This was posted by Stephen Bush, in his morning mail; it’s part of a longer article and referred to the Nato Summit.
The big, unspoken agenda item is: what happens to Nato when the commitment of the United States to Article Five – that an attack on one Nato member is an attack against all – is up for grabs? Donald Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds shows you just how much consideration he will show to his allies, no matter how many times they might roll out their head of state for tea and cake.
Once the US commitment to Western Europe’s security was unquestioned, some might argue the price was high but France & Germany have resisted acting as proxies for the US; one can see clearly that while Macron is not necessarily acting in good faith, the EU as the sole organsation capable of speaking for Europe needs to consider its defence policies, expenditure and alliances. While there is no plans for an EU Army, it is planing to co-ordinate some design and expenditure programmes.
As for Trump’s bleating about 2% on budgets, I wonder how much the EU spends on US arms?