The United States gave off more than one signal that their NATO allies (particularly Germany) should stop violating the written agreement and spend the required 2% of GDP on defense. Some of our European allies were just freeloaders, taking advantage of US security guarantees without contributing any meaningful capabilities in return.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm
Germany has now agreed to fulfill their NATO spending obligations as a response to Russian aggression. Better late than never.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-commits-100-billion-to-defense...
Re:Russia’s Possible Invasion of Ukraine
by rsynnott on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @11:11AM
(#30528891)
I think to a large extent that was (and was perceived as) really just the administration saying that, rather than US expert and military leadership.
Re:Russia’s Possible Invasion of Ukraine
by jacquesm on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @11:14AM
(#30528946)
I think it was in response to Trump's statements about NATO being superfluous:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-presiden...
That put a fire under the whole thing and made it much more clear what the various obligations would be.
Pardon, but in the last couple of years it was the United States that gave off more than one signal that they felt that NATO was outdated and that it would be each for themselves from now on. The EU response to that was to form a European military alliance.