As a general rule of thumb the answer is “yes,” we get taken advantage of while many in Europe see themselves as victims and lament our every move.
We are economically the number one. We are in security matters the leader of the pact. We are politically the heavy weight. In a leadership role within NATO, ANZUS, the UN, with vast influence in the Middle East, Latin and South America, the Pacific Rim etc.; with capabilities second to none in broad military facets such as force projection, strategic sea and airlift, C2, global communications, reconnaissance, SEAD, etc. which alone pushes us to the forefront in many military aspects. We are in a peculiar situation where we can not shrink or run from our obligations without damaging or even destroying the general framework in security structures present.
We have always, since the end of WWII carried a disproportional weight for the collective security of the West and industrialized free world. ALWAYS! It does not matter if you measure it in percent GDP spent on defense, number of casualties, number of wars, strikes, or other military engagements involved in. It does not matter if you count total military end strengths, size of forces deployed on contingencies world wide or pounds of ordinance dropped. Already in the Cold War, this was a serious issue of contention and Casper Weinberger made numerous statements reference allies that are not paying or doing enough for our collective security. (1988)- http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEED7113FF933A15756C0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Think about these scenarios: We leave Afghanistan, how long will that mission go on? We cut off Israel, how long will they survive? We refuse help to S. Korea if the North invades, will they make it; will someone else rush in and fill our void? If any action on Iran is taken, who will lead it? How long would a Western European defense scenario have lasted if the US would have backed out? If we didn’t stop the Khmer Rouge and prop up Thailand, who was? Do you think any European nation would rush in to help the Columbian government in its war against narco cartels?
The Balkans is a perfect example! Had we refused and said “this is a European problem,” where do you think NATO would be today? It would have died on the spot.
On the other hand, Germany which is a nation that pushed for intervention in the Balkans seven years later blocked all moves to get NATO involved with Iraq. If NATO had gotten involved in Iraq, the Germans would have been sucked in, and they made sure this could not happen. They went as far as to sabotage our efforts politically within the UN to get another resolution on Iraq, and they went along with threats from France aimed at those European nations that decided to back us in Iraq but not yet EU members(i.e. Check Republic, Poland, etc). They more or less outbid our offer to the Turks in loans and aid, with a promise for support in leading them into the EU, if they bar US ground forces from Turkey as a staging area to open a North Front. The same nation which seven years earlier screamed for our help, and engaged NATO, was questioning the need for such an organization all together in 2003 onward to avoid any obligations themselves to us; their Green and SPD (left) politicians even debating about denying us over flight rights of military aircraft. The biggest irony of all is that Gerhard Schroeder and Joschka Fischer were in office and the same people who in 1999 were pushing the buttons reference Kosovo for NATO intervention that in 2002 said “Kein Blut fuer Oel.” At the time, under protest of the Russians and Chinese, without UN mandate, Germany pushed for this intervention, and what did they do three years later?
US ships began unloading in Turkey already when the Turks backed out of the deal and took the better Schroeder offer of support to future EU membership: http://www.msc.navy.mil/sealift/2003/May/army.htm
A little timeline of the German political involvement in Kosovo: http://www.deutsche-aussenpolitik.de/index.php?/resources/dossiers/kosovo_timetable.php
But what is the option? Destroy the only viable Western security apparatus? The Poles, Danes, Spaniards (originally), Italians, Brits, Netherlands, they all have troops in Iraq. Do we more or less destroy the only real security system there is because people play political games with it because many do as little as possible?
Where in the hell do you get the demise of NATO out of NOT getting involved in the Balkans?
That place is a freakin nightmare and if we (the US) wouldn’t have stepped in everyone would have wrung there hands and did nothing and it would have burned out.
There were no major powers involved there!
The only place allied to the region was Russia and at that time they couldn’t do much.
So because we jumped our a$$ in then to something that was none of our business we have a freakin Muslim mess that will never stop until it has taken over Europe. How many will die in that?
I say pick your fights and don’t pick the ones that can never be won!
Thank you for your informative and passionate response. I’m not quite sure I understand everything you were referring to, but hey, I try.
I don’t know the answer. Hopefully, with Sarkozy in France and Merkel in Germany, the situation will improve. I understand America’s position as moral and military watchdog of the world, but it is an extremely difficult and heavy load which we cannot continue to carry alone, imho.