How about ending NATO, or at least scaling-back NATO drastically? Why the US is guaranteeing security for 35 EU nations is beyond me. NATO’s Mission ended 20 years ago.
Replace it with bilateral security agreements with UK and Germany only.
Agreed...that is part of the initiaitive removing US troops from basing around the world except those nations wanting it and willing to pay for it and where it meets our national interests.
No, it didn't. Not the real mission, which is to keep Germany pacified and oriented toward democratic governance, and immunized against imperial ambitions.
It is a tripartite initiative shared, still, by the UK, France, and Russia, with US encouragement and sustainment.
True, Russia was not a NATO member but a NATO policy object, with its swarm of satellites. But the East-West division was only part of the story.
Part of the original mission -- divided Germany -- has come to an end. That makes the backup mission all the more important, of keeping Germany engaged peacefully with the other European societies.
The European Union is very much, on the surface, about the same issues and objectives (when its bureaucrats aren't gloating over secret imperial ambitions of their own) of German pacification and integration. But it was built on the idea of competition with both the Eastern Bloc and the United States, and its mission is under challenge now, now that the "threat" of domination by either entity has receded.