In the last week, there has been much discussion about NATO, its role in the fight against ISIS, and American contributions to the alliance. Donald Trump said that NATO needed to re-evaluated since the USA does too much and the Europeans do too little to support the alliance. That led to all sorts of people from Ted Cruz to Hillary Clinton and the pundits across the country shaking their heads and denouncing the suggestion as preposterous. At the same time, others (like Fox News talking head Bill O'Reilly) have been pushing for NATO to "declare war" on ISIS so as to take out the Islamic terrorist crazies. These discussions are particularly poignant at the moment since the Brussels attacks came not that far from NATO European headquarters.
One thing that I learned in discussions with others about NATO this past week is just how little many Americans know about the alliance. In order to decide what to do with NATO, however, one has to start with a basic understanding of its composition, purpose and structure.
Let's start with the size of the NATO army. That's an easy question because there is no NATO army. The various member states of NATO have their own armies which would carry out common defense should any member state of NATO be attacked. Indeed, the essence of NATO is that it obligates each member state to consider an attack on any member of the alliance as if it were an attack on its own territory. In other words, should Switzerland (not a member state) attack Italy (a NATO member) all other NATO nations must come to the defense of Italy. That, of course, is an unlikely example. NATO was formed to strengthen the countries of Western Europe and to bind them into a common defense alliance with the USA and Canada. The enemy at the time was, of course, the Soviet Union and its allies in eastern Europe. In the 1990's, the USSR collapsed, and many of its old allies and even its component republics joined NATO. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and more became NATO members. In Europe, that left only Russia as a likely enemy for NATO.
NATO has a command structure in place to help manage the various national armies in the event of a war. France is not part of the structure, but all the other member states are. To repeat, however, NATO has no troops.
So then we need to consider how big the armies of the various European nations are. Let's do it this way. ISIS reportedly has between 30,000 and 50,000 fighters in its army. Try ranking ISIS's forces against the army of each of Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the UK, Poland, Spain, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania which are member states of NATO. The answer may surprise you. The army of the UK and that of Poland are larger than the ISIS forces. The German army is roughly equivalent to the ISIS forces and all the others are substantially smaller than ISIS. The only NATO members with large armed forces are the USA and Turkey.
It is the tiny size of the NATO armies that provides the answer to each of our questions. First, is Trump correct that the Europeans do not do enough to defend themselves? The answer to that is clearly YES. Why should Germany have a tiny army while America has major armed forces installations in that country? Why should Americans pay to defend Germans when they don't pay to defend themselves? When the Cold War ended, the Germans shrank their army until not much was left. The same happened all over Europe. Why must the USA now be the one country to provide a defense? Why must the USA be the country that pays for defeating ISIS with the lives of our soldiers and the cash from our treasury? ISIS is a threat to all of Europe, much more so than it is a threat to the USA. Shouldn't the Europeans step up to defend themselves?
And were NATO to declare war on ISIS (or more properly were each of the NATO nations to declare war on ISIS) who would carry out the fight? It would be the USA and, to a lesser extent Turkey. Shouldn't all the NATO nations participate?
The truth is that NATO does need to be reconfigured for today's world. If the Europeans expect the USA to join in their defense, then they need to defend themselves and be ready to participate in any necessary military actions around the globe.
One thing that I learned in discussions with others about NATO this past week is just how little many Americans know about the alliance. In order to decide what to do with NATO, however, one has to start with a basic understanding of its composition, purpose and structure.
Let's start with the size of the NATO army. That's an easy question because there is no NATO army. The various member states of NATO have their own armies which would carry out common defense should any member state of NATO be attacked. Indeed, the essence of NATO is that it obligates each member state to consider an attack on any member of the alliance as if it were an attack on its own territory. In other words, should Switzerland (not a member state) attack Italy (a NATO member) all other NATO nations must come to the defense of Italy. That, of course, is an unlikely example. NATO was formed to strengthen the countries of Western Europe and to bind them into a common defense alliance with the USA and Canada. The enemy at the time was, of course, the Soviet Union and its allies in eastern Europe. In the 1990's, the USSR collapsed, and many of its old allies and even its component republics joined NATO. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and more became NATO members. In Europe, that left only Russia as a likely enemy for NATO.
NATO has a command structure in place to help manage the various national armies in the event of a war. France is not part of the structure, but all the other member states are. To repeat, however, NATO has no troops.
So then we need to consider how big the armies of the various European nations are. Let's do it this way. ISIS reportedly has between 30,000 and 50,000 fighters in its army. Try ranking ISIS's forces against the army of each of Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the UK, Poland, Spain, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania which are member states of NATO. The answer may surprise you. The army of the UK and that of Poland are larger than the ISIS forces. The German army is roughly equivalent to the ISIS forces and all the others are substantially smaller than ISIS. The only NATO members with large armed forces are the USA and Turkey.
It is the tiny size of the NATO armies that provides the answer to each of our questions. First, is Trump correct that the Europeans do not do enough to defend themselves? The answer to that is clearly YES. Why should Germany have a tiny army while America has major armed forces installations in that country? Why should Americans pay to defend Germans when they don't pay to defend themselves? When the Cold War ended, the Germans shrank their army until not much was left. The same happened all over Europe. Why must the USA now be the one country to provide a defense? Why must the USA be the country that pays for defeating ISIS with the lives of our soldiers and the cash from our treasury? ISIS is a threat to all of Europe, much more so than it is a threat to the USA. Shouldn't the Europeans step up to defend themselves?
And were NATO to declare war on ISIS (or more properly were each of the NATO nations to declare war on ISIS) who would carry out the fight? It would be the USA and, to a lesser extent Turkey. Shouldn't all the NATO nations participate?
The truth is that NATO does need to be reconfigured for today's world. If the Europeans expect the USA to join in their defense, then they need to defend themselves and be ready to participate in any necessary military actions around the globe.
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