This argument just seems fishy to me. The only way Trump's argument makes sense is if Russia attacked NATO, and they came looking for a hand out, this hasn't happened.
America has benefited massively from NATO. Intelligence, weapons sales, security...
All that was going on is some countries in Europe weren't paying 2% of their GDP towards NATO, but, America has benefited enormously from paying only a small fraction more. America gets to be the controllers of the global reserve currency which basically gives unlimited ability to influence world affairs.
Trump only really started to carry on about this since the invasion of Ukraine as far as I can tell, even then, it's still cost America nothing because Ukraine isn't in NATO. Any money that went to Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO specifically. In my opinion, America gained a LOT of security from The Budapest Memorandum, people argue all the time that you owe Ukraine nothing but is that really true? They're ultra vulnerable after giving up their nukes. Now what?
Did you want Europe to be the global economic and military super power previously? I feel like I'm missing something ?
America has benefited massively from NATO. Intelligence, weapons sales, security...
All that was going on is some countries in Europe weren't paying 2% of their GDP towards NATO, but, America has benefited enormously from paying only a small fraction more. America gets to be the controllers of the global reserve currency which basically gives unlimited ability to influence world affairs.
Trump only really started to carry on about this since the invasion of Ukraine as far as I can tell, even then, it's still cost America nothing because Ukraine isn't in NATO. Any money that went to Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO specifically. In my opinion, America gained a LOT of security from The Budapest Memorandum, people argue all the time that you owe Ukraine nothing but is that really true? They're ultra vulnerable after giving up their nukes. Now what?
Did you want Europe to be the global economic and military super power previously? I feel like I'm missing something ?