Countries that are furious about the behavior of the White House due to issues such as the imposition of tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and the withdrawal of Trump from a nuclear deal with Iran.
However, some Western media believe the US-EU security relationship remains strong. Relations that have a meaningful, more meaningful meaning in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The concerns of the European leaders about the recent meeting between Putin and Tramp and the possibility of security bouts between the two US and Russian presidents is another issue that has been addressed in this regard. POLITICO, in a paper by Thomas Voltask, examines the relationship between the US, Russia and the European members of NATO.
As Politico reported, So far, the defense-centered core of the Western alliance has proven strikingly sturdy, even as US-European collaboration has collapsed on other issues, such as climate change, trade and Iran. The Trump administration pleasantly surprised many across the Atlantic by nearly doubling the Obama-era program to fund US military presence in Europe. Almost 1,000 Americans in uniform are now deployed in Poland. By most accounts, the alliance’s ability to discourage Moscow from testing NATO’s resolve has never been better.
But not all is well. For the past decade, US officials have been warning the Europeans to start spending more on their own defense. The US now spends $3 for each $1 that the remaining 28 European members plus Canada spend together. This prompted the former American secretary of defense, Robert Gates, to warn back in 2011 that when Congress wakes up to that reality, NATO will face a “dim if not dismal future.”
This crisis, however, was on its way to a resolution of sorts in recent years. Europe is now the region with the fastest growing real-term defense spending, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. The countries of Central and Northern Europe in particular were spooked by Russia’s aggression into raising budgets as much as 40 percent year-on-year. Not all allies will be spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense, as agreed in 2014, but then again all governments have a habit of making promises they do not intend to keep. This one has actually proven more consequential than other such “commitments” made in the past — most notably on development aid and climate change.
Of course, none of this is guaranteed to make a difference to the White House. Trump brings two new uncertainties into NATO politics. He doesn’t appear to share Europe’s sense of urgency on keeping Russia in check through a significant allied military presence. And even if he did, it’s unlikely that he would consider it to be America’s problem.
The president has said on a number of occasions that he considers all alliances a burden on the United States — it’s a position he’s held unaltered for decades. That raises the possibility that the debate on defense spending is a red herring. In the end, it may not matter whether the allies carry their weight in NATO or not. That would put Europe in somewhat of a lose-lose situation.
The Polish government, probably suspecting as much, has floated an interesting proposal: In addition to spending 2 percent on defense, which it already does, it has offered to pay as much as $2 billion to cover the cost of stationing US forces there. In effect, they have turned the tables on the US president, taking the thorny issue of money out of the equation and testing Trump’s commitment to European stability itself.
The reality is that the crises facing the United States and NATO members will not end soon. At least until the arrival of Trump at the White House, these concerns will remain. On the other hand, the foreseeable future of the president of the United States will face Western actors with serious dilemmas.
MNA/TT