Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Free Riding Must End

Writing for a German audience at the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung website, American conservative Kurt Schlichter tries (in English) to explain to European readers "why Trump?" Most of what he writes is accurate but essentially uncontroversial to a politically aware conservative American audience like COTTonLINE readers.

Schlichter does, however, a particularly good job of explaining why Trump has said less-than-complimentary things about NATO.
His recent heresy on NATO’s Article 5 was not based upon a misunderstanding of America’s treaty obligations but upon the widespread feeling that America’s allies have had a free ride on America’s largesse, and that this must end. Having served in the U.S. Army in Germany in the Cold War, I understood my mission in case of a hot conflict would have been to kill Russians until either the reserves arrived or I died, and this was fine – I knew a large and powerful Bundeswehr would be fighting by my side. But today, Germany and Europe have allowed their militaries to wither into near uselessness. Trump embodies the question on many Americans’ minds – if the Germans don’t think defending Germany is worth German money and lives, why is it worth American money and lives?
Why, indeed?