Their idea was to tie approval of military assistance to Ukraine to tough border security demands that Democrats would never accept, allowing Republicans to block the money for Kyiv that many of them oppose while simultaneously enabling them to pound Democrats for refusing to halt a surge of migrants at the border. It was to be a win-win headed into November’s elections.
But Democrats tripped them up by offering substantial — almost unheard-of — concessions on immigration policy without insisting on much in return. Now it is Republicans who are rapidly abandoning a compromise that gave them much of what they wanted, leaving aid to Ukraine in deep jeopardy, border policy in turmoil and Congress again flailing as multiple crises at home and abroad go without attention because of a legislative stalemate.
Maybe the US is not a liability in itself, but trusting the US can be a liability. It’s like a group project when you have a partner that you know won’t do any work. You have to do their part too so that the whole group isn’t brought down.
If Trump returns to office or the GOP controls the legislature, NATO will have to do all the work to defend against Russia that it might have otherwise expected the US to help with.
Right I get that, but the alternative is no help from the US. Which is less beneficial to Europe/NATO than some help until/if Republicans block additional help.
I think it’s more useful to look at military spending over the last three decades. NATO membership entails spending 2% of GDP on their military. The US is one of few countries in NATO that have actually kept up with that. A couple countries have followed suit but many have been lax. Recently that trend has reversed and more countries are ramping up military buildup, in part due to the US’s recent flaky foreign policy. A huge amount of military industry is outsourced to the US as well. Lots of weapons are made there and the prospect of losing your primary source of military industry due to political instability isn’t appealing.
Basically, folks got lulled into a false sense of security.
That’s a narrative I’ve heard but I honestly can’t speak to how valid it is. I find western media’s discussion of US military hegemeny suspect.
A few years ago, you’d be shouted down for saying that. Problem was that it’s true, and the Ukraine invasion woke up a lot of European leaders that they need to fund their own militaries to at least a base level. Nobody seems to argue against it anymore except the odd tankie.
It’s pretty valid. Between the end of the Cold War and now, most European countries have chosen to wind down military spending, sometimes to an excessive degree. In the 2011 Libya Intervention, the US was initially content to sit back and let Europe handle an affair close to Europe - until it emerged that our allies had started to run out of precision munitions after a few weeks of strikes.
Historically, the US is the one propping up Europe. It’s been criticized for that for decades:
I don’t completely disagree, because the entire situation with aid to Ukraine shows how fickle the US can be. If it was up Trump, Ukraine would have got nothing from the start, and there’s even a non-zero chance he’d give equipment and funds to Russia. Still, the solution is for the Europe side of NATO to get their own forces up to snuff.