The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.This is something that has needed saying for a decade or more. Europe spends little on defense in order to be able to afford to spend much on the welfare state most countries maintain. Basically, we provide their defense.
History lesson: there are two major reasons for NATO's muscle being mostly U.S. troops. First, following World War II there was real concern that Europe might go Communist via the ballot box, leaving the U.S. isolated among developed nations. Allowing European nations to spend heavily on the welfare state, by diverting funds from defense, was a way of holding off this threat. One could argue that it worked.
Second, when European nations have had fully developed military capabilities, as they had in 1914 and again in 1939, they have had a tendency to take the world into war. By providing Europe's defense for the past sixty years, the U.S. may well have delayed the onset of World War III, again we'll never know for sure.
Both of those reasons now seem passe. Communist parties in Europe are largely things of the past. Nobody imagines that any European power could so sufficiently divert funds from welfare to defense that they would be able to credibly threaten major war.
Therefore, it was time for someone to threaten what Gates threatened. To demand that Europe either ante up, or the guy with the money (the U.S.) will drop out of the game. The source for the quote is an excellent Associated Press article about the Gates speech that appears in Yahoo News.
