We keep talking about how Trump wants to pull America out of NATO, or at least make the Europeans pay a lot more for American protection and take more responsibility - not just financially - for their own defence.
But how realistic is any of this? I can’t see NATO staying together if America pulled out, and I don’t think that’s desirable either. Europe is headless, the famous Franco-German couple is broken, and there would be endless squabbles between the members over how to run a European defence function. It needs American leadership for NATO to function.
As for Europe building its own arms industry to match American quality and price - that’s a fantasy, however desirable it might sound. But Europe could run a procurement program - Airbus runs a worldwide supplier network and very successfully manages time quality and price (ask Boeing!), through configuration management and quality control on the production lines. American arms industry as supplier, the customer is king!
And this idea of Europe paying more for its defence - why should it? Paying more doesn’t necessarily mean better defence, currently it would just mean paying higher prices for the same provision. The real question is: why is there even a need for this level of defence in the first place?
This question uncovers the real problem, unresolved since the Cold War...since Mackinder indeed: the lack of a proper security architecture for Europe and its borderlands, the sea power - land power challenge. The former Soviet republics should be as they always were - a buffer space between Russia and Western Europe ( i'm not justifying Russophobia here at all or in any way, I think the fear of Russia is misplaced). But these short-term democratic leaders just keep dodging what is a very difficult and long-term project, maybe 10 to 20 years.
And let’s be honest: the first step to real European security would be for America to give up its underhand hegemonic plans to grab Russian resources. America should order a rewrite of RAND_RR3036 instead.
What do you think?
Oh yea ....
AND EUROPE WILL RISE AGAIN
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