Trump should honor NATO sacrifices
Surrounded as he is by U.S. Army and Marine Corps generals, you would think President Trump would show some sympathy for NATO soldiers killed in action last week in Afghanistan.
But, no, the president is much more inclined to brag about forcing deadbeat NATO country members to pay up, rather than talking about sacrifices these countries are making in the name of NATO.
Which is all right. These NATO countries should pay their fair share, which the majority of the 29 country members have not been doing for years.
Of these NATO countries, only the U.S., Greece, United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland have met NATO’s obligation of spending at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense. The U.S. spends almost 4 percent and carries 73 percent of the total NATO defense budget.
These paid-up countries and all the others have depended heavily on the U.S. to carry the burden for the defense of Europe against Russia since the end of World War II.
And the U.S. has willingly done so, turning the billions of dollars in U.S. appropriations into some sort of military entitlement program for the European military, thereby allowing countries like Germany and France to spend lavishly on social welfare benefits.
While past presidents may have paid lip service to getting all NATO members to pay their fair share, only Trump, a businessman, made it a major issue, both in his campaign and in his presidency.
It was tough talk — talk our allies were unused to, when Trump addressed the recent NATO meeting in Brussels. He shook members of the alliance, especially Germany, when Trump said it was totally inappropriate to expect the U.S. to protect Germany from Russia while Germany was spending billions to buy pipeline energy from Russia. The U.S. has 50,000 troops stationed in Germany.
“Explain that,” Trump said. “It can’t be explained.”
Trump, at his series of rallies, has mentioned how he has gotten reluctant members of NATO to increase their defense budgets up to, or close to, the 2 percent NATO guideline.
The issue appears to be a foreign policy success story, even though his critics, of whom there are many, dislike Trump’s bombastic, cringe-worthy approach. Smooth he is not.
While such an approach may not endear Trump to European leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany, it certainly demands their attention.
Still, Trump would do himself a world of good if he spent a few moments addressing the efforts some of these smaller countries have made, rather than half-mocking them as he did with tiny Montenegro a couple of weeks ago.
Last week three soldiers from the Czech Republic, a NATO ally, were killed by a Taliban terrorist suicide bomber while out on patrol in Afghanistan.
NATO has some 16,000 troops in Afghanistan, 13,000 of whom are Americans. While the Czech Republic is one of NATO’s deadbeat countries — it spends only 1 percent of its GDP on defense — it has 230 troops deployed in Afghanistan, and it plans to increase the number to 390. To date, the Czech Republic has had 13 soldiers killed.
The U.S. has suffered 3,458 Americans killed in Afghanistan. Other countries, mostly members of NATO, have had more than 1,100 of their soldiers killed in Afghan combat, ranging from 456 from the United Kingdom to one from Montenegro.
Despite being in arrears, some “deadbeat” NATO members have been paying in blood rather than money.
In a rare kind and thoughtful moment, Trump could pay tribute to the Czechs and the other “deadbeat” countries for their sacrifice. It would do NATO some good, and some good for Trump as well.