Mark Galleoti opens his piece at Foreign Policy using the rhetorical device irony: Trump is right that NATO is obsolete. However, in the body of the piece it becomes clear that he means that our definition of NATO is obsolete rather than the alliance itself. He does this by asserting that cybersecurity should be added to NATO’s mission and implying that when you add the line items in the budgets of our European NATO allies for policing and security spending, their defense spending doesn’t look quite as bad. He does this by sleight of hand, omitting U. S. spending on policing and security from his accounting.
Sadly, the opposite is the case. Using Mr. Galleoti’s own figures, our European NATO allies spend between .6% of GDP (Norway) and 1.5% of GDP (Bulgaria) on policing and security. In the United States we spend 3% of our GDP on policing and security. In other words adding policing and security spending to military spending makes our NATO allies look worse not better.
My suggestion to Mr. Galleoti is that he try again. NATO is obsolete because our objectives have changed, our priorities have changed, and our European NATO allies insist on maintaining their free rider status. He’ll need to come up with a better argument.
Suppose you eliminate NATO. Through what agency or agencies would you work with European countries on security issues? Nation by nation likely really sucks.
Steve
At one time or another, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Medvedev and Putin have all called for a EU that includes Russia and Eastern Europe and Russian membership in NATO: “Europe from Lisbon to Vladsvostok,” exact quote, a riff on De Gaulle’s “Europe from Lisbon to the Urals.”
This desire of the Russians to be in Europe has been repeatedly blocked by the neocons who fear that Russia would prevent US domination of Europe. So, they have adopted a policy that is slowly creating MacKinder’s World Island as an adversary of the West. The SCO now includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and four Central Asian countries that comprise one-half of the World’s population and one-fourth of its GDP. Then there is One Belt, One Road, AIIB, and BRICS.
Whose brief is this guy carrying, and what is so controversial about the notion that you can only subsidize someone for so long?
I’m also despondent. Is it possible to have a policy discussion with perspective and factual accuracy anymore?
I think it would be possible for the U. S. to pay most of the freight for Europe indefinitely under certain circumstances. I don’t think it’s possible while the U. S. has an economic growth rate under 2% and major economies maintain mercantilist policies unless we adopt mercantilist policies of our own.
I guess my point is it’s not equitable, and can lead to a “you owe me” mentality. Add in the growth point and the looming financial liability the US faces and I can’t see it as a practical matter – not in my lifetime.