NATO Truth-Telling
Of all the endless commentary on President Trump’s NATO speech, let’s at least put to rest the claim that his thundering at delinquent members to pay their share is somehow a threat to the alliance.
Though more blunt about it, Trump wasn’t saying anything President Barack Obama hadn’t said in his day. “Freedom isn’t free,” Obama lectured European leaders in 2014 as he warned that they couldn’t keep leaving their defense to the Brits and the Yanks.
Of course, Europe was then complaining that Washington wasn’t doing enough to help face down Russia — even as, in the Bush years, nations like Germany were vetoing the US call to bring Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance.
You know, the two nations that later became Russia’s next victims, despite all that “soft power” the Europeans love.
Of NATO’s 28 members, only the United States, Britain, Greece, Estonia and Poland meet the target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense.
Angela Merkel’s Germany manages just 1.2 percent. If “we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands” (as she said after Trump headed home), she’ll have to put a lot more money where her mouth is.
Merkel might not like hearing Trump complain that it’s unfair for US taxpayers to cough up more for defense than Germans, even as Germany’s export-driven economy creates problems for those same Americans. But she sure seems unwilling to answer the point.
To be clear: NATO is still a good deal for America. It’s kept the peace in Europe for seven decades now. But it’s an even better deal for the Europeans.
As the president noted, if every member had met the target these last eight years, “We would have had another $199 billion for our collective defense.”
Trump has dropped his “NATO is obsolete” talk, aims to boost US defense spending in Europe by 40 percent and has sent fresh forces to the frontline Baltics to counter the Russian threat.
And the three Baltic foreign ministers have already met with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, a counselor at Estonia’s DC embassy told Foreign Policy last week. “They never met Obama’s.”
Action speaks louder than words — and if the Europeans don’t get that, not even NATO can save them from themselves.