Since he started work as NATO secretary-general almost two years ago, Mark Rutte has spent much of his time trying to keep the United States anchored to the world’s biggest military alliance.
“If an American president says he no longer wishes to defend the other allies and leaves a NATO summit in protest, then the NATO treaty and its security guarantee aren’t worth very much,” Stoltenberg wrote.
This is absolute bullshit, BTW. NATO leaders have a history of seriously overvaluing the necessity of the US to the alliance.
Yes, obviously, having the world’s biggest military power on your side is a really good thing. But, with or without the US, NATO can still be a force for mutual defence. It’s a far better thing to have than not have, and defeatist bullshit like this is just kicking the trusses out for no good reason.
The issue is that the US provides a lot of logistics and supply chain support to the rest of NATO countries which makes it very difficult for them to operate without US support. It is made worse as many NATO nations are too small to meaningfully fill specialty units when they can barely provide basic infantry and armor units.
One of the reasons why France keeps pushing for an EU military is so that there is a government entity large enough to fund and pay for these specialty units. Otherwise, France would have to unfairly take on the burden of providing these capabilities itself.
This is absolute bullshit, BTW. NATO leaders have a history of seriously overvaluing the necessity of the US to the alliance.
Yes, obviously, having the world’s biggest military power on your side is a really good thing. But, with or without the US, NATO can still be a force for mutual defence. It’s a far better thing to have than not have, and defeatist bullshit like this is just kicking the trusses out for no good reason.
The issue is that the US provides a lot of logistics and supply chain support to the rest of NATO countries which makes it very difficult for them to operate without US support. It is made worse as many NATO nations are too small to meaningfully fill specialty units when they can barely provide basic infantry and armor units.
One of the reasons why France keeps pushing for an EU military is so that there is a government entity large enough to fund and pay for these specialty units. Otherwise, France would have to unfairly take on the burden of providing these capabilities itself.
It is never good. You become dependent on it and countries aliance change all the time