The cost of Europe’s defense
For President Donald Trump it is very simple: Germany is not paying its defense bills; therefore the U.S. should reduce its burden of maintaining active military personnel within German borders.
Last week, the Trump administration announced plans to move 12,000 troops out of Germany, roughly half of which would relocate to other countries, with the other half returning to the U.S.
The pushback, from both sides of the political aisle, has been an exercise in hyperbole. Dozens of members of Congress objected to the decision, arguing that a reduced U.S. presence in Europe would encourage Russian aggression and signal a lack of commitment to NATO allies, sustaining the false assumption that European countries are incapable of paying for their own defense. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah called the decision “a grave error”; Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey wrote that “Champagne must be flowing freely this evening at the Kremlin.”
What Mr. Romney and Mr. Menendez didn’t mention was that after the withdrawal there will still be 25,000 U.S. forces in Germany — more than in any other country except Japan and South Korea — and over 51,000 on the European continent. Further, the U.S. and Poland reached an agreement last week that will send 1,000 more American troops to permanent bases on Poland’s eastern border. If Mr. Menendez is so concerned about a revanchist Russia in central Europe, he should cheer the deployment of more U.S. troops on the Kremlin’s doorstep.
Germany has the world’s fourthlargest economy, yet it spends only 1.4% of GDP on its own defense, failing to meet the 2% NATO member commitment target. It should be noted that the U.K. (1.7%), France (1.9%), and Italy (1.4%) — the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-largest economies in the world, respectively — also fall short of this aim. The United States, by contrast, spends 3.4% of GDP on defense.
Claims that Mr. Trump’s decision signals an abandonment of Germany is also misleading. Mr. Romney said it was “a slap in the face at a friend and ally,” but Erich Vad, a retired German brigadier general, said the pullout “will have no real effects on the security of Germany.”
There is a larger conversation to be had about why, 75 years after V-E Day, the United States still has tens of thousands of soldiers on European soil. But until we have that conversation, we must press our allies to contribute more, and since Mr. Trump took office that is precisely what has happened. NATO members, including our Eastern European allies — Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have increased their defense spending by $130 billion.
The response to Mr. Trump’s decision was much ado about nothing. To argue, as Mr. Romney and Mr. Menendez have done, that this move will in any way threaten American security interests, or the interests of our allies, is simply political preening. The United States can be a strong ally to our Western European friends without subsidizing their defense.