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.
The W’s treatment of Russland in the 90’s created the conditions for Putin. Sorry to say Merkel and Obamas meddling have created hatred & distrust between Ukraine & Russia.
We’re going to have to build up trust again.
Hang on, sport, it’s just the usual loud mouths without a job (ie working for Govt). Visit the Anglo 5-eyes, or Europe east of the Elbe. You’ll find local people who like the Yanks, will buy you a beer and many who support (not necessarily like) Trump
Mr.Thomas Daniel Kuhn , lets believe you love no war which means you dont have strength to fight back for defence or retaliate. Its now will be physics that strong will eat weak as nature law survival for fittest. Lets agree the you are feadoff from 2 world war and dont want any fistruction so you want peace, oh by the way peace is good things but there are others in the juncle who dont want it. They constantly look for prey which i mean by the weak one. So now you dont want war, you dont have Strength to fight back for defence or retalite, you are screwed up dude. I love and respect your sentiments and wish the whole world be like your view but there are lots and lots who always take advantage of the weak.So in this case i would say sorry, you are either russian or muslims invades chicken dinner. Thanks.
Phadras Johns Copied from below
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 Ukrainians 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.
My relies hate the Russkis, but Obama, Merkels meddling in Ukraine……. fk, we should have treated the Russians as partners, not tried to humiloate them.
Europeans probably remember two World Wars fought on their own soil in which millions died. America has never fought a war on its own soil (civil war?) and persists in fighting proxy wars. Also, who conducted the survey? What was the question? What was the demographic spread? Science behind the survey? Etc…
Steve Marquis Europe was dying when the guns of 1918 fell silent. Witness that it only took Hitler about five weeks to march into Paris just twenty or so years later. The other European nations fell almost overnight to the German onslaught. They were already finished as vibrant nations able to protect themselves.
The U. S. does not belong there. Just like in Vietnam, the reason the U. S. lost is that the Vietnamese favored Communism because the Communists were also Vietnamese, and the viewed the Americans as invaders. The Europeans are the same; they do not like Americans, and they have no desire to protect themselves. They live for today, libertine hedonism, and who cares about the future of Europe. Enter Islam, which is very interested in what Europe will look like in the future. Say goodby to Beethoven, Mozart, Newton, Tesla, and all the rest in the future Europe. Our staying there is like trying to pump up a balloon with a hole in it.
Alan Smithee Even if the U.S. had focused on Japan instead of Europe, the Russians still would have been able, even more so, to send their Siberian forces to Stalingrad. The Sixth Army that Germany lost at Stalingrad was the heart of the German Army. The most decisive battle of WWII is often said to be Stalingrad, but it was actually Pearl Harbor, which led to Stalingrad.
If Hitler had thought things through, he would have told the Japanese NOT to attack Pearl Harbor. With the U. S. staying out of the war, even though we were supplying Britain, Germany and Japan would have won. The U. S. would NOT have supplied the Russians, and Russia would have lost the ground war.
And don’t forget that Hitler declared war on the U. S. and not the other way around. After all, he was just a lunatic Corporal who was a great speaker, and was not smart enough to listen to his much more accomplished generals.
After reading these comments it seems a great number of Europeans view America as the bad guys, as imperialists.
This makes Trump more right than I thought. NATO is obsolete. Apparently European nations are in a military alliance with their enemies and are willing to allow their enemy to keep military bases in their country.
It sounds like it is well past time for this alliance to end.
Mr Kuhn
If Europeans really feel that "two world wars is enough" then why do they remain members of NATO? NATO is a military alliance. Why do countries refusing to engage in military operations of any kind belong to a military alliance?
For decades, America and Britain have been the members of the alliance which have taken the mission seriously while countries like Germany have gone through the motions pretending.
Well stop pretending. Get on with it or get the hell out.
Says the deadbeat who never bothered to wear the uniform.
Trey Ward – We do not need to be "saved", specially not by the US. Countries being "saved" by the US tend to end up destroyed and with hundreds of thousands killed. Look at Iraq and Syria, not to mention Vietnam and Korea…
Jack Kendrick – What an idiotic comment. Europeans will fight to defend Europe, not to further US business interests.
Ken Lovell Asia Times…. there are alot of other articles in A Times….. And as for SE Asia being peaceful, obv never heard of the anti-Chinese riots in Indon, Burma, Tiamamen Sq….
But of course it’s just those nasty whites and US who cause all the world’s problems.
Ahson Aftab Going, going gone, a failed state sold to the highest (only) bidder.
Enjoy your new masters, judging how they behave in E Turkmenistan, you’ll have a great time.
Jeffrey Robert Cox 78yrs old, he seems a sad failure
Not up to your usual standards. The idea 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” is “preposterous”? Seriously? Why exactly do you think government was formed in the first place? Free health care? Schools? Yoga classes?
“Russia is only their ‘enemy’ for the convenience of the US”? I dare you to say that at a bar in Poland. Say, Warsaw. Go on. Lemme know how your idiocy works with people who suffered under the Russians for decades and who still must face them head on.
Thomas Daniel Kuhn, you make the same false assumption of the historically ignorant: that if you are not interested in war, war will not be interested in you. Indeed, Europe was so not interested in war that it refused to fight the small war required to stop Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland that would have kneecapped the Nazis. Europe’s reward for pacifist virtue-signaling was the largest, most destructive war in its history. But as historically ignorant as you are, you know none of this. You’re just happy to blame everything on the US.
You deserve exactly what is befalling you. Don’t look to us to save you again…
Ivor Large those crooks are now in jail, and looted money is being returned. China is ensuring Pakistan actually suceeds this time around, unlike the last 70 years under the IMF.