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The repeated friendly hints of US President Donald Trump to NATO allies and his friendly overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin raise questions at home and abroad about Trump's commitment to an Atlantic alliance that has been a pillar of US security policy.
Could a reorganization or even a reduction of American forces in Europe be envisaged? The clues may come when Trump will meet Wednesday with NATO leaders in Brussels. The official agenda includes a plan to increase the number of land, air and naval forces that can react quickly in the event of a European crisis, but the tensions generated by Trump's opinion that Europeans are unfairly the US military are ubiquitous.
File image of US President Donald Trump. AP
At the risk of deepening the gap with traditional allies, Trump will then hold a summit in Finland with Putin. On leaving Washington on Tuesday, the president remarked that he "can not say now" whether Putin is a friend or an enemy, but he predicted that his first summit with the Russian leader "could be the most easy "of all his meetings. in Europe
Such comments have raised discomfort not only in Europe but in Washington. A bipartisan resolution, to be approved Tuesday by the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, clearly expresses its support for NATO as being strategically important for the collective security of the transatlantic region
"Although the alliance atlantic has gone through many crises during his I now think that the alliance will not survive Donald Trump, "said Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, who served as director of European affairs at the National Security Council during President Barack Obama's first term
He questions the fundamental value of NATO for the United States, and this antagonistic approach is provoking unprecedented debate in Europe and Canada on the issue whether the United States should be treated as friends or enemies 19659002] The disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused a partial withdrawal of US forces in Europe, but since then, all administrations have concluded that the United States military presence was important to the security, political and economic interests of the United States and as a sign of solidarity with the United States. ;Europe. NATO has been a key part of the long US military involvement in Afghanistan, for example, and is expected to agree that this week to play a larger training role in Iraq.
Trump, who also questioned the US military presence in Asia, challenges these badumptions. This was most evident in his antagonistic approach to Germany, the main host of US forces in Europe. He criticized the Germans for not spending enough for their own defense and blasted the country for what he calls an overly liberal immigration policy. He also placed Germany at the center of his complaints about a US-European trade imbalance.
Derek Chollet, executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank, says that there is a clear link between Trump's criticism of German defense spending and reports that the Pentagon has undertaken a review the cost of maintaining troops in Europe.
"One can not read otherwise" than to see if a reduction of US troops "is a feasible option to punish Chollet, who was the Pentagon's deputy secretary for international security affairs during the second term of office." Obama
He wonders if Trump fully understands the global significance of the US military presence in Germany, including his hosting of the headquarters of US Africa Command, which leads the US counter-terrorism efforts in North Africa Stuttgart is also the seat of the European command of the United States.Germany is home to a US military hospital in Landstuhl, the largest US hospital outside the United States.
In addition, NATO has proposed to create a new command in Germany to improve the transport of troops and equipment.A military crisis.Kay Bailey Hutchison, US ambbadador to the United States. NATO, told reporters that this plan would be approved at the Brussels summit
Despite Trump's criticisms about America bearing the brunt of European defense, his government plans to increase its expenses. After the annexation of the Crimea region by Russia in 2014 and its military incursion into eastern Ukraine, the Pentagon has stepped up joint exercises in Central and Eastern Europe and has spent billions for what it calls the European deterrence initiative. After spending $ 3.4 billion on this initiative last year, the Trump administration has proposed to increase it to $ 6.5 billion for the 2019 budget year. 19659002] Pentagon leader Jim Mattis is a former commander of NATO. has also pressured the allies to spend more on defense. Some of Mattis's predecessors were even stronger in their critics.
Robert Gates, for example, declared in Brussels in 2011 that the European penchant and disgust for front-line fighting in Afghanistan put the future of the alliance in jeopardy. Mr Gates said that NATO was facing a "dark, even gloomy" future, especially because of what he called a decreasing patience in Congress for Europe's defense spending. .
Trump, however, took a further step in baderting that In a new badessment of NATO's spending and burden-sharing issues, the Center for Strategic and International Studies has qualified language Trump's "single divider" and stated that the contributions of NATO members should be measured
The think tank was referring to the commitment made at the 2014 NATO summit according to which members would "aim to go forward" to spend at least 2% of the gross domestic product in defense by 2024. According to its calculations, only four of the 29 member countries of NATO have reached the goal of 2% in 2017. They were the United States, Greece, Britain and Estonia.
According to the report, a broader range of measures should be used to measure collective defense. He cited Denmark as an example, which has not achieved the 2% target in recent years but has made important contributions in other ways, including deploying troops in Afghanistan. and by sacrificing important exchanges with Russia while respecting the sanctions. (f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {if (f.fbq) returns; n = f.fbq = function () {n.callMethod?
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