Politico.eu does this big article about how poor Europe is not able to defeat Russia without the U.S. providing most of the muscle. The impetus for their sudden concern ... Trump's less-than-enthusiastic support of NATO. Oh, the dishonesty.
The immense irony is that getting Europe to spend more on its own defense is exactly why Trump seems unwilling to help those unwilling to help themselves. To the extent to which they get busy, open their purses, and place substantially greater emphasis on ability to defend themselves, he has achieved his goal of getting these relatively wealthy countries to pull their own weight on defense.
European nations have believed they had the good old US over a barrel. We needed to defend them and they could spend their tax revenues on lavish social welfare schemes, instead of defense.
This was maybe true when, after WW II, there was a real prospect of them going Communist. That hasn’t been true for decades.
Trump sees European leaders as latter-day “welfare queens” ripping off Uncle Sam, and he aims to wean them off our support. Guess what? They don’t like it even a little, would you in their shoes? Nevertheless, he is justified in doing so.
