As of: March 16, 2024, 8:46 p.m
From: Foreign Policy
Comments
Press
Split
Ears open: Former US President Donald Trump is being unfairly denounced for his criticism of NATO spending.
© IMAGO / Newscom World
Trump's latest NATO scandal could force European leaders to contribute more to the defense of their continent.
Donald Trump is using drastic words to warn NATO partners about failures in defense spending.
A third of NATO members will not meet the two percent target in 2024 either.
Trump's return to the White House would probably lead to higher defense spending by the European NATO states.
This article is available for the first time in German - it was first published by
Foreign Policy
magazine on March 7, 2024 .
Washington, DC – In February, Donald Trump caused horror.
He said a second Trump administration would not protect allies who understate their contributions to the NATO alliance.
He recounted a conversation with an unidentified NATO member in which he said: “You didn’t pay?
Are you late?
No, I wouldn't protect you.
I would even encourage them to do whatever they want.
You have to pay.
You have to pay your bills.”
Trump and NATO criticism: Ex-US president with allegations in good company
Trump's statement predictably drew widespread condemnation and caused many panicked Europeans to consider a world without U.S. protection.
However, a more constructive response to Trump's comments would be for NATO members to acknowledge that Trump has a point.
For too long, many allies have failed to fulfill their commitments, and they will need to do more if the free world wants to deter China, Russia and other rivals and achieve peace and stability in Europe and Asia.
Trump's criticism is not entirely new.
Leading US politicians have been protesting for many years against inadequate European contributions to NATO.
In 2011, US President Barack Obama's then-defense secretary Robert Gates gave a major speech in Brussels highlighting "NATO's serious capability gaps... the military and political imperative to address these deficiencies if the transatlantic security alliance to remain viable in the future, and more generally, the growing difficulty for the United States to maintain current support for NATO if the American taxpayer continues to bear most of the alliance's burden.”
NATO and defense spending: More than a third do not reach the two percent target
Unfortunately, Gates' warnings went largely unheeded.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, NATO members unanimously agreed to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense within a decade.
After Russia invaded Ukraine again in 2022, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that two percent was increasingly a “floor limit, not an upper limit.”
But by the end of 2023, only eleven of 31 NATO members had reached the two percent threshold.
In 2024 there will probably be 18, but that still means that more than a third of the alliance's members are shirking their responsibilities.
My news
2 hours ago
Taurus detonations in the middle of the traffic lights – but even the Union is probably getting cold feet
“Dragon Fire” as a Ukraine game changer?
Western laser cannon hits “at the speed of light” read
Partisans announce “massive attack on Putin’s troops” – thousands of Russian civilians flee
Survey: Wagenknecht party in decline - AfD ahead of all traffic light parties
“A steel fist in the face”: Another German soldier killed at the front read
Mishaps in the Russian election: First day is disastrous for Putin
This is not an abstract discussion.
Defense spending translates into concrete capabilities needed for transatlantic defense.
In 2023, NATO agreed on new “regional plans” that set specific capability targets for all members, but inadequate spending is leading to capability deficits.
In other words, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander does not have what he needs to adequately defend Europe.
Many were outraged by Trump's comments, but it is outrageous that countries are neglecting their obligations in NATO and yet demanding the full benefits of membership.
If you stop paying the monthly gym fees, you would expect your access to be cut off;
European defense should be treated with at least as much seriousness as Zumba.
Future of NATO: Instead of condemning Trump's statements, it is better to fulfill obligations
If, God forbid, Russian President Vladimir Putin attacks European NATO members, why should American soldiers die to save European states that have shirked their responsibilities, weakened the alliance and thereby encouraged Russian aggression?
NATO's Article 5 security guarantee is important, but so is Article 3, in which members commit to "maintain and develop their individual and collective capabilities to resist armed attack."
The flip side of Trump's statement is that NATO members who pay their bills will be protected.
Therefore, instead of condemning Trump, it would be more constructive if all NATO members simply fulfilled their defense obligations.
Foreign Policy Logo © ForeignPolicy.com
Smart European officials are already following this script.
At the Munich Security Conference, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and British Shadow Foreign Minister David Lammy were among those who publicly acknowledged American concerns and reiterated that Europe must do much more.
Pistorius, for example, said that two percent “will be just the beginning” and that Germany “may even reach 3.5 percent.
That depends on what’s happening in the world.”
Lammy said he "understands" Washington's calls "for more equitable burden-sharing" and would welcome "tough conversations" on the issue with "seriousness and respect."
In private conversations in Munich, several senior European officials admitted that Trump is right.
NATO defense spending: lower limit should be raised to three percent
In fact, NATO allies are doing a good deal.
The United States spends 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense, accounting for more than two-thirds of all NATO defense spending.
It is estimated that allies' defense spending will need to increase by up to 3 percent to meet the capability targets called for in the new regional plans.
During the Cold War, the United States and its allies often spent more than 3 percent, and we recommend that NATO set a new, higher floor of 3 percent at a future summit.
This is not only a question of fairness, but also of meeting the requirements of an effective global deterrence and defense strategy.
The United States and its allies are entering a new Cold War, even more dangerous than the first.
A war is underway in Europe that could escalate into a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.
Iran is waging a shadow war against the interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East that could escalate.
Meanwhile, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has threatened to conquer Taiwan by force if necessary.
A major conflict with China in Asia would likely spill over into the Korean Peninsula and draw North Korea into the fighting.
The United States and its allies in the free world must therefore be able to deter and, if necessary, defeat China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, with overlapping time periods.
The United States remains the world's greatest military power, but it cannot do everything alone.
Washington already lacks the industrial base for defense and possibly the political will to simultaneously supply its allies in Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific with weapons.
Threat to NATO?
Russian President Vladimir Putin is dropping one or two provocations towards the transatlantic defense alliance.
© IMAGO / ZUMA Wire
Europe and Trump: Three reasons for adjusting defense spending
The formula for an effective deterrence and defense strategy for the free world, as one of us has argued in these pages, is threefold.
First, the United States must increase defense spending and revitalize its defense industrial base.
Second, as it did during the first Cold War, the United States must increase confidence in nuclear deterrence.
And thirdly, the allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region must lend a hand.
Trump's statements are scaring the free world.
European countries now have at least three reasons to meet their defense spending commitments.
First, it is the right thing to do.
Second, they can tell a future President Trump that they are not freeloaders;
they do their fair share and are worth protecting.
Third, in the highly unlikely event that the United States actually turns its back on NATO, they are better able to defend themselves.
The largest recent increases in European defense spending occurred in Trump's first term, and given the energy coming from Trump's recent comments, we would likely see further increases in European defense spending in a second Trump administration.
Trump remarks on NATO: Defend the free world instead of complaining about tactless rhetoric
Suggesting that the United States might "encourage" Russia to attack defaulting NATO members obviously risks undermining deterrence, but Trump's US election advisers have said it was an off-the-cuff remark that was not should be understood as a literal statement of policy.
Salena Zito, a journalist at the
Washington Examiner
, wrote that we should take Trump “seriously, not literally.”
There is nothing more serious than preventing World War III.
It's time we stop complaining about the insensitive political rhetoric and stand up and defend the free world.
To the authors
Matthew Kroenig
is a columnist at Foreign Policy and vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
His latest book is The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy Versus Autocracy From the Ancient World to the US and China.
Twitter (X): @matthewkroenig
Dan Negrea
is senior director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council.
Tod Wolters
is a former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” on March 7, 2024 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.