Daniela Schwarzer answers
Trump is right in that all NATO members should contribute their adequate share to enhancing the alliance’s strategic and military capacity. At the same time, he is committing strategic mistakes. The doubt he has deliberately spread about the United States’ commitment to the security guarantee weakens the credibility of the alliance, just like the strong polarization around the 2 percent goal does. His repeated negative comments about closer European defense cooperation are short-sighted as there is a strong potential for mutually beneficial EU and NATO cooperation.
The EU needs to step up its recent efforts to cooperate more closely on defense and armament. Cohesion, trust, and a forward-looking strategic debate within the alliance are prerequisites for the West to act in a rapidly changing security environment and to shape the changing world order. Trump will realize at some point that his zero-sum and big-power politics of the world will become costly—not only for long-term U.S. allies, but also for the United States.
Read the entire entry on the Carnegie Europe Blog here.
