Same old story

Perhaps a different ending?

“The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”

A Complaints about NATO finances are nearly as old as NATO itself. A president named Truman was the first on record asking for a little help from his country’s friends. Mike Mansfield, who was the majority leader in the Senate in 1971, advocated cutting by 50% the number of American troops stationed in Europe — because Europeans didn’t pony up their fare share.

The quote above? That was Robert M. Gates in 2011, the defense secretary during Barack Obama’s first term in office.

American politicians have been threatening western European governments for decades, urging them to pay at least 2% of their budgets on (self ) defense. The only real difference today is that the American government has a chief executive and commanderin-chief of its armed forces who might well, indelicately, do what he says.

The United States has 34,500 troops in Germany today. President Trump says he has given the order to reduce that to 25,000 soon. If the original purpose of NATO was to keep the Americans in western Europe, keep the Russians out of western Europe, and keep the Germans down in western Europe, 25,000 would still accomplish the first two. (The Germans are off the floor, and have been since, oh, about 1950.)

Reducing the number of American tanks, foot soldiers and planes in Germany by a quarter wouldn’t be a fighting retreat exactly. Dispatches say that those service members would be moved to Poland — closer to the bear in the East. That is, instead of being a jobs program for Germany, in which American service members spend their paychecks in Kaiserslautern, Trier and Bamberg, those American troops would shore up places where the Russians really could strike next. Some retreat.

Very few of the NATO members in Europe actually spend the required 2% of their annual budgets on defense. The United States, it should be noted, spends more than 3.4% of its budget on NATO. Even better noted, Germany spends less than 1.4%. Other countries even less.

The president’s threats are nothing new. Even for him. He came into office complaining about expenditures by NATO member countries. Nearly four years later, he’s decided to act. People are shocked — shocked! And not just Europeans. Certain anti-Trump politicians on these shores sound flabbergasted. A president who complains, threatens, plans, announces, and actually follows through with it all? The nerve. Why not do what every American president since World War II has done: Complain and cajole until the next president is elected, so the process can start all over again?

Donald Trump has critics (and how) who complain his foreign policy is too much like a bull in a china shop. There are times when such antics aren’t good. And there are times when it most definitely makes other countries take him seriously. This is one of those times.

The other day, the paper said that governors of four German states signed a letter to members of this country’s Congress, urging them to “force” the American president to back down from his plans. You can certainly understand why: Taking thousands of American military personnel out of a state would affect the economy, and tax base — not to mention election prospects of certain politicians — unfavorably.

The AP reported: “The letter was sent to more than a dozen senators and representatives Friday, including members of security and foreign policy committees, and lawmakers who have spoken out against the move, according to Munich’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.”

If those governors believe that this is the way to handle this particular American president — asking Congress to “force” him to back down from a decision — then these people need more than an economic lift from American service members. They need a subscription to an American newspaper. And much better political advice.