In the decades after World War II, the free nations of Western Europe faced a serious threat of aggression by the Communist Soviet Union. So it made sense from a U.S. national security standpoint for our country to help European nations defend themselves.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the need for the United States to play such an active role in Europe’s defense obviously decreased.
Yet we continue to shoulder much of the financial burden of Europe’s defense, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pointed that out in a recent speech in Belgium. He said that several nations are “apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets.”
In fact, U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for about three-fourths of the spending by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – a military alliance that includes much of Europe – and our nation provides most of the weapons and other equipment used in NATO operations. We have footed that bill while European nations have been unsustainably expanding their social welfare programs and relying on us for protection.
Gates rightly says that has to stop.