I am tired of the “Donald Trump will hand Europe over to Russia” by neglecting or withdrawing from NATO.
First of all, Trump is not going to withdraw from NATO unless European Countries keep attacking US interests or fail to meet or exceed their obligations. But let’s assume he does, then what?
Let’s take a look at the numbers, comparing Russia to the European Union countries who claim to be threatened by Russia’s military power:
Russia may be a large country, but it is not a particularly populous one. People’s fear of Russia as a world power seems to be based on the power it had during the Cold War, when the USSR was itself much larger and it could count on the Warsaw pact powers to add to its own military. It had a massive army a larger economic base, and dedicated significantly more of its economic output to building up its military.
Even then, I would argue that in a conflict with NATO, it would not have been able to make it to Paris by using conventional power alone, and it would have eventually lost a conventional war with NATO. As is true today, Russia had numbers, but its military suffered from corruption, a poorly trained army, and inferior equipment. Defeating it would have been costly, but without the use of nuclear weapons its military power was as overestimated as its economic vitality.
“The nature of the Russian threat going forward will become crystal clear in just a few weeks,” writes Joel Ostrow. https://t.co/Lm1xLXHFrG
— National Interest (@TheNatlInterest) December 21, 2024
Now look at the European Union, which also has nuclear weapons, and if Great Britain is counted as it is a European NATO power, there are two nuclear powers in the alliance even without the US.
The EU’s population is not only larger than Russia but is in fact larger than the United States, with 450 million people, or three times that of Russia. Russia spends about $140 billion on defense, while the EU spends about $340 billion, or about 2 1/2 times as much. Now, we should be careful to note that such comparisons are not apples to apples, but even at the currently pathetic levels of military spending the EU has the capacity to defend itself should it so choose.
As you can see, the EU is 3x as populous and much wealthier than Russia, so if it were true that Russia could invade Europe and defeat the EU countries or NATO without the United States, it is only due to the fact that the European countries are weenies unwilling to defend themselves. Worse, it would mean that they are bloodsuckers who have been grifting off US generosity and unwilling to defend even their own territory, counting entirely on us.
I am not hostile to NATO, but Trump is right that we are being played for suckers. Not just by the European countries themselves, who, after all, are just being rational. If the United States is willing to blow big bucks to defend them, it just makes sense for them to let us. Even Trump understands that; he just doesn’t like being on the wrong end of the deal.
It’s the foreign policy establishment who are the ones we should be more disgusted with. Their scaremongering is all about strengthening the transnational elite, which is even more powerful in Europe than in the United States. There is a reason that the WEF meets in Davos and not Aspen–ESG and woke are super entrenched over there, and the technocratic elite is more firmly ensconced there.
European elites are further along in the so-called “Great Reset,” with Net Zero, open borders, transnationalism, and the suppression of the working classes deeply entrenched. Governments are already seizing farmland, deindustrializing, shutting down power plants, and building an elite utopia and working-class dystopia that the corporate and government elites keep talking about.
NATO keeps the United States tied closely to Europe, and the elite’s “NATO at all costs” attitude leads to bizarre situations where European countries try to dictate social policies, such as creeping censorship through EU regulations. It’s the tail wagging the dog.
I am not anti-NATO at all. As a dyed-in-the-wool anticommunist, I was a big fan of the alliance during the Cold War and never thought about disengaging with NATO in the decades since the USSR’s fall. I still think that, all things being equal, we are likely better off with NATO than not.
But not if it means we are hostage to European diktats through EU regulation or bullying.
They owe us, not the other way around.
Any claim that Europe would fall to Russia without US military support is absurd. We could disengage over a few years, giving these countries time to build up their weapons stockpiles, and they should be fine. If they really would lose a war with Russia, that is really pathetic.
