By almost every measure, the 70-year-old North Atlantic Treaty Organization has grown significantly stronger in the two years President Trump has been in office.
In interviews and speeches, Trump revels in recounting how he was able to turn the fortunes of the alliance around with his constant berating of the other allies as deadbeats. But his overly simplistic explanation gets almost everything wrong about how NATO is funded and why it is more capable now.
His D-Day interview in Normandy with Fox’s Laura Ingraham was a perfect example.
“NATO was going down, and if you look at the money coming into NATO for the last 15 years, it’s like an escalator down. And now, it’s like a rocket ship up,” Trump said, while claiming that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has been “maybe Trump’s biggest fan.”
“He made a speech the other day, he said, ‘Without Donald Trump, maybe there would be no NATO.’ We’ve gotten over $100 billion from other countries where they’re starting to pay, because it got to a point where we were paying so much, I think we were really paying close to 100% of NATO,” Trump continued. “That’s money that we would have to pay.”
A quick fact-check before we get to the real success story Trump should be touting:
- NATO nations are halfway through a 10-year period in which they pledged to raise the money they spend on their own defense to 2% of gross domestic product, with 20% going to hardware and increased capabilities. The pledge was made in 2014 at the NATO conference in Wales, two years before Trump was elected, to reverse a trend of many NATO nations cutting their defense budgets because of the impression that the threat from Russia was receding.
- Stoltenberg has not given a speech in which he credited Trump for saving NATO. At least there is no record of any speech in NATO’s archive of the secretary-general’s remarks, and no one in the NATO press office could point to any speech that fit the president’s description. The closest was Stoltenberg’s April address to the U.S. Congress, in which he credited Trump for driving home the message that NATO allies must spend more on defense. “This has been the clear message from President Trump,” Stoltenberg said. “And this message is having a real impact.”
- The U.S. has never paid 100% of NATO costs, and the Pentagon budget does not go up or down because of the level of spending by other NATO nations. It is true that, as NATO countries build up their own military capabilities, the U.S. will have to do less of the heavy lifting and can concentrate its contributions in areas where U.S. capabilities are unique, such as aircraft carriers, precision strike, and special operations forces.
That’s the crux of NATO’s recent ascendancy.
Spooked by Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014, NATO has rewritten its military strategy, completely overhauled its command structure, and established a standing force of 30 mechanized battalions, 30 air squadrons, and 30 ships, ready to deploy within 30 days.
The “Four 30s” NATO readiness initiative was pushed by the U.S. and was accompanied by the reestablishment of the Navy’s 2nd Fleet to ensure the transatlantic link was secure in the event of conflict.
“One of the things that stands out to me is the very meaningful changes that have been made in NATO to enhance such capability,” said Gen. Joseph Dunford, the soon-to-be-retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, in remarks at the Brooking Institution last month. “I would argue that as an alliance, NATO is stronger than it was four years ago.”
NATO is stronger not because its 29 nations pay more. It’s stronger because those nations can do more. While the two are related, they are not the same thing.
Just this month, Poland submitted a request to buy almost three dozen U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, the latest and greatest U.S. stealthy jet. Also this month, Bulgaria was approved to buy eight of the latest version of the venerable F-16 fighter jets in order to “be able to provide for the defense of its own airspace and borders.”
Trump likes to scold Germany, which is one of the counties that is not on track to meet the 2% goal by 2024, while praising Poland, which spends just over 2% of its gross national product, for “paying the max.”
Germany spent $50 billion on defense in 2018; Poland, $12 billion. Germany has increased its defense budget by 36% over the past five years, but its economy is also growing rapidly, keeping its spending as a percentage of GDP below the 2% goal. It is NATO’s second-biggest contributor of funds and troops, leads NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force backed by a German brigade, and hosts more than 30,000 U.S. troops along with the headquarters of the U.S. European and Africa commands. Germany does far more than most other NATO nations.
Trump would have a stronger case if he channeled the famous question posed by John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address: “Ask not what NATO countries can do for themselves; ask what those countries can do for NATO.”
Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Examiner’s senior writer on defense and national security. His morning newsletter, “Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense,” is free and available by email subscription at dailyondefense.com.
