The European Union is in a state of panic. The United States is reassessing its NATO involvement.
The ‘why’?
The United States, for several decades, has had its foreign policies questioned, chastised, and actively impeded by some of its NATO allies. Here are a few recent examples:
- Britain declined permission to use U.K. airfields in the war with Iran with the exception of refueling tankers.
- France refused U.S. military planes from overflying their country.
- Spain also closed their airspace to U.S. warplanes enroute to Iran.
And that’s just these last four or so months. There have many other instances over then decades of our ‘allies’ not being very helpful. France comes to mind… Hosni Mubarak, in 1985, allowed terrorist hijackers (who killed American Leon Klinghoffer) of the Italian cruise ship MS Achilles Lauro, to board a plane bound for Tunisia. The plane was diverted to Italy by U.S. Navy F-14s. France had denied the F-14s to overfly the country to intercept the airliner.
Rethinking our NATO commitment
The United States currently contributes approximately 16% of NATO’s common funding, to include military and civil budgets. Our contributions account for roughly 60% of NATO’s total defense spending. Keep in mind, there are 32 member states in NATO. Some of the more affluent countries include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the U.K. The question thus becomes, ‘Why are we providing the military backbone to countries that do not support our efforts?’ ‘Do we really need to support NATO financially to the extent that we do?’
The potential fallout
A few things immediately come to mind…
- NATO countries would have to drastically cut their domestic spending to shore of their military forces. That presents several problems.
- Entitlement programs like healthcare, etc., would greatly suffer.
- Taxes would undoubtably need to rise to offset these new expenditures.
- Compelled military service quotas will need to increase to offset a diminished or no U.S. military presence in certain NATO countries.
- Only 23 EU countries are currently in 32 nation NATO alliance.
- This could lead to continued infighting of the European Union as Ursula von der Leyon, European Commission President, announced an 800-million-euro “Rearm Europe” plan. This 800-million-euro plan is in two parts. 150 million euros is really an EU loan to EU members and some non-EU countries… secured by the union’s budgets. The other 650 million euros is a theoretical amount that member nations would spend over the next four years, per new exemptions of the Stability and Growth Pact. That pact limits EU nations’ deficits to 3% of their GDP. The ability to exceed that limit is that the Rearm plan authorizes a member nation to increase their deficit spending on defense without penalties. But the Stability and Growth Pact doesn’t have teeth. It did not prevent the 2010 Euro Crisis caused by massive public debt by the EU countries least willing to contribute to defense spending… notably Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Spain.
- Twenty years ago, member NATO countries all agreed to put forth a benchmark of 2% GDP for defense spending. Spain 1.28%, Luxembourg 1.29%, Slovenia 1.29%, Belgium 1.3%, Canada 1.37%, Italy 1.49%, Portugal 1.55%, Croatia 1.81%, Ireland 0.6%, and Iceland 0.0%. These countries will probably be most economically affected by increased defense expenditures.
A few of my thoughts…
Will we see new national currencies gradually replace the euro? Will there be other ‘Brexits’? Will the European Union collapse under the differing defensive spending postures depending upon geographic proximities to known conflict zones?
We already know President Trump is very willing to tariff countries he views as ‘unfavorable’ to the United States. How do the EU members of NATO sell goods and services to the U.S. and raise the capital needed to rebuild their militaries?