> The US is starting to realize that Europe has neglected its own defense in favor of social projects, while relying on US taxpayer defense spending.
It's not that simple. Our social programs matter more to our citizens. The US wastes a lot of money on feeding its military industrial complex, including waging totally unnecessary and inconsequential wars like the second Iraq war or Afghanistan. As soon as they pull out after wasting trillions, things are back the way they were. And in the case of Iraq a lot worse (ISIS). The money for those wars would have been better spent on health and education, and less lives would be lost as well.
What is most important for our safety against countries like Russia is the nuclear umbrella. And the US doesn't want to see more than France and Britain have nuclear capabilities.
Partially correct. Given the US taxpayer funding Europe's defense, the European public wants social programs rather than spending their own gold on their own defense.
Europe's security needs are being met, so they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security.
>And the US doesn't want to see
Yes, the US gets to make the choices when we're the ones paying for Europe's defense. If Europe (as a whole or individually) could match or exceed the US's military might, then Europe would not need the US's permission to make a nuclear umbrella.
>The US wastes a lot of money on feeding its military industrial complex
100% agree. We waste a simply breathtaking amount of money. But again, I am less concerned about the total spend and more concerned with the effectiveness of the spend. I agree that we don't always spend effectively.
> Partially correct. Given the US taxpayer funding Europe's defense, the European public wants social programs rather than spending their own gold on their own defense.
> Europe's security needs are being met, so they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security.
It's just that we don't really have a serious security problem. A bit more so now since Russian agression. But military is not about showing muscle, it's about having sufficient to do the job and not more. Having a military is a prerequisite of freedom but not an end goal in itself. In the US it does seem to be like that.
> Yes, the US gets to make the choices when we're the ones paying for Europe's defense. If Europe (as a whole or individually) could match or exceed the US's military might, then Europe would not need the US's permission to make a nuclear umbrella.
This is the thing about the US. It's always about money and war. Not about quality of life.
In Europe we don't care as much about having a powerful military because we're not looking to march all over the world protecting our interests. It just needs to be powerful enough to protect our borders and meet NATO commitments (which it does now).
Don't forget the US offered us to join NATO, partly in an attempt to prevent us from aligning with other geopolitical entities. If we hadn't had that, we would have built more.
This quality of life take is something that can be talked about only in the context of security needs being met. Since WWII Europe's security needs have been met by the US taxpayer. Everything else is built on that (i.e. Maslow's hierarchy of needs).
And yes, I agree that the US does have a geopolitical interest in paying for Europe's defense, but if we didn't, it's likely that Europe would look very different today than it now does. My guess is that it would be a lot more militarized and that there would be less money for QoL programs.
Well, Europe did look very differently for a long time, with the iron curtain and all. And we did spend a lot on the military during the cold war.
I have to say though that the cold war wouldn't have gotten so out of hand in Europe if it weren't for the US. I think the USSR would have happily let us lie because we didn't have any beef with communism (and in fact during the cold war many Western Europe countries were pretty socialist). We do with dictatorships (which the USSR really was), but not in a sense that we'd want to invade them. Like how Belarus is being left alone as well.
It's the US that was afraid of the world turning communist and willing to fight for capitalism. This caused the arms race. Of course it came from both sides but ever continuing escalation was really the wrong move.
This is the problem I have with the US, they often get themselves into wars that aren't really needed. War should be a last resort and most of them have been far from that. The second Iraq war was based on pure lies. The invasion of Afghanistan accomplished nothing (and Bin Laden was even trained by the US in an earlier war against the soviets). Then there's Vietnam (Admittedly started by France), Korea etc. And of course citizens of other countries start hating you if you blow their countries to bits, increasing terrorism threats. The only one I think was justified was the first gulf war as it was a direct result of Hussein invading Kuwait.
For us "defense" doesn't reach beyond our own borders. The only time it does is under NATO commitments or international pressure.
> they don't want to spend incremental funds on more security.
You could argue that at some point the "security" is the main threat against your security. It is like if I had some armed guard at a post outside my front door. The risk of him shooting me, or my drunk kids crawling through the bushes to avoid discovery, by mistake or at will due to some dispute surely out weight him protecting me from a 1/100 000 risk or what ever of lethal home invasion.
It's not that simple. Our social programs matter more to our citizens. The US wastes a lot of money on feeding its military industrial complex, including waging totally unnecessary and inconsequential wars like the second Iraq war or Afghanistan. As soon as they pull out after wasting trillions, things are back the way they were. And in the case of Iraq a lot worse (ISIS). The money for those wars would have been better spent on health and education, and less lives would be lost as well.
What is most important for our safety against countries like Russia is the nuclear umbrella. And the US doesn't want to see more than France and Britain have nuclear capabilities.