[Sirius Lee]

how come all U.S. Presidents since Reagan have complained that Europe’s NATO members fall behind in the military contributions to NATO? There are other areas of NATO policies and operations that have annually and persistently seen the U.S. takng positions NOT unanimously followed by NATO members in Europe. The answer is obvious - the other NATO members are NOT slaves to the U.S.

You make a compelling argument. It is America that is a slave to NATO. We would do well to walk off the plantation and kick that deadbeat organization to the curb.

[Wuli]

“You make a compelling argument. It is America that is a slave to NATO. We would do well to walk off the plantation and kick that deadbeat organization to the curb.”

I think the geopolitical geomilitary position is now at a place where we will have leverage reforming NATO in the sense of Europe’s members upping their committments in military contributions and being more prepared for operations committments as well.

What has been the importance of the U.S. in NATO in Europe is that we are neither France, Germany nor the U.K., which is very helpful in obtaining the consensus of all the smaller members of NATO. In short - NATO is not dominated by one of the historical European major powers. Combine that with the NATO structure where decisions are made by consensus, not “majority vote”, and you get how NATO has held together as a defense pact.