Europe's tight fist at Nato irks America

[Arroyo_Doble]

Europe's tight fist at Nato irks America

It was to an audience in Brussels that the US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, delivered his final major speech before he stands down. He told us it would be blunt and it was: Europe had to spend more on defence.

He said the Nato operation in Libya had revealed serious shortcomings. Just 11 weeks into the operation - involving the mightiest military alliance in history - the allies revealed they were beginning to run short of munitions. Supplies had to be brought in from the US.

Robert Gates said that since the fall of the Berlin Wall two decades ago America's share of Nato's spending had risen to 75%. He clearly does not think that is sustainable.

Only four European countries are spending 2% of GDP on defence and they are France, the UK, Greece and Albania. The Americans have lobbied strongly against UK defence cuts. Even after 9/11, European defence spending declined by nearly 15% over the following decade.

The defence secretary delivered a message to Europe that there was a new reality in Washington. There, too, there is pressure on the defence budget.

"The blunt reality," he said, "is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress - and in the American body politic writ large - to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources... in their own defence."

[Odysseus]

There have been a number of articles that suggested that our NATO posture amounts to "defense welfare" and that it fosters dependency the same way that other forms of welfare do. The Europeans have not demonstrated an ability to project force without US leadership in the last few years, even when the crisis was on their own doorstep, as in Bosnia/Kosovo. Forcing them to make a commitment to their own defense is a good policy. The nations that we aid, but do not spoonfeed, tend to have first rate forces (South Korea and Israel come to mind), while those that have become simply extensions of US MTOEs have been cutting back and gutting their forces.

[Arroyo_Doble]

There have been a number of articles that suggested that our NATO posture amounts to "defense welfare" and that it fosters dependency the same way that other forms of welfare do. The Europeans have not demonstrated an ability to project force without US leadership in the last few years, even when the crisis was on their own doorstep, as in Bosnia/Kosovo. Forcing them to make a commitment to their own defense is a good policy. The nations that we aid, but do not spoonfeed, tend to have first rate forces (South Korea and Israel come to mind), while those that have become simply extensions of US MTOEs have been cutting back and gutting their forces.

I have a feeling that Merkel heard this before Gates' speech.