European leaders should have started preparing for another Trump presidency long ago. They had been warned.
Now, leaders should envisage a world where NATO no longer exists—or where the United States is no longer the leading force in the alliance, writes Phillips Payson O’Brien, Professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland. He is the author of The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler—How War Made Them, and How They Made War.
“In some ways, this is more scary psychologically than in practice. Europe—which is to say, the democratic countries enmeshed in institutions such as NATO and the European Union—has the economic and technological resources to underwrite a serious defense effort. It has a large and educated enough population to staff modern armed forces. It also has some strong and growing military capabilities. For instance, European states either have received or will receive in the coming years as many as 600 F-35 fighters—the most advanced and capable aircraft in the world. Such a force could dominate the skies against a clearly inferior Russian opponent.”
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Do yourself a favor and stay away from wherever you get this stuff.
These US military bases are Nato bases, and no country has ever been ‘forced’ to join the alliance. Its latest members, Sweden and Finland, have been committed to neutrality for decades, and only joined after Russia invaded Ukraine. Neutrality may work well if your neighbors commit to international law and human rights, which is unfortunately not a given as we learnt once again in February 2022.
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