President Trump outraged European opinion by denouncing his allies on the far side of the Atlantic for their failure to meet NATO’s spending target of 2% of GDP.
Other alliance members, he added, should spend 4% of their output on defense, just like America does. His dudgeon at the Europeans was more than justified: the Europeans really are deadbeats who don’t pay their fair share of the cost of defending their own countries and leave the burden in the hands of American soldiers and taxpayers.
Trump’s remonstrations will fall on deaf ears. Why should Europeans spend money on arms, when they have no intention of using them?
A recent opinion poll found that small minorities in the core European members of NATO were willing to fight for their country under any circumstances.
At the bottom of the rankings were the Netherlands and Germany, at 16% and 18% respectively; at the top was Poland, with 48%. Outside of European NATO, 56% of Russians, 66% of Israelis, 44% of Americans and 74% of Finns said they were willing to fight. The Israeli number reflects the diffidence of Israeli Arabs, who comprise about one fifth of the population. One wonders what would happen if Finland were to invade the Netherlands.
If you don’t plan to fight, you don’t need weapons, and it is no surprise that Germany, with its budget surplus, can’t bring itself to vote for urgently-need funds for its military. Germany’s armed forces are in disrepair; a German brigade designated to lead a NATO rapid response force has only nine of the 44 tanks it requires and only four of the country’s military aircraft are combat ready.
If there’s nothing you’re willing to die for, there’s probably nothing you’re willing to live for, either, I argued in a 2014 essay on the hundredth anniversary of the First World War (see “Musil and Meta-Musil”). It should be no surprise that there is a reasonably close correspondence between the willingness of the Europeans to fight for their nations and their willingness to have children. If you care so little for your country that you will not defend it, you are likely to be too absorbed in hedonistic distraction to bother with children. Conversely, if there are to be no future generations, who will lay down his life to fight for them?
The chart below compares the total fertility for European countries (and adds Israel for good measure; that’s the lonely dot in the upper-right-hand quadrant). The r2 of regression is about 50%, with significance at the 99.9% confidence level.
Russia is indeed a potential threat to NATO, although the likelihood of a Russian attack on any NATO member is vanishingly small for the interim. The Russians are willing to fight, unlike the Western Europeans. Coincidentally, Russia’s total fertility rate has recovered remarkably and now stands about 1.7 children per female, close to that of the United States – and from the available Pew Survey data, that rate applies to European Russians as well as to Russian Muslims.
Russia remains below replacement fertility – about 2.1 children – and its population continues to decline, but far less quickly than the consensus believed it would only a few years ago. Vladimir Putin runs a nasty regime in which nosy journalists fall out of windows and regime opponents disappear, but Russia nonetheless has succeeded in reviving something of its national spirit where the Europeans have not.
The matter of dying for one’s country always has constituted a paradox in classical liberal thinking, by which I mean the viewpoint of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the English philosophers who argued that governments are formed by individuals who feel insecure in a “state of nature” and cede some of their personal sovereignty to the state in return for protection of life and property.
The idea is preposterous, but sadly influential. If governments are formed by individuals solely to protect their sorry persons and filthy lucre, why would any of these individuals lay down his life to defend the government, allowing those who do not die to benefit as free riders? In Locke’s day, to be sure, the British Army hired starving Irishmen and dispossessed farmers to do its fighting. When Napoleon unleashed the full force of citizen armies upon his European neighbors, classical liberalism had nothing more to say.
Something more than Locke’s notion of a mutual protection society is required if we are to justify the state’s monopoly of violence, its right to imprison or kill criminals at home, and to demand of its young people that they shed blood in its defense. The state must be imbued with a sense of the sacred and must stand surety for the continuity of our lives with those of generations that follow. It must preserve a heritage and a culture that allows our words and deeds to speak to future generations just as those of our ancestors speak to us.
Today’s Europe is something of a Lockean dystopia: It is composed of individuals concerned mainly about their own hedonic enjoyments, who want the government to protect them from want and disease, but have no desire whatever to defend their nations, which are on a slow boat to extinction in any event.
It is refreshing to hear an American president call the Europeans out for the sybarites and deadbeats they are, rather than repeat the old cant about the glories of the Atlantic Alliance and the gallantry of America’s allies.
Steve Marquis
Are you that stupid and ignorant that you believe that you have freedom in the USA? God help us all.
August Dramstad
I don’t think Americans want to be involved in the Middle East anymore and that crosses political boundries. Some of Trump’s earliest and biggest supporters are strongly opposed to the Bush era neo conservative endless war policy.
Yes they are and the Europeans are most fond of fighting amonsgst themselves.
Yes John and your views are so predictably irrational. Peace comes about from the threat of retaliation and nothing else. The purpose of a willingness to fight and a healthy defense budget is to _prevent war_. You act like anyone who is willing to defend themselves or family or country favors aggression. That is a straw man argument on top of the fallacy that pacifism leads to peace. We can add the red herring of blaming the MIC.
The only way you and your ilk survive is someone else is around to defend you who is, guess what, _willing to fight_. What you are doing in essence is biting the hand that feeds you.
Something else, I’d like to add, Phil. I was recently in Kiev and had the chance to see Yanukovych’s house. There is no doubt most Uk’s wanted closer ties with EU, and to move away from Russia. But the way Obama, Merkel and (of course) Clinton meddled in Russia’s near abroad was designed to humiliate Putin, and Russia. Very stupid and the Uk’s have suffered.
We already broke our promises not to station troops in the old Comecon countries when Russia was ‘ruled’ by Yeltin. We also kept on treating Russia as the enemy, when they wanted closer cooperation. Terrorist attack in Paris, we light things up in their colors, in St Petersburg… nothing.
Clinton, Obama, Clinton (forgetting the very forgetful Bush) – I cracked a beer when Trump was elected, only because he wasn’t Hilary.
Bring your troops home, let Afghanis, Libyans, Syrians etc fight their own wars. If people don’t like Pax Americana then they might find a lack of it (or Pax Sinica) even worse.
PS. Keep them in Aus, pls !
This fallacy repeats itself in many comments here. Peace deepens on strength – from somewhere. EU lethargy is possible because of American presence. It is unsustainable if we leave. I think that’s the way for Trump to solve this dilemma – and maybe a long term goal he is aiming at. Get to the point that we just pull out. Have done. Then we will see how pacifism works. I don’t think the Baltic countries would like it but . . . I guess we need such an experiment to convince idiots that weakness in terms of low military spending and no morale to fight is what breeds war. God what stupidity.
Perhaps you need to ask the Baltic countries how they would feel about NATO disbanding. Personally I think it may be time to bring American troops home and get out of the European game. We have enough trouble elsewhere. The EU needs to step out from behind the American mommy and deal with Russia etc on their own. They are economically quite able. Unfortunately I see that as more likely to lead to yet another war in Europe (since the EU is militarily and politically weak in this regard without the US).
But it might be a good lesson for the planet. Lack of willingness to defend oneself leads to war. It has always been that way.
To repeat previous responses- the current peace, such as it is, is bought at the expense of the American taxpayer. The unwillingness of the EU to fight isn’t why there is peace. Russia is still aggressive in case you haven’t noticed. How would the Baltics fair if the American shield left Europe?
Willingness to fight in your defense and if another is harmed is not a bad thing. Would you defend your family from an attacker? Pacifism by definition implies dependency on another who is not passive. This is so even in the Bible. The only reason the ‘meek’ can inherit the Earth is because God is all powerful (I am not a believer, this is just an example of my point).
I agree with you this much: Part of what we have done politically since WWII is also to try and prevent a resurgence of German and / or Japanese aggression. The correct balance is neither pacifism or military imperialism. Either extreme leads to war. I think the psyche of either the modern Germans or Japanese is a long long way from aggression though. They need to return to the middle ground as well.
Brian Loss I think he does, he just wishes Adolf had won.
I really wonder why you live (or claim to) in the USA, a country you hate….. did a gweilo run off with your wife ?
Barak & Bismark. haha. I never thought I would be able to read those 2 names in 1 sentence, but you managed it. Good one, Sir, I say !
The Slavs ARE Europeans.
Those who disarm and appear weak will be taken advantage of unless they have allies who will fight in their stead. This is also true in the case of individual self defense. I would guess you are not much in favor of the Second Amendment either.
Unless you can someone make everyone on the planet a saint instantly and forever the willingness to harm is only curtailed by the threat of harm in return. It has always been this way and always will be this way. Lasting peace of any kind, internationally or individually, comes about from a position of strength and a believable threat of retaliation. That is, unless you want to simply give up your freedom to the strongest gangster.
George, George . . . Peace only comes about through strength. Quit spending on your military, demsotrate an unwillingness to even defend your own country, and you won’t have peace. This is pretty basic.
Yuval Brandstetter They aready are more close to it than anybody, including themselves, could imagine.
So when Putin in his next feat of paranoid insanity will launch another hybrid war, it would Poles and Finns who would beat crap from him.
Ofer Imanuel There are no "real Syrians" since there are no Syria. It is a country, invented by European diplomats (French and British) who divided Middle East between themselves after collapse of Ottoman Empire.
Russia invaded Georgia and the Crimea in the past 10 years. Not exactly conqouring the world but also not exactly non threatening.
Heart-felt reply, well said. The thing is the only people with the time to write this drivel are the usual left-wing who have never forgiven the US for getting rid of Communism in Europe.
Visit Budapest, see the statue of Ronnie, talk to Poles, Cz’s, Liths, Lats, Estonians…. you’ll find people who appreciate the US. Same too in the W, but the’re alot quieter.