Thread by @prchovanec

There are so many things to say to this, so this is going to take a few tweets.

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1756412015793279117

First of all, the question almost certainly wasn't framed like this. But I guess you could reframe it and fairly ask "Should Article 5 be contingent on NATO members meeting military spending targets?"

My own view is NO. Military spending targets are important, but the contribution of each member to NATO - or any alliance - cannot be measured purely in terms of military spending or capability. Different countries bring different strategic assets to the equation.

For instance, Turkey is a giant headache. But Turkey controls the straits between the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea. Even if they spent no money on their military, this would be an important component of collective security.

Sweden spends 1.3% of GDP on its military. But it has a highly advanced arms industry, and it offers strategic depth in a critical theater (the Baltic). Whether it spends 2% or not is secondary to its importance as a valuable partner.

Germany spends 1.5%, and I'm surprised it's even that, considering that its military capacity is not well regarded in NATO. But in fact, one of the whole points of NATO is to allow Germany to remain militarily weak without feeling insecure.

Europe actually doesn't WANT a Germany that packs a military punch commensurate with its economic dominance. That would be destabilizing. NATO avoids the need for this, so we shouldn't really complain when this is the result.

Anyway, these are just examples of how NATO should be seen strategically, rather than an unprofitable protection racket. I'm not even going to discuss the moral implications of Trump viewing it as the latter, except to say we're not the Warsaw Pact and shouldn't want to be.

And all this aside, MAGA folks tend to frequently exaggerate, or just outright lie, about the contribution our NATO allies do make, on a regular basis. The recent "figures" put out by Heritage Fdn on Ukraine aid are an example of this.

This kind of misguided calculus reminds me of the recent tweet by JD Vance about how much it costs the US Navy to police global sea lanes, supposedly for no concrete benefit to ourselves.

I pointed out at the time how this ignores that we'd have to maintain a Navy capable of fighting a peer-to-peer war anyway, and policing sea lanes is a useful activity that comes at not much additional cost.

All this strikes me as penny-wise and pound-foolish, and bullying besides. Making investments in collective security is not about shaking people down. Not just from a moral point of view, but also a practical one.

We used to have leaders in BOTH PARTIES who would explain this to people, who otherwise might not appreciate what the alternatives are. That's how they sold the Marshall Plan to a post-war public that was weary of solving Europe's problems. Where are those leaders now?

Oh, and by the way, the "I'd encourage [our enemies] to do whatever the hell they want" (if we're not paid) is the icing on the cake. It tells you what he's really all about.

This kind of mindset is a betrayal of the young Americans lying in graveyards in Europe. But then, he already said he considers them "suckers" anyway.

I’m going to add some thought to this thread from yesterday. One of the most important questions I keep seeing is why, 35 years after the end of the Cold War, do we still need NATO? Isn’t it just a pointless relic of the past?

It’s true that the immediate purpose of NATO, after WW2, was to deter - and fight, if necessary - a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. And that that immediate purpose ended, or at least receded significantly, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

But the purpose of NATO always had a broader, more political aim, even at the height of the Cold War. Twice in the 20th Century, national rivalries within Europe had flamed into devastating wars that the U.S. could not avoid becoming a part of.

Germany, from either fear or ambition, desired to remake its borders. France, fearing Germany and filled with Napoleonic nostalgia, could not allow this. Italy, bitter at its second-rate status, yearned to expand. Petty states engaged in petty quarrels inspired by past greatness.

After WWI, these rivalries weren’t extinguished, they were only inflamed. And the U.S., wishing it could retreat back across the Atlantic and avoid these unending quarrels, eventually found that it could not.

Part of the threat to Western Europe after 1945 was a Soviet invasion. But more likely, it was chaos, division, and desperation, which could open the door to Soviet domination, with or without a war.

This is why the U.S. encouraged not only NATO, but the organizations that later became the EU, WTO, and IMF, among others. While far from perfect, they were ways to fuse the interests of Europeans into cooperation and defuse the bomb that had repeatedly gone off in two wars.

And the fact is, they largely succeeded. We might decry EU bureaucracy, but France and Germany - and others across Europe - no longer saw themselves in a zero-sum game where they lost if anyone else won.

After the Cold War, Eastern European countries wanted to become part of this - and who could blame them, if the alternative was ending up like the former Yugoslavia, or pre-war Europe. This was the driving force and rationale behind NATO and EU expansion.

Sometimes those countries weren’t ready to pull their own weight. And sometimes the established members could be pushy or self-interested. We saw all of that at work during the Euro crisis, and it carried a real price.

But the fact is, instead of looking at Poland and France as places to dominate or die, Germany sees them as trade and security partners. Differences are resolved through talk, not bullets. And this is a dramatic difference.

In polls, many Europeans say that they would not be willing to fight for their country. Critics point to this as evidence of how useless NATO is. I’d argue it’s the result of generations of Europeans growing up and looking at their neighbors as mostly friends, not enemies.

The ultimate purpose of NATO was not to create a fighting juggernaut. It was to pacify Europe. It was to create a Europe where most people saw their neighbors as security partners rather than rivals. And in this, it has largely succeeded.

And what does the U.S. gain from helping to guarantee this? It gains political, economic, and military partners that - while far from perfect - at least aren’t tearing a vital continent apart or falling under the domination of a hostile power.

Some people call this an “empire”. It’s not an empire, because Europeans are free to govern themselves, set different priorities, argue with us, etc. That may be frustrating and annoying at times, but ultimately we want Europe to be partners with us because they choose to be.

A few years ago, in a dispute over the South China Sea, a Chinese diplomat bluntly told several of its neighbors that it is a big country, they are small countries, and big countries get to tell small countries what to do.

Taking that approach was not only offensive, it was counterproductive. “I win, you lose - because I can” might work in the short-term, but it breeds resentment and opposition, and tends to come back and bite you when you’re down.

China doesn’t have any allies. It has a few countries, like North Korea and Russia, with which it shares common enemies, but little common trust. It has countries it can entice to do its bidding or back down.

Maybe this will change. Maybe China will learn to work with other countries as genuine, trusted partners. This would certainly enhance its global influence. But for now, this is our superpower, and it gives us a huge edge.

But we can throw it all away, if we want, in a fit of resentment and faux-strength. That’s one path to go, though I don’t recommend it.

As for NATO, yes it’s partly about defending countries from a resurgent Russia. But it’s mostly about every member knowing that its neighbors - once its historic rivals - are pledged to help and defend them. Even if Russia was weak or didn’t exist, that would be a game changer.

And quite frankly, it’s a shame that Russia isn’t part of that system. Like Germany, it could find itself prospering more from peace than from conflict.

For all these reasons, calling on our enemies to “do whatever the hell they want” to our European allies just because those allies don’t say “how high?” whenever we say “jump” is a disastrously short-sighted - not to mention thuggish - approach.