US Makes Clear Europe's Security Isn't A Trump Priority

However, those familiar with the political sentiment around NATO and the defense of Europe in the US will see that this move follows in the footsteps of what others have sought to do – starting from the very end of the Cold War.

In 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO was under considerable pressure to change for the new world order. A rising China was not yet on the minds of many in Washington, but the feeling was that the financial commitments the US had made to defend Western Europe during the Cold War could not continue.

The so-called “peace dividend” , a slogan popularized by former US president George H W Bush and former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, allowed nearly all Nato states to reduce their military spending at this time.

In 1992, almost as soon as European Nato countries were shrinking their forces and moving away from mass armies to professional soldiering, the alliance became actively engaged in maintaining a no-fly zone over Yugoslavia.

A new Nato was becoming apparent. It was transitioning from being a collective defense organization to one of collective security, where conflicts were managed on NATO's borders.

This collective security arrangement worked well to keep the alliance together until 2001 when the administration of George W Bush entered the White House and involved the US in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, NATO invoked Article 5 and returned to the principle of collective defense.

Many European countries, including the new, smaller NATO states like Estonia and Latvia, sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. The persistent justification I heard in the Baltic states was“we need to be there when the US needs us so that they will be there when we need them.”

Yet in 2011, before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were over, the administration of Barack Obama introduced a foreign policy strategy known as the“pivot to Asia.” The implication was that the US would shift its attention from primarily the Western hemisphere to China.

By this point, China had become the second-largest economy in the world and was rapidly developing its military. The reaction to this US policy shift in European capitals was one of shock and disappointment. They saw it as the US deciding that its own security did not sit in Europe like it had since 1945.

Then, in 2014, Russia invaded Crimea and the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. The pivot to Asia looked like it had stalled. But US interest and investment in European defence continued to decline, with American military bases across Europe closed down . The first Trump administration continued the pattern set by Obama.

Sign up for one of our free newsletters

• The Daily Report Start your day right with Asia Times' top stories
• AT Weekly Report A weekly roundup of Asia Times' most-read stories

President Joe Biden, who entered office in 2021, used Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to show European leaders that the US still saw its own security in Europe and that it would stand beside Ukraine.

But the US continued to insist that European countries invest in their own defence. The UK, Poland and France have all committed to increase their defense spending over recent years – though spending by European NATO states as a whole continued to fall.

There has been a long-held belief in the US that Europe is“freeriding” on American power. While the US saw its own security in Europe, this freeriding was allowed to continue.

But as the perspective of the US has changed, with the focus now on countering China, it has been keen to suggest that European defence should increasingly become the job of Europe itself.

Nato will not go out with a bang. It is much more likely to gradually disappear with a whimper. After all, who did Trump meet on his second day in office? Not NATO but the Quad: an alliance between Australia, India, Japan and the US in the Indo-Pacific.

David J Galbreath is professor of international security, University of Bath

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Sign up here to comment on Asia Times stories Or Sign in to an existing accoun

Thank you for registering!

An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link.

• Click to share on X (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to print (Opens in new window)