As tens of millions of Americans were huddled in front of their televisions to watch the Kansas City Chiefs\u00a0snatch their second consecutive Super Bowl victory, Europeans across the pond \u2014 or at least European politicians responsible for the continent\u2019s defense \u2014 were still coming to grips with what former president and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said in front of his supporters over the weekend.<\/p>\n
During a rally on Saturday, Trump reminisced<\/a> about when he told a European leader that the United States under his watch wouldn\u2019t come to that country\u2019s defense if it failed to meet NATO\u2019s defense spending benchmarks. \u201cOne of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, \u2018Well, sir, if we don\u2019t pay and we\u2019re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?\u2019 I said, \u2018You didn\u2019t pay. You\u2019re delinquent. \u2026 No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.’\u201d<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long for the reactions to come pouring in. The Europeans clearly didn\u2019t appreciate the comments, even if the remarks weren\u2019t necessarily surprising coming from a man who has a long record of viewing alliances in transactional terms. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who had a decent working relationship with Trump, issued a stern statement<\/a> warning that \u201cany suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.\u201d Charles Michel, president of the European Council, called Trump\u2019s remarks\u201creckless\u201d<\/a> without naming the former president.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard not to sympathize. It\u2019s never a good idea for anybody to essentially invite an aggressor country such as Russia to treat the European continent as a personal playpen. Especially so when the person in charge of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has a habit of invading other countries (see Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and Ukraine again in 2022).<\/p>\n But let\u2019s be honest. Whether or not the meeting Trump recalled actually happened \u2014 former aides will tell you that Trump has a tendency to embellish stories \u2014 his comments nevertheless express a deep frustration with the current transatlantic security arrangement. Those frustrations are entirely legitimate, even if pundits and prognosticators want to shoot the messenger.<\/p>\n Ever since the beginning of the Cold War, the United States has taken on the role of Europe\u2019s protector. NATO, the military alliance established in 1949, is for all intents and purposes an American creation upheld by American military power. During the four-decade contest with the Soviet Union, this arrangement made sense; Europe was still reeling from World War II and concerned first and foremost with rebuilding itself. At a time when the U.S. goal in Europe was to prevent Soviet hegemony on the continent, stationing hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, tanks and tactical nuclear warheads was seen by successive U.S. presidents as a way to accomplish two things: Deter the Soviets from expanding and provide Washington\u2019s partners in Europe with the time they needed to get back on their feet.<\/p>\n Over time, however, NATO became less about stopping the Soviets (and when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russians) and more about entrenching U.S. primacy over Europe. Starting in the 1990s, the U.S. was a vocal booster of enlarging NATO to new frontiers; the alliance has nearly doubled<\/a> its membership since the Soviet Union\u2019s dissolution, even bringing in countries, such as North Macedonia and Montenegro, that don\u2019t really enhance NATO\u2019s collective military punch. The enlargement occurred even under Trump\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n This arrangement was a pretty good deal for the Europeans, who in effect got their defense taken care of by the world\u2019s only superpower. Money that would otherwise go toward their defense budgets was instead diverted toward domestic welfare programs, economic development and the social safety net. This was entirely reasonable for the Europeans. Why pump tens of billions of dollars into your defense industry when a superpower is willing to pick up the tab?<\/p>\n The problem, of course, is that this entire deal created extreme dependency. Europe\u2019s defense industrial complex was left to wither on the vine because, frankly put, there was nothing for it to do other than export military equipment to countries outside Europe. The defense spending disparity between the U.S. and the rest of NATO deepened to a cavernous-like hole. Multiple U.S. presidents were always lecturing Europe to pump more cash into its defense budget but weren\u2019t willing to spend the requisite political capital into pressing the issue. It took a war in Europe to jolt the continent from its decadeslong slumber. Even now, 20 of NATO\u2019s 31 members<\/a> still aren\u2019t fulfilling the alliance\u2019s mandate of spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense.<\/p>\n It wouldn\u2019t be unreasonable for the average American to take a look at this situation and call it unfair. Indeed, it is. You don\u2019t need to be a member of the MAGA movement or even a passive supporter of Trump to find this entire thing a bit infuriating. At $17 trillion,<\/a> it\u2019s not like the European Union\u2019s GDP can\u2019t finance a military buildup and take primary ownership of its own defense. The issue isn\u2019t money but rather political will.<\/p>\n Are Trump\u2019s remarks deplorable to a lot of people? Sure. But go beyond the surface, and the complaints he makes aren\u2019t all too different from those of other U.S. presidents dating to Dwight Eisenhower.<\/p>\n The question is whether the U.S. will do anything at all to rejigger the system and offload the burden for Europe\u2019s defense onto the Europeans.<\/p>\n ____<\/p>\n