@Hellbound Hellhound
I’m having a hard time parsing your argument here, so I’m going to try and clarify your stance. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Basically you’re insisting that the European Union is strategically self sufficient without any contribution from the US military whatsoever. You believe that, based on annual military spending alone, the EU has sufficient military force to deter or win a shooting war with another major power, Russia in this case.
This all feeds in to your initial belief that the US gets more out of NATO than the EU does, and that President Trump’s condescending diplomatic tone towards Western Europe on military issues is ill-advised because it endangers an essential strategic relationship for no reason.
Let me know if I’ve gotten anything wrong about your position here because I’d like to illustrate how you fundamentally misunderstand the situation and are wrong on every major level.
You keep throwing around the terms “tiny” and “small” without acknowledging the fact that, by the numbers, the US direct contribution to European defense is literally greater than the entire defense budget of any single member state. If that money alone were retracted, the EU would have to pull the equivalent of another first-world economy’s contribution out of its ass. Which is especially funny because the EU is currently in the process of
losing the contribution of a first-world economy.
If you took away the US monetary contribution and split the deficit proportionally among remaining member states according to their current contributions, each state would have to increase their defense spending by 25 to 30%.
This is not “tiny” by any stretch.
Germany in this case would have to pay an additional $12 billion, or 0.3% of its GDP, which, ironically, is most of the way towards making up the deficit in their existing NATO obligation that Trump has been hammering them about.
Apart from the actual dollar amounts on paper, I think you also largely missed the point of my last post which is that the US’ contribution to European strategic security goes far, far beyond direct monetary contribution.
Well yes. That’s exactly why the US has spent so much on NATO over the years. That’s why every single participant is part of NATO in the first place. That’s how alliances work.
Dropping the cynicism, I do think there’s more to it than that; there’s a cultural and ideological bond that motivates the US to protect Europe. Any cracks we see forming in that bond are not the fault of Trump alone but rather the result of diverging ideologic priorities.
On a fundamental level though, I think you’re mistaken if you think that the US needs NATO more than Europe does. The EU has gotten demonstrably more out of hitching its wagon to the US than the US has gotten in return. Hell, even going off direct spending alone, it’s apparent that the EU got the better deal because, like you’ve shown,
every single contributing country pays less than the United States.
Never mind that NATO benefits
immensely from other US assets like its carrier fleet and logistics arm. If the EU was invaded, the US could rally serious military resistance in a matter of hours, days at most. If the US were invaded, or its strategic forces threatened, it would be weeks to months (if ever) that the EU could scrape together enough force projection to intervene, (but more on that in a bit).
Make no mistake that the EU benefits from
every goddamn cent of the US military budget, far beyond the portion that actually ends up in their pockets.
Annual defense budget does not even begin to accurately describe a nation’s military strength.
Germany has around 250 Leopard II main battle tanks, of which only 75 are operational. (
https://globalriskinsights.com/2018/03/state-germanys-military-readiness/) The Russian federation has 1000 T-90 tanks which are roughly the technological contemporary of the Leopard. And 4000 T-80’s, also more or less contemporary to the Leopard II. Oh, and
10,000 T-75’s the majority of which have been updated to have modern fire control systems and communications.
So no, Russia’s material advantages do not start and end with its nuclear stockpile.
The vast majority of Russia’s military assets are holdovers from the Cold War, and before you dismiss that as outdated, keep in mind that the US is in the same situation. Annual spending contributes to maintenance, upgrades, training and readiness, but it also matters greatly how that money is spent. Germany’s budget looks impressive on paper, but they’ve also managed to demonstrate very publicly that their overall readiness is suffering.
https://dsm.forecastinternational.c...31/germanys-military-readiness-woes-continue/
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-lack...matic-says-bundeswehr-commissioner/a-42663215
If nukes start flying then all conventional metrics of military strength go out the window, but I would not count on Paris launching a nuke to save the Baltics from Russian annexation. Good thing Russia’s not in the habit of invading its less powerful neighbors.
Oh wait.
Nobody wins in total war. I’ll admit I was being hyperbolic in my previous post when describing Europe’s vulnerability, but the fact remains that the economic and political stability of the EU are inseparably tied to American military power.
Putin knows he can’t bulldoze straight to Paris. But he also knows that he’s been antagonizing countries on his borders for the past decade and the largely defensive forces of the EU alone would be even less capable of stopping him if he decided to get a bit bolder in his attempts.
Let’s imagine a world where the EU is left alone, truly alone, because Trump farted during a state dinner or something and diplomatic relations were irreparably damaged.
Without the US, the EU’s ability to maintain the sovereignty of its member states is gone. It’s ability to protect its merchant shipping and global interests is gone. In a total war the EU may have the GDP and industrial advantage but without secure supply lines protected by an overwhelmingly powerful blue-water navy, their energy independence is seriously threatened to the point where their ability to wage a prolonged war is very much in question. Those tanks and jets need fuel after all, at least the ones they actually have working.
Without the US, their overall forces become woefully incapable of presenting themselves as a deterrent to that sort of conflict in the first place. The possibility of them receiving a crushing strategic blow that would cause immediate capitulation become uncomfortably high, whereas with the US in its corner, such a scenario would be laughably improbable.
The EU’s armed forces under the Common Security and Defence Policy simply do not have the capability to project power or maintain the logistics of a large-scale operation without US support. They may have extensive defensive capabilities, a wide industrial base, and impressive technology, but if Germany is any indication, their experience in fielding that technology is likely deficient, and their ability to protect that industry is hugely diminished without the benefit of US air power. They don't have the institutional knowledge required for operations level warfare since that kind of global reach has been the sole purview of the United States for the last 50 years. This is compared to Russia who in Ukraine, Crimea and Syria has relearned some of the lessons needed to field an extensive invasion force. Turns out they’ve gotten pretty fucking good at it, and in our little hypothetical, they’d be going up against the French and the Germans whose relatively paltry contributions to US action in the middle east have probably not prepared them for the kind of logistics and maneuver that would be required to intervene on behalf of one of Russia’s neighbors.
Incidentally, the US does happen to have that kind of training and knowledge. Yet another thing they bring to the table on top of their huge fucking pile of ships, planes, and money.
In this way, it’s clear that the US-EU relationship souring would affect Estonia and Lithuania more than France or Germany, but you can bet your ass that the smaller member states would be lining up to beg the US for forgiveness and protection, even if they didn’t receive a dime of material aid in return.
It doesn’t matter if the EU’s odds when completely alone mean they would “probably win, eventually” in a border conflict with Russia. That’s not good enough for Poland or whatever poor fucking country ends up the battleground to an ill-advised land grab. The odds need to be much, much closer to “will utterly stomp you in a conflict so one-sided that you would have to be an absolute moron to even try”. That’s the current status quo, and European stability relies on it. That’s the reason why, for all their bitching and moaning, they actually have started increasing their defense budgets since 2016 after being leaned on by the US. Even if they’re only doing it because they actually
are worried that they can’t rely on the US, then they’re still doing what Trump wanted all along. Maybe he’s not so stupid after all.
At the end of the day, the real benefit of NATO is not so much the $60 billion in extra toys that Europe has at home, but the multi-trillion dollar hammer that the US can bring crashing down on whoever’s stupid enough to mess with the old country. They’re smart enough to realize that, and I’m asking that you figure it out too.
So, to summarize:
No the EU is not strategically self sufficient. They wouldn’t even be able to protect their own shipping if the US pulled out. US contributions are far beyond their direct monetary aid and considering the size of the US defense budget, the EU is likely getting the better deal since they both benefit from stability and safe trade.
Yes, the EU may eventually win a total war with Russia, but without US intervention they would not be able to fully protect the sovereignty of their member states.
Lastly, Trump’s diplomatic posturing with the EU may not be tasteful, and may negatively impact willingness to cooperate, but the EU is absolutely not fucking going anywhere, since their survival as an entity relies on the US. They’ve demonstrated this by upping their spending anyway, which regardless of their motivations, is what Trump wanted in the first place.
A strategically self-sufficient Europe is a better ally to the US in any case, that’s just simply not where they are right now.
www.nbcnews.com
