Rubbish:
Quite simply, it makes no sense for U.S. taxpayers to subsidize the defense of nations capable of defending themselves. Shared interests will continue to justify military cooperation. However, the alliance as today constituted no longer serves American interests.
Trump's bombast is pushing European NATO members to contribute more to defending Europe and is reinforcing our troops in Europe. As I said before, Trump is actually strengthening NATO.
NATO matters to all the members of the alliance.
I didn't worry that Trump would kill NATO as so many liberals said despite never saying a kind word to say about NATO until Trump won in 2016. But if Trump did propose to get out of NATO, I would strenuously blog against that decision (ooh, scary--only slightly less powerful than a snarky tweet!).
Even if Europeans refused to defend themselves America has an interest in keeping the vast economic, demographic, and technological powers of the continent out of an enemy's hands--including a threat that arises from within Europe.
Further, staying in NATO and keeping it strong keeps Europeans our allies capable of operating with our troops abroad in non-NATO missions where our interests overlap.
And Europe is a staging area for operating in an arc of crisis from West Africa to Afghanistan. Which I highlighted in this old Military Review article (see page 15) about maintaining a robust American Army presence in Europe.
Even a proper focus on China's growing threat requires America to maintain NATO so that we can minimize our footprint in Europe by maximizing Europe's ability to hold this secondary front with our help in the face of the smaller Russian threat.
And remember that during the Obama tenure the impulse (not from the Obama administration, to clarify) to get out of NATO drove me to defend NATO repeatedly (for example, here, here, here, and here).
Our objectives in Europe and beyond require resisting an autocracy like Russia under Putin or the proto-imperial European Union. NATO is the best tool we have.
