By calling out Germany for failing to pay its fair share of the cost of NATO, US President Donald Trump has challenged the legitimacy of the foundational premise upon which the alliance was built. This is a good thing.
A group of international academics, during a recent conference at the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, have concluded that a second Trump term in office could fatally weaken the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the transatlantic alliance charged with deterring perceived Russian aggression and protecting the international rules-based order that has dominated international relations since the end of the Second World War. This conclusion came on the heels of a decision by the Trump administration to withdraw some 9,500 troops from Germany as punishment for Berlin’s failure to keep a promise to raise its defense spending to levels matching two percent of its GDP.
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