The Trump administration has embraced a new, reductionist approach to managing its alliances. James Mattis, on his first visit to Europe as secretary of defence, told America’s European allies that they must increase defence spending by year’s end towards 2 per cent GDP or America will “moderate its commitment”.
Mattis’ comments were directed at NATO countries but are in keeping with broader concerns about all of America’s allies. It must be noted that NATO’s members agreed in 2014 to work towards a 2 per cent GDP objective over the next decade. As an example, Germany has a fiscal plan to reach 2 per cent in 2024.
Pronouncements about allies not spending enough on defence have been made before. What is different today is the election of a president on a platform that America is being ‘ripped off’ by allies that have made America weaker and less secure. At his inauguration address, President Trump declared, America has “subsidised the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military…”.
This appears to be a concerted effort to discipline America’s allies as a collective group so they better serve America’s interests. America is hardly unique in this. Each ally also desires that its alliance with America best serves its national interest. America and its allies actually have similar demands of each other albeit President Trump is using the bully pulpit—normally reserved for domestic political purposes—to make very public denunciations in the international arena. His frequent use of tweets is a further notable innovation. This new shrill approach to alliance management however seems to have several shortcomings from both the American and allied perspectives.
Read the full “America’s new alliance management” article in Australian Outlook (via the Australian Institute of International Affairs) by Griffith Asia Institute Visiting Fellow Peter Layton.
