European countries will only spend money on defense when they calculate it as a necessity. During the cold war the Netherlands had a tank division stationed in Germany waiting for the Red Army to invade.

And I want to emphasize DEFENSE. Not "invade other countries in trillion dollar regime change operations". It was US Congress that signed off on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

I support an imperial retreat by the U.S. I strongly disagree with the the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and our policies against Iran, and our support for numerous brutual regimes. Unchecked power is dangerous and it’s time for the U.S. to engage is isolationism once again. The EU will need to learn to either strengthen federalism and defend itself or remain reliant of the U.S. military tit. I prefer the former option.

Vouched this not because I agree with it, but because I feel it deserves a reply.

You should note that even Trump held Finland as a counterexample to European NATO countries that don't pull their own weight.

Finland is not a country that spends all it's money on social programs and doesn't have a military. Instead, we still have mandatory male conscription, and a very well-armed reserve.

Historically, we have trusted our defense in the principle of being strong enough that even if we knew that the Soviets/Russians could eventually beat us, the costs we could inflict on them would massively outweigh any possible benefit from conquering us. This no longer works because in Ukraine Putin has shown that he does not do cost/benefit analysis for his foreign policy.

I was only presenting an American view regarding the notion of “we pay for others at our own expense”. Trumps comments were directed at NATO members and not Finland or Sweden. He also famously said South Korea and Japan needed to spend more.

My personal view on the matter is that I support an imperial retreat by the U.S. The EU needs to listen more to the Baltics regarding defense and foreign policy.

Hmm, wonder how many billions European/NATO-countries/Australia have spent of their own money in an effort to help the US on its somewhat 20 year long misguided war on terror...

That being said, I understand the american feelings about this, as a lot of stuff have had the wrong priorities in the US for a long time, which I would argue is an internal matter and nothing to do with NATO (or its members).

/offtopic

The U.S. hasn’t criticized British defense spending as far as I know. Yes other countries have spent money on our misadventures. They do so, as one Australian put it to me, because if someone is going to be a hyper power you could do a lot worse than have it be the U.S. In exchange for our protection other countries do support us.

I support a more isolationist U.S. policy. It’s time for America to engage in an imperial retreat.

Tho, some of that "defense" were invasions on false pretense. What americans do in Ukraine is great and they deserve all the credit. But, some of past wars were less great.

>"For many decades the idea that the U.S. props up the rest of world ..."

It does not do it for free. It gets many benefits from "the rest of the world". Like buying US debt, trading oil in US dollars, access to cheap labor, bigger market etc. etc. Nothing of what it does is "free". This giant war spending also helps them to bomb other countries into oblivion when they feel like.

Yes. I was just commenting on how Americans see things. As a people we are extremely ignorant of international matters and don’t take into account that our over sized military does pay dividends. I don’t agree that those dividends are worthwhile anymore though. We are a nation with a first class military, first class level of cultural influence, first class level of soft and hard power that has second rate social programs. I would like that to be reversed.