recent development and subject to change
The biggest to suffer after the BAM is closed is the EU. It is not an accident that the USA decided not to support Saudi when they asked for air strikes last week.
ARAMCO just told the EU there will be no oil shipments next month.
Hurting the EU is a major goal of the current US admin.
> What if you are an American who is not interested in projecting power across the globe? What if you would like to stop spending 1/3 of your budget on the military?
What do you think the second, third and fourth order effects of this would be for you?
Circling the wagons and tending our own garden is a nice ideal, but is no panacea just because we build some factories in Cleveland, celebrate the end of Globalism , claim ‘US energy independence’ (that’s gotten quiet lately.) reassessing our footprint? Yes great idea. Large poorly thought-through snap actions because headlines are needed? No thanks.
>I take no pride in being an Empire or hegemon. I know this will be ugly and disorderly and could almost certainly be handled better, but as an American,
Exactly. I'm gonna say the same thing I said when we pulled out of Afghanistan.
It's not my country and it never was. I wish them the best.
"Bread and circuses" refers to a public free grain dole and free entertainment events in Ancient Rome. Precious little of that in the US right now, except for food benefits whose recipients probably on balance do not support the current guy.
Every president after Clinton, and maybe him as well, (yes, including Obama) said that Europe had to become responsible for its defense. During that same time, Europe has insisted that it knows better than the US cowboys. And, Europe certainly doesn't like US global power projection.
So, why does Europe need/want the US in NATO?
It can't be resources - Europe is rich. More to the point, Europe has almost 10x Russia's GDP and about 2.5x the population.
So, unless Europe is worried about Germany, it can handle its defense.
Show the US how it's done.
It's about the nukes. Europe doesn't want a world where a lot of countries have nukes so the role of the US in Nato was to provide Europe with a nuclear umbrella.
I'm a Swede and something is going on between France and Sweden related to nuclear weapons. Not sure if it's about placing French Rafael fighter jets with French nukes or some type of collaboration about Gripen fighter jets with Swedish nukes.
> It's about the nukes. Europe doesn't want a world where a lot of countries have nukes so the role of the US in Nato was to provide Europe with a nuclear umbrella.
If anything, it has been proven that unless you have nuclear weapons, your country is at risk of being attacked by nations that have them.
Ukraine learned this the hard way, so did many other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
In its defence, Sweden does have lutfisk, that's a pretty potent deterrent. Not quite as nasty as Norway's strategic surstromming stockpile, but still enough to deter invaders.
> It's about the nukes
Is the right answer.
For all the jingoism being spouted, it would be nice if somebody had a whisper in Mango Mussolinis ear as to why NATO and the post 1945 order was formed, and who benefits from it (hint: all our democracies).
NATO was formed to counter the threat of the Soviet Union which no longer exists. Russia is nothing like the same threat to the US that the Soviet Union was. The US is now more concerned about China.
Europe was economically and militarily important globally than it now is. Therefore defending it is less important to the US than it used to be, while Asia has become more important to the US.
Russia is not even anything like the same threat to Europe that the Soviet Union was. It has been further weakened by the Ukraine war and it will take many years to recover.
As for nukes, there are two acknowledged nuclear powers in western Europe.
>The US is now more concerned about China.
Ah, that's why "U.S. pulls last aircraft carrier in Asia" :)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-pulls-last-aircraft-c...
Yeah, recent events have clarified how much Israel and Saudi (and Bahrain, Jordan etc) are real defense priorities for the US. Expended a lot of Patriot interceptors and lost several aircraft on the ground including an incredibly expensive E-3 Sentry.
> recent events have clarified how much Israel and Saudi (and Bahrain, Jordan etc) are real defense priorities for the US.
And why might that be? Presumably because the USA decided to start a pointless war in the middle east?
Yes. The real priorities are not the stated priorities because the administration is lying and/or making extremely poor decisions.
Its not the last aircraft carrier in Asia, as there are three in the Indian Ocean.
It is also a failure, not a policy, and if the US is struggling in more important regions its all the more reason to pull back from Europe.
Does the US really want to be facing a Europe with multiple nuclear powers and thousands of warheads?
Europe is a sleeping giant. America has long seen it advantageous to keep the giant sleeping. Now it is dancing around shouting "nee-naw" while the giant slowly opens its eyes.
> Does the US really want to be facing a Europe with multiple nuclear powers and thousands of warheads?
Why not? There is no causus belli to fear, and Russia and China already have lots of weapons.
Europe is not really a sleeping giant. People here are in denial about the decline of the west (as shown by downvotes) but Europe is simply not the power it used to be. Just look at the GDP of Europe as a a proportion of global GDP. It has been the slowest growing region for decades.
Hence "sleeping".
A young man and an old man taking a nap are both "sleeping," but one has his life ahead of him and the other is in his twilight. Europe is the latter.
It’s going to be very sleepy even after it wakes up.
and no giant.
Should be noted that not all of the locals have always wanted the foreign military stationed there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenham_Common_Women%27s_Peac...
It is probably time for the Cold War relics to leave. It doesn't help their case that the US and Coalition spent much of the past 25 years since 9/11 engaged in an ultimately fruitless war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nobody really wants to look at the Ukraine war in Western Europe. It's very apparent that the degree of caring depends on how far east a country is; Poland are talking about getting the Bomb. The UK has provided significant technical assistance and missiles but the war really is not in the public conversation, and attempts to increase military spending or even fix the Ajax have gone nowhere. Everyone is of course obsessed with refugees, but not at looking where they have come from or what they are fleeing.
The situation got even worse with the new Iran war. Is that going to be a ten or twenty year event? Is the US finally going to get the ground invasion of Iran it has wanted since the Carter administration?
We cannot build a security architecture by looking backwards. We have to look forwards. But I'd settle for looking out of the window at the world as it is today.
> UK has provided significant technical assistance and missiles but the war really is not in the public conversation
Good God! If there has been a "lack of conversation", it is simply because not sporting Ukraine would be utterly unthinkable to us. The UK support for Ukraine has been, and continues to be, one of the largest.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-support-to-ukr...
Indeed, under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, UK private citizens allowed 234,000 Ukrainian refugees to come and live with us in our homes and spare rooms. Ukraine flags are flying everywhere in Blighty. Slava Ukraini!
That's what I mean! The practical support has been really good. It doesn't filter back into the Discourse. There's no "having done that, what next?" It doesn't feed into discussions about military readiness or spending. The refugee success doesn't impact the endless small boats discourse.
This is rather like the Cameron administration actually being good on Net Zero.
> the war is really not in the public conversation
We must live in very different Europes...
That's my point. The conversation is different in different countries. I'm writing from the UK.
Yes, the USA said that, but the damage was done. For many decades any inclinations for EU defense contracts to favor EU arms, were greatly frowned upon. France was derided for having made the right decision from go.
Post-WWII USA would give you Pax Americana, as long as you had no domestic defence industry.
The US paid for its alliances, hegemony, and safe shipping lanes by providing a comprehensive nuclear and conventional security umbrella via NATO.
Framing calculated realpolitik as an act of charity that the people of Europe should be grateful for is pretty cynical. It's always been a trade-off. The president has always complained publicly about the cost, precisely because admitting that reality doesn't win votes at home, but narratives about European leeches taking advantage of the US does.
If you want to see what it will look like after the US stops paying the bill for its incredibly privileged position, you can read about how much fun the process was for Britain in the 1950s.
> So, why does Europe need/want the US in NATO?
There's is no NATO without the US, it would need to be something else and function differently. That takes years because there's too many countries involved. We would likely get two military unions in EU - North and South, North on helping Ukraine and South trying to distance itself. Furthermore the time is running out until this grows into a bigger conflict, this is just from couple of days ago: "Alarm in Denmark after Russian ship fires at military helicopter"
https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-frigate-fires/
In my opinion it's because of:
- nuclear deterrence - like other commenters said, no one really wants a nuclear arms race, but I think it's bound to happen. Poland, the Baltics, Sweden/Norway will probably need to develop their own nuclear deterrence, and obviously Ukraine.
- the US for the most part has been a good friend and ally, and has a lot of weight, and above all it helped to create the EU and wanted the EU to succeed.
- Europe has had a lot of conflicts, and a lot of parties funded by foreign states are seeking to bring EU down, including the US administration. It would be nice for Europeans if it wasn't like that.
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Then why did the USA sabotaged every attempt at a European army?
The answer is because you twist American President words: they want Europe to "invest" more in its defense, but stay subversient to the US, not take more "responsibility" as you wrote. Which means, in plain terms: "buy more American weapons". There has never been any honest wish for Europe to shoulder its defense, it is a pure money grabbing scheme.
You just have to see the hissy fit they throw every time Europeans put "buy European" conditions to any rearmament program.
Europe would be fully military autonomous if Europeans listened to the French. The countries that blocked and sabotaged French initiatives and European procurement all have a "special relationship" with the US: the UK first and foremost.
>It can't be resources - Europe is rich.
Oh, suddenly we are not "Europoors" anymore. Funny, that.
> During that same time, Europe has insisted that it knows better than the US cowboys.
Uh, weren't we right? I mean, isn't "no more foreign wars" a big rallying cry of a certain president and especially vice-president that resonated with a lot of the American electorate? On what grounds are you snarky here, exactly?
(We also saw from the beginning Trump was a liar, a conman and an idiot, but I guess you will reproach us with that too)
Tangentially related:
~ https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/johnson-hegseth-midtermsFor better or worse, the defense the US provides will no longer be used as leverage for economic agreements across the EU and the Middle East.
That sounds like a brilliant idea. First get all your bases in the Middle East destroyed, then pull out of Europe. And there goes your global power projection.
its like a Russian foreign policy whitepaper writ large
Khrushchev could only dream of such actions
I suspect Khrushchev was far too sensible to have dreamt of that - he'd have worried about the chaos the sudden American collapse would have unleashed.
Yeah this is why none of this is really happening. The US bases in Europe cannot be replaced.
To my knowledge Ramstein has never been hit by a suicide terrorist or drone.
Thinking that no sane person would do it doesn't seem like standing on the solid ground that it used to be.
Trump should have a street named after him in Moscow. Any Russian asset, historical or present, achieving a tenth of what he has done would had been granted legendary status in Russia. If he is not a Russian asset texting Putin in the middle of the night, then is the most useful tool in the human history.
The seeds of this decline were planted by Reagan (Heritage foundation was not created yesterday) but nobody before has achieved this level of damage inflicted upon USA in so few months. Is impressive if we think about if.
Bye bye.
Would be great for us (Europeans).
On the other hand, were I an American interested in projecting power across the globe, not so much.
I wonder if it is more of this administration’s fantastic 5d chess. Amazing how quickly a bunch of infantile idiots can dismantle the incredibly powerful US empire of the 50’s and beyond.
What if you are an American who is not interested in projecting power across the globe? What if you would like to stop spending 1/3 of your budget on the military?
I take no pride in being an Empire or hegemon. I know this will be ugly and disorderly and could almost certainly be handled better, but as an American, I am looking forward to the day when problems 5000 miles away from my home are no longer treated as my problem.
If you look at oil prices, the Iran-US-Israel-Saudi war is now everyone's problem globally, whether they're part of the hegemon or not.
It's very difficult to disconnect from the problems of the world when your fuel is imported (+) from the middle east and your chips are imported from the Far east. Trying to be an autarky is .. well, the US might be able to do it, but it will be fearsomely expensive.
(+) US is currently a net exporter of oil/petroleum products, but that is a recent development and subject to change
The biggest to suffer after the BAM is closed is the EU. It is not an accident that the USA decided not to support Saudi when they asked for air strikes last week.
ARAMCO just told the EU there will be no oil shipments next month.
Hurting the EU is a major goal of the current US admin.
> What if you are an American who is not interested in projecting power across the globe? What if you would like to stop spending 1/3 of your budget on the military?
What do you think the second, third and fourth order effects of this would be for you?
What new problems, closer to home, would arise?
> I am looking forward to the day when problems 5000 miles away from my home are no longer treated as my problem.
The USA does not live in a vacuum.
I think you will find global events 5000 miles away ARE your problem, and mine, whether you like it or not.
Circling the wagons and tending our own garden is a nice ideal, but is no panacea just because we build some factories in Cleveland, celebrate the end of Globalism , claim ‘US energy independence’ (that’s gotten quiet lately.) reassessing our footprint? Yes great idea. Large poorly thought-through snap actions because headlines are needed? No thanks.
Is budget really a reality here? This administration just proved it could spend billions on making gas expensive for us.
Well, I guess the issue is, someone is going to do that instead & by the time it causes a problem much closer to home, it might be too late.
>What if you would like to stop spending 1/3 of your budget on the military?
Then you would be happy, because the US spends 1/7th [13%] of the budget on the military.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
You will still be spending that money. Trump wants to increase military spending by 50%. It has very little to do with overseas force projection.
> What if you would like to stop spending 1/3 of your budget on the military?
Is that what you think this is going to achieve?
>I take no pride in being an Empire or hegemon. I know this will be ugly and disorderly and could almost certainly be handled better, but as an American,
Exactly. I'm gonna say the same thing I said when we pulled out of Afghanistan.
It's not my country and it never was. I wish them the best.
Please explain why having less soldiers would be "great".
Please do it. Really, do it. We dont need them.
Elon Thiel Trump Vance Johnson Jeffries about to break NATO
They're also pushing dsa dems in the midterms where dsa's party position is to end nato.
To be clear the US dollar will never survive petrodollar and NATO dissolving.
The goon white house bending to russian demands needs to be removed
Just look with whom they are partying with and invite to their inner circles normally reserved for family, relatives and _very close friends_.
Baffling how voters fail to recognize.
generations of propaganda from the cold war easily co-opted by more modern outlets
there are transgender people using bathrooms!
> Baffling how voters fail to recognize
Bread and circuses, mate
"Bread and circuses" refers to a public free grain dole and free entertainment events in Ancient Rome. Precious little of that in the US right now, except for food benefits whose recipients probably on balance do not support the current guy.
I’d say they turned the whole administration into the circus as they’re running it like a reality tv show
..or a crappy casino. (further precedents)
But they’re also less likely to vote for a third party or otherwise upend things,
because they’re not hungry.
Bread and circuses -> Hot Pockets and Netflix
Jr got his private island after wedding party paid by Russian oligarch
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