By Daniel DePetris
The Europeans are right to be nervous. But in a way, they only have themselves to blame. While Americans may not want the US to get out of Nato, they do find it objectionable that the US is doing most of the legwork in keeping Europe whole, free and at peace while the rest of the Alliance – Britain, Poland and the Baltic states excluded – basically resembles a bunch of 25 year-old couch potatoes sitting in their parents’ basement, taking indefinite support for granted. Sure, this analogy will make a lot of Europeans upset, but how else to describe a situation in which almost two-thirds of Nato members are still failing to meet Nato’s 2 per cent of GDP metric nearly 17 years after it was first established? To believe a continent with a $17 trillion GDP doesn’t have the financial resources to fulfill those obligations is ludicrous, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
This piece was originally published in Spectator on February 12, 2024. Read more HERE.