Anybody clinging to the hope that the United States will continue its post-Second World War role as the world’s policeman without major changes was likely disabused of that notion during the tumultuous Feb. 28 White House meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Perhaps the most astonishing part of that clash was that Trump was — for him — relatively restrained. Vice-President J.D. Vance seemed determined to derail the meeting and Zelenskyy apparently came looking for a fight. In the end, it was clear that, going forward, the United States government will assist other countries on its own terms, and only if there’s something to be gained.
Of course, this wasn’t the first time an American president yelled at Zelenskyy for asking more than the U.S. is willing to give, and for appearing ungrateful. In a June 2022 phone call, then-U.S. president Joe Biden responded to the Ukrainian president’s demands for more military aid by telling him, according to NBC News’s summary of the call, that Americans were already “being quite generous” and that “Zelenskyy could show a little more gratitude.”
Then, as now, Zelenskyy refrained from issuing an apology, but released a public statement thanking the U.S. for its support. The big difference is that the clash with Trump was televised, while Zelenskyy’s exchange with Biden remained behind closed doors until it was leaked — probably as a warning to Ukraine’s president.
But if Biden cautioned the leader of a besieged country that there are limits to what the U.S. is willing and able to do, Trump puts extra emphasis on America’s changed role in the world. It’s not just the current U.S. president’s weird suggestion that Ukraine is responsible for somehow provoking Russia’s invasion; it’s also his insistence on a mineral-rights deal to give Americans a stake in the war’s outcome.
If anything comes of that deal, it might be the best return on its military expenditures the U.S. has received in decades. The sad fact is that, at least since the end of the Cold War, most of America’s allies have been free-riding on the country’s willingness to offer protection for very little in return.
According to the NATO secretary general’s most recent annual report, “The United States accounted for 53 per cent of the allies’ combined GDP and 67 per cent of combined defence expenditure.” That’s an extraordinary mismatch considering that the U.S. (and Canada) are separated by oceans from any serious potential enemies, while European NATO members share a continent with Russia and the war it wages on Ukraine.
The situation is worse with allies beyond NATO. A 2023 report from the Cato Institute looked at all of America’s allies and found that since 1960, the United States represented an average of about 36 per cent of the alliance’s gross domestic product, while its share of defence spending has been 61 per cent.
“U.S. allies today are too comfortable in the U.S. embrace,” Justin Logan, Cato’s director of defence and foreign policy studies, wrote in the report. “Policymakers should allow U.S. allies to worry about the strength of the U.S. commitment if they want more exertion from these allies.”
To judge by the reaction from Europe’s leaders, they’re starting to worry all right. After Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy, which was preceded by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s direct warning that, “The United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship, which encourages dependency,” Europeans are in full hair-on-fire mode.
Following the Ukrainian president’s fiery meeting with Trump, the U.S. paused both military aid and intelligence sharing. Zelenskyy now says “Ukraine is ready to sign” the mineral-rights deal.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s head of foreign policy and the former prime minister of Estonia, bluntly said, “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.” She also promised more European aid to Ukraine.
That’s a perfectly good idea. Ukraine is, after all, in Europe and any threats that may arise from its defeat would fall on its neighbours. Those neighbours are in a good position to take up the slack.
As Sanna Marin, former prime minister of Finland, pointed out in The Economist, “Europe’s NATO members have a combined GDP of $23 trillion, 10 times that of Russia.” It’s preposterous for those countries to pretend that they need an ally across the Atlantic Ocean to assume the cost of defending them, as well as Ukraine.
Marin added: “It is entirely reasonable for American taxpayers to question why they should shoulder more of the cost of European security than Europe itself.”
Those taxpayers seem inclined to side with Trump on some of these big issues. Even before the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting, 61 per cent of respondents told Harvard CAPS/Harris pollsters that “security guarantees should be contingent on Ukraine sharing revenue from rare earth elements to pay back U.S. military support.”
After the meeting, another poll found that few Americans were offended by the way Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy handled themselves in the encounter. A plurality of 49 per cent said that Trump had a stronger argument than his Ukrainian counterpart.
NATO still enjoys some trust among Americans, according to Emerson College pollsters. But support for remaining in the alliance is only a plurality, at 48 per cent. Twenty-eight percent favour withdrawing.
The problem for America’s allies is not only that they’ve been free-riding on U.S. defence capability, but that the world is once again becoming a dangerous place as Americans’ patience for expensive and risky military commitments is waning.
The U.S. spent two decades mired in seemingly never-ending conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Towards the end of the conflict in Afghanistan, which ended in chaotic withdrawal, some fathers who went to war as young men ended up serving alongside their sons.
At the same time, the country is losing its ability to pay for such adventures. The U.S. federal government has run up over US$36 trillion (C$52 trillion) in debt after decades of worsening budget deficits. A relatively painless place to cut federal expenditures — assuming Congress and the White House have a sudden fit of fiscal responsibility — is in military commitments to far away countries that are perfectly capable of defending themselves.
America’s allies have long been protected by a policeman who was willing to pick up most of the tab for the expense of patrolling a global beat. That policeman looks poised to retire — or at least to start charging for services rendered.
National Post