In return for continued U.S. participation, Trump would not only expect that European countries drastically increase their spending on NATO — his main complaint when he was president — but also undertake what one defense expert familiar with the thinking inside Trump’s national-security advisory circle, Dan Caldwell, describes as a “radical reorientation” of NATO.
“We don’t really have a choice anymore,” Caldwell told POLITICO Magazine, citing rising U.S. debt, flagging military recruiting, and a defense industrial base that can’t keep up with the challenge from both Russia and China.
The shift they envision would involve “significantly and substantially downsizing America’s security role — stepping back instead of being the primary provider of combat power in Europe, somebody who provides support only in times of crisis,” said Caldwell, who recently served as a senior advisor to Russell Vought, the former senior Trump administration official who in May was named policy director for the Republican National Convention and who is expected to play a senior role in a second Trump administration. Vought is also president of the CRA.
Critics in the Trump camp say the Europeans need to develop cross-border defense industries rather than national ones to increase efficiency and capacity and deliver on a still-unfulfilled pledge to vastly expand NATO’s quick-response force from 40,000 to some 300,000 troops. But with the exception of some countries like Poland, many European governments remain “borderline delusional” about what is required, says Caldwell.
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