When former U.S. President Donald Trump indicated earlier this year that he “would encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to countries that are “delinquent,” presumably in terms of defense spending, allies expressed alarm. This trans-Atlantic burden-sharing kerfuffle is only unusual for the crassness of the language. U.S. concerns about European free-riding date back at least to the Eisenhower administration. The time has come for European allies to carry a larger share of the burden of European defense. The era when allies could obfuscate unequal burden-sharing by claiming, for example, that increasing defense spending is “useless” to address
The post The Time for Europe to Step Up Is Now appeared first on War on the Rocks.