Why NATO is a necessity

Let’s start with defense spending. While most of the European partners (and Canada) fail to meet the self-imposed goal of spending 2% of their Gross Domestic Product on defense, they are still spending collectively $300 billion. That is more than China and Russia combined, and is easily the second-largest defense spending budget in the world when taken in the aggregate. Why would we want to abdicate our leadership role and walk away from the organization that spends more than anyone other than ourselves?

It is also worth noting that insofar as the $600 billion of U.S. defense spending is concerned, much of it goes to protect other parts of the world (Asia, for example) and is not contributory to NATO defenses. When viewed in that light, the actual NATO-oriented spending by Europe and the U.S. is far closer. Of the actual NATO budget (as distinct from national defense budgets), by the way, the U.S. only provides 22% of the total.

More important, most of the Western European partners operate at the highest technological level and have the best trained troops in the world outside of our own. The British, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other major actors on the European side (and our Canadian colleagues on this side of the pond) have superb weapons systems, very capable military leaders and have demonstrated their ability to fight alongside us in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the Balkans, on piracy missions and even in cyberspace. Their senior military leaders have all fought alongside us in real combat, and carry significant international experience in the toughest conditions.