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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.
Where do we put the cost of this catastrophic war and entirely foreseeable loss in Ukraine, a loss so bad it's possible it could end the alliance altogether? Do we put it in the "it's a good idea to extend NATO eastward" argument or somewhere else?
no one is getting into nuclear Armageddon to defend Eastern Europe (except maybe the British who have been nuts for 120 years) which makes all of this a giant bluff which was eventually called
the Americans were never going to be used as mercenaries (who pay Europe for the privilege) against the Russians if push came to shove
NATO's decline is almost entirely unrelated to Ukraine, and if anything Ukraine helped to rally + expand NATO. It got Sweden and Finland to join, remember?
NATO's decline, or really America's waning interest, is mostly caused by a combination of China's rise and negative partisanship where modern US conservatives hate Ukraine mostly just because US liberals like it.
Okay, so the cost of the Ukraine War can be attributed to the "it's a good idea to extend NATO eastward" argument?
Expanding NATO for what? No one is going to face nuclear Armageddon to defend Joensuu, Finland. Adding Sweden and Finland to NATO doesn't change anything except maybe a few pins on the "things to obliterate with Nuclear Weapons" map for the Russians in case of Armageddon.
NATO has emptied its treasuries and armories to lose the Ukraine War. This line of argument may have had more support in 2022 when the TURBO AMERICA meme was getting passed around, but it's 2025 where Russia is obviously winning the war and NATO has emptied their armories. NATO is weaker now, even with the added military powerhouses of Sweden and Finland than they were in Feb 2022. Instead of a stronger NATO, you get a deindustrializing Europe in huge debt, empty armories, and paper militaries.
NATO is a jobs program for unimpressive American and Euro midwits "elites" to give them excuses to go to expensive parties on the public dole; it's not a serious military alliance and hasn't been for decades.
is NATO stronger than ever or is NATO in decline? you don't get to have both at the same time and if you're arguing it was strong before the Ukraine loss and is declining now when the loss is all but accomplished you're making my point for me
(edit: saying NATO is in decline "only" because the US has lost interest in Europe because of an ascendant China is an argument against the idea that eastward expansion was a good idea; if the pivot to Asia was going to happen, it is dumb to provoke a war in Europe and blow a bunch of money and weapons there)
completely wrong to the point it makes me question if you interact with american conservatives
american conservatives don't "hate" Ukraine and NATO because of liberals, they want US wealth to be focused on the US
NATO was stronger because of the Ukraine war, but now its weaker because Trump is trashing both the organization and US allies. Simple.
A larger NATO spreads the cost of defense over more countries. It also gives the US the diplomatic leverage to do stuff like enact the chips ban on China, for which critical machine tools were manufactured only in Europe.
Sending weapons to Ukraine has give the US some ability to rebuild its shattered defense-industrial base, trading out old stock leftover from the Cold War for more modern kit. The notion that the US has "emptied its armory" is egregiously wrong. The US apparently never had the political will to part with enough stuff for Ukraine to get a decisive advantage. The notion that the US doesn't have any tanks or planes or ships because they were all sent to Ukraine is just goofy.
On the money aspect, the US has sent about $110 billion to Ukraine over 3 years, although even that number is probably too high since much of the value "lost" was due for disposal anyways and is being replaced by more modern kit as I said above. Even taking the $110 billion number at face value, it's still tiny in comparison to America's other priorities. It's like a week's worth of spending on SS + Medicare, the two largest welfare programs for old people. The Afghan war wasted $2,300 billion on a war that was genuinely unwinnable (and that Trump was more than happy to can-kick on for the 4 years of his first term) since we were never going to be up for the ethnic cleansings required to bring long-term stability.
This makes me wonder if you genuinely interact with American conservatives. Maybe some small fraction are genuinely principled, hardcore isolationists, but I highly doubt that's the genuine plurality position. As always, Catturd serves as a good barometer of the modern US conservative movement. He uses the monetary cost as an argument, sure, but he goes much further in seeming to genuinely hate Zelensky. There's also this weird quirk where the monetary cost only matters in relation to Ukraine, but it mattered a lot less when it came to getting out of Afghanistan early, or for aid to Israel, etc.
You think NATO is stronger in January 2025 than it was in January 2020? For any comparison from before the war or the start of the war to at any point after summer of 2023, I honestly don't think this is a defensible position at all.
it's simply patently ridiculous to characterize "conservatives," the major part of which has been talking about getting out of entangling alliances requiring hundreds of military bases all over the world and the continuing forever wars for at least 15 years as "you just hate the libs"
we're just too far apart on what reality looks like to really have a productive discussion without expending a lot of effort hashing out the factual disagreements we have and, to be frank, I don't think you acknowledging what I view as reality would change your ideological opinions anyway
Certainly NATO was stronger before Trump's election in 2024 than it was in 2020. That's really not a very high bar since Trump was trashing NATO in his first term too. The fact you can't even begin to see how this could be possible is indicative that you're either using some weird scorecard in terms of "stronger", or something else similarly strange is going on. I don't think I've seen any serious piece of analysis claim NATO got weaker from Trump --> Biden.
Further, if you don't think negative partisanship is the absolute most critical factor driving basically every voter in the US for the past decade, you're quite wrong. This applies to both sides for what it's worth. There are a few principled ideologues out there, but the id of both sides' voterbase looks a lot closer to Catturd's twitter feed than it does to a coherent list of policy positions.
You're right that it seems we're probably too far apart to have a productive discussion.
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Come on now, I no longer hate my old hometown that much...
Would US be facing nuclear Armageddon to defend Alaska?
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