Image: Flikr / U.S. Department of Defense
Ramon Marks, National Interest: America's Days of International Policing are Over
The United States can no longer act as the lone, dominant military power around the globe.
The Trump administration indicated that it may change the number of U.S. troops in NATO when it threatened to remove those troops from Germany and possibly send them to Poland. While Congress appears to have blocked that step, this festering controversy in NATO over troop levels and participation is not going to disappear. Ever since President Donald Trump took office, he has raised the complaint level by several decibels over the continuing failure of European NATO allies to meet a 2014 agreement to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on their defense budgets by 2021. Of the major powers, Germany is the worst offender, spending only 1.3 percent of its GDP on defense, and not pledging to meet the 2 percent annual goal until 2031.
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WNU Editor: Running an empire is not what most Americans want. The fact that the U.S. has played that role for the past 75 years is definitely a unique moment in its history, and one that I think will change to a lesser role in the coming years.
