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Do American on The Motte feel that the country is generally in favour of breaking from its old European alliances? I am not sure I have got that sense when visiting but I've visited only fairly D-leaning areas in recent years.
From the British/European point of view, one has the sense from current reporting that a significant rebalancing is happening, one that I would characterise as going beyond wanting to reduce American spending on e.g. Ukraine, and towards decisively breaking with European countries out of gut dislike, and beginning instead to form either a US-Russian alliance of sympathies, or if not that, then at least a relationship with Russia that is rhetorically much friendlier than that with Europe. I think the fear is starting to take root in Europe that the US would effectively switch sides in return for Russia granting it mineral rights in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. This heel turn seems unlikely, but things are murky enough that it is worrying people.
I feel that this rebalancing is already working in a way towards achieving stated Trump goals – it certainly is succeeding in restoring Europe's appetite for military spending (underinvestment here is one thing Trump has been consistently right about but European leaders have buried their heads in the sand on, hoping he'd go away). But the current situation re Ukraine is also sending confusing signals, as it had previously seemed as though the US wanted Europe to step up and be part of a solution for Ukraine, whereas currently it seems they actively want to stop Europe from having a role in peace talks. The motive for this appears to be stopping Europe from asking terms of Russia that would delay a solution the US and Russia find jointly satisfactory, though perhaps there is more going on beneath the surface.
I did not have the impression that the American population generally has gone through this kind of Europe->Russia realignment in their hearts, Russians still being a regular foil for the good guys in movies (said movies coming from liberal-leaning Hollywood, sure). I have the impression that moving towards Russia is an aspect of foreign policy that Trump has not built domestic support for. But maybe this is wrong. Maybe the average American now thinks not only "Europe should contribute more to solve their own defence problems", but furthermore, "Europe should get its nose out of international affairs and attempt to help only when it's spoken to. We, Russia and China are in charge now."
I'm writing this without especially detailed knowledge of foreign policy, but I'm more interested here in the emotional calibration of ordinary Americans generally. What outcomes would they accept, what outcomes are they afraid of, who do they feel warm to and who not, and to what extent do they feel entirely insulated from global events, alliances and enmities?
I feel like NATO expansion was a complete own-goal. What does the United States get out of any NATO member state that joined after 1990? Are we really expecting the Polish winged hussars to open a second front on the Mongolian Steppes in response to a Chinese attack on the US? These states are a massive liability for no discernible benefit. I would support kicking Eastern Europe out of NATO. If Western Europe doesn’t agree to that, then they can start their own alliance with blackjack and hookers.
NATO expansion to the east was a great move in hindsight.
Russia was always going to be hostile to any nation that tried to project power east of Berlin, so the only options were to either kick Russia while it was down or stand by and let it reassemble the borders of the USSR, then fight it on much more equal terms.
Well no, there are other options: the US could have tried to integrate Russia into NATO, or simply not tried to project power past Berlin. The former seems very hard to get but has incredible payoff, and I am sorry it didn't seem to get much serious consideration from the West (perhaps there were good reasons it was a nonstarter – but I can't help thinking that if we can put up with having Turkey in NATO Russia could surely have been shoehorned in somehow.)
Politically the hardest part about it is that at least Poland and the Baltic states were always going to apply for NATO membership at one point or another. So the US government either has to engage in political 4D chess to prevent that from even happening or reject such requests publicly, which then obviously opens one up to denunciations from the domestic opposition.
And also Greece, which was a military dictatorship for a period and generally a basket case.
Yeahhhh but from a purely realpolitik perspective Poland and the Baltic states are zip compared to getting Russia on your side. I think the real problem is if it's a two-sheriffs one-town situation, and likely it would have been. Sad!
See, if we could get GREECE AND TURKEY into the SAME military alliance we could get Poland and Russia in one. Surely the CIA has a magic mind-control ray that could make that work, or maybe USAID could gainfully employ the entire intelligentsia of Eurasia on the condition that they meme NATO-CSTO into being.
That's actually a rather good point I never thought about before.
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