European leaders should have started preparing for another Trump presidency long ago. They had been warned.
Now, leaders should envisage a world where NATO no longer exists—or where the United States is no longer the leading force in the alliance, writes Phillips Payson O’Brien, Professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland. He is the author of The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler—How War Made Them, and How They Made War.
“In some ways, this is more scary psychologically than in practice. Europe—which is to say, the democratic countries enmeshed in institutions such as NATO and the European Union—has the economic and technological resources to underwrite a serious defense effort. It has a large and educated enough population to staff modern armed forces. It also has some strong and growing military capabilities. For instance, European states either have received or will receive in the coming years as many as 600 F-35 fighters—the most advanced and capable aircraft in the world. Such a force could dominate the skies against a clearly inferior Russian opponent.”
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European countries sending weapons to Ukraine do not need treaties. Russia invading a European country means that Russia might invade another European country. It is just a lot cheaper to just send weapons and other support to Ukraine and have Ukraine be bombed and their soldiers dead, then to end up in a direct war with Russia.
For the US Ukraine is a problem, as being soft on Russia, means other countries who want more land could attack countries, which the US has intressts in. For example China might see the US Ukraine support and figure invading Taiwan, just means they need to pay a lot of money to US lobbiest to avoid a US response. That might be wrong, but certainly not a good look.