As US allies reel from Donald Trump’s weekend comments encouraging Russia to attack European allies if they don’t meet NATO budget contribution goals, multiple former Trump advisers warn in my upcoming book that the former president will seek to formally withdraw the US from the NATO alliance if he wins a second term.
Oh definitely. US military technology is exhaustively oversold and carry enormous overhead costs that dilute their real practical military capacity. Our new war in Yemen (much like our old war in Afghanistan) illustrate the problem neatly, as we launch $10M missiles at $100 targets and still can’t get the Gulf of Adan safe enough for traffic to resume.
Why would EU states spend more money on US stuff that it already thinks it doesn’t need
Because they’re buying a relationship with the US Military more than they are buying the hardware itself. The promise of US Aircraft Carriers and US Satellites and experienced US military leadership coming in as the primary driver of military engagement means kicking back a billion or two to keep the Americans friendly is mostly worth it.
But if the EU grows more internally coherent as a military power… yeah, that could very easily go away. We could be staring at another Great Rival in an increasingly fractured global rat race if the Europeans establish themselves as self-reliant.
Oh definitely. US military technology is exhaustively oversold and carry enormous overhead costs that dilute their real practical military capacity. Our new war in Yemen (much like our old war in Afghanistan) illustrate the problem neatly, as we launch $10M missiles at $100 targets and still can’t get the Gulf of Adan safe enough for traffic to resume.
Because they’re buying a relationship with the US Military more than they are buying the hardware itself. The promise of US Aircraft Carriers and US Satellites and experienced US military leadership coming in as the primary driver of military engagement means kicking back a billion or two to keep the Americans friendly is mostly worth it.
But if the EU grows more internally coherent as a military power… yeah, that could very easily go away. We could be staring at another Great Rival in an increasingly fractured global rat race if the Europeans establish themselves as self-reliant.