Europe’s ‘free riding’ has allowed the US to become the world’s only unquestioned superpower.

The partnership between Europe and the United States will survive Donald Trump’s performance at NATO headquarters last week.

The U.S. president’s brusque behavior and intemperate words may have prompted Angela Merkel to declare that “the times in which [Europe] could rely fully on others is over to some extent.” But the usually unflappable German chancellor knows that the transatlantic relationship is bigger than any one politician.

The real victim of Trump’s crudely transactional approach — and his assertion that European countries “owe massive amounts of money” to NATO — will be the country he was elected to serve.

Trump is right that European countries spend much less on defense that Washington. What he fails to understand is that the biggest beneficiary of that arrangement is the United States. Europe’s “free riding” is what has allowed the U.S. to become the world’s only unquestioned superpower.

Americans twice came to Europe’s rescue in the late 20th century, at a massive human and financial cost. And as a result of the “Pax Americana” that ensued, the world looks up to the U.S. and is willing to play by its rules.

A predictable, peaceful and democratic environment has increasingly become the norm around the globe — and certainly in Europe, where the prospect of war has disappeared — rather than the exception.

If Trump wants Europeans to increase defense spending more quickly, he should have skipped the tough talk and offered to help them with the problems they’re facing.

The result has been a world in which U.S.-based innovators routinely become not only domestic champions but global players. And one in which a brutal terror attack against New York and Washington, D.C. in September 2001 was immediately recognized as an attack on the entire civilized world.

Could Europeans do more? The answer, of course, is yes. An increase in European military spending might not necessarily be advantageous to the U.S., but it is clearly in the Continent’s best interest.

Those who claim the ability to project military power is less important than astute diplomacy, foreign aid or projects of regional integration, need only look east or south to see why they are seriously mistaken.

Whether it is responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continuing war against Ukraine and his intimidation of the Baltic states, the disaster in Syria, or turmoil in North Africa — all of them directly affecting Europe’s interests — military readiness is key to shaping political outcomes in a direction desirable to the Continent.

Indeed, those European countries preparing to ramp up defense spending would undoubtedly be doing so even if Trump hadn’t said a word. For Eastern Europeans, Russian bellicosity is motivation enough. And countries like France and the U.K. have plenty of reason to follow suit, with the prospect of further conflict in North Africa and the Middle East and the fertile ground for terrorism that those will provide.

If Trump wants Europeans to increase defense spending more quickly, he should have skipped the tough talk and offered to help them with the problems they’re facing. It wouldn’t have been difficult to find new NATO projects and capabilities that would be in both the U.S.’ and Europe’s interest.

After all, under Trump’s presidency, NATO has already strengthened its presence on Europe’s eastern flank. There’s no shortage of European governments that could be easily convinced to pool additional resources to strengthen the deterrent against Russian aggression and airspace incursions. Others would welcome a strategy for Libya and North Africa — likely involving a military presence — that would restore state capacity and help the region transition toward effective democracies.

And after recent cyberattacks, including one that temporarily crippled the U.K.’s National Health Service, it should not be difficult to convince Europeans to invest heavily in common cybersecurity projects under NATO’s umbrella.

When a crisis comes and America’s traditional allies are not there to help, or happen to be busy pursuing their own defense, Trump will have only his own boorishness to blame.

Instead Trump blew it, choosing to fall back on the rhetoric that worked for him on the campaign trail but is unlikely to pay off with an apprehensive European audience. Even the formal announcement that NATO will join the alliance against ISIS — the summit’s most practical outcome — means little if there’s no concrete strategy. And strategy is something Trump has been notoriously bad at delivering in any policy area, foreign or domestic.

If Trump does succeed in bullying Europeans into spending more on defense, Americans won’t like his approach’s long-term implications.

It’s possible that when Merkel called on Europeans to “take our destiny into our own hands,” she just meant the Continent should finally do its part, spend more on defense and strengthen the EU’s common foreign and security policy. But the German leader’s remarks also reflect the gradual depletion of goodwill for the U.S. in Berlin and other European capitals.

When a crisis comes and America’s traditional allies are not there to help, or happen to be busy pursuing their own defense, Trump will have only his own boorishness to blame.

Dalibor Rohac is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.



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