[[{“value”:”He titles his post What Tyler and Trump get wrong about NATO, excerpt: I believe that both Trump and Tyler misunderstand the role of Nato. The most important aspect of Nato is not the amount it spends on the military, rather its role is to provide a mutual defense pact so large that no nation
The post Scott Sumner on Nato appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]]
He titles his post What Tyler and Trump get wrong about NATO, excerpt:
I believe that both Trump and Tyler misunderstand the role of Nato. The most important aspect of Nato is not the amount it spends on the military, rather its role is to provide a mutual defense pact so large that no nation would dare to attack even its tiniest members. In that regard, it’s a smashing success.
Do read the whole post. I agree that Nato is a relative success, but nonetheless think “pure alliance” is not enough as a model, rather it has to be backed by an actual not-solely-American-or Turkish-capability-to-defend. One increasingly plausible risk is simply that American forces and supplies (the latter being already undersupplied) may be stretched thin elsewhere.
Another risk is that America may elect a leader who is not strongly committed to Nato, and this may even be likely. To limit member defection ex ante, Nato membership still needs to offer some credible (non-American) protection ex post. Poland, for instance, could do a lot more to help protect Lithuania if it had some significant German military aid and assistance.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the degree of American protection is never guaranteed by a mutual protection treaty per se. Let’s say that Russian “volunteer forces” encroached on Eastern Estonia. How much do American voters care about this? Exactly how strong a response would the U.S. mount, and against what or whom? I suspect the U.S. would be far more enthusiastic about serious rather than nominal involvement if front-line Polish, German, Lithuanian and other troops are doing a reasonable share of the heavy lifting.
In sum, for the Nato alliance to be credible, including on matters of degree, the defense capabilities need to be more broadly distributed than they are at the moment. It is odd to me that “credibility of degree” is so important in Scott’s monetary policy thinking, but not on this issue.
The post Scott Sumner on Nato appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Political Science, Uncategorized
Leave a Reply