Biden’s new Europe military deployments are well intentioned but a serious mistake

Two of the moves, announced by the White House on Wednesday, are positive. One is the permanent deployment of an Army V Corps command post to Poland. This represents an overdue shift of forces from Germany to Poland. Unlike Berlin, Warsaw is a highly reliable U.S. ally. Also praiseworthy is the deployment of an additional Army brigade to Eastern Europe.

Unfortunately, President Joe Biden’s other pledges are seriously misguided. These include an increase in the number of Navy destroyers stationed in Spain from four to six, the deployment of two additional F-35 squadrons to Britain, and the stationing of additional air defense units in Germany and Italy.

To be clear, Biden’s motive is pure. He wants to secure treaty allies against future Russian aggression. In equal measure, Biden wants to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin by reminding him that America’s commitment to NATO is ironclad. In an ideal world, these deployments would thus be worthy of support. But this is not an ideal world. Well-intentioned as they might be, Biden’s new deployments are a big mistake.

First, the boosts will encourage European allies to reinforce their enduring impulse against new military investments. Why take precious money from generous social welfare programs when the U.S. will do the hard work of protecting against Russia? Second, these deployments will drain the U.S. military of critical and finite assets that it needs to deter and, if necessary, defeat China. (To be fair, the Biden administration deserves credit for getting NATO to recognize the “systemic challenges” posed by China.)

When it comes to the first concern, the White House’s fact sheet isn’t terribly factual. After all, the White House claims that “many allies now spend well above NATO’s benchmark of 2% of Gross Domestic Product, which is increasingly seen as a floor and not a ceiling. Nine allies will meet or exceed this commitment this year, 19 allies have clear plans to meet it by 2024, and an additional five allies have made concrete commitments to meet it thereafter.”

This is disingenuous. Indeed, the insincerity is belied by the White House’s reference to three distinct spending groups of “nine allies,” “19 allies,” and “five allies.” Nine plus 19 plus 5 add up to 33. But there are only 30 NATO members (Finland and Sweden will add that number to 32 later this year). Some creative math is in play here.

As I outlined on Tuesday, the actual facts are clear.

NATO’s latest official statistics, released just this week, prove that far from “many allies” spending “well above NATO’s benchmark of 2% GDP” on defense, only nine allies currently do so. And only two of those allies, Greece and the U.S., spend more than 2.5% of their GDP on defense. I would suggest that 2.5%-of-GDP is the minimum figure that might justify a description of spending “well above” the 2% benchmark. The suggestion that 24 allies have “clear plans” or “concrete commitments” to reach this spending by 2024 or soon thereafter is also unserious. Just look at the chart below. It proves that eight years after NATO members pledged to move toward 2%-of-GDP defense spending, the vast majority remain far away from doing so.

Top line: The only way to get these allies to do their fair share for NATO is to make them choose between unacceptable vulnerability and appropriate defense investment. That means qualifying U.S. naval, air, and air defense deployments to Europe so that the Europeans invest in those same capabilities.

NATO 2022 defense spending chart
Biden’s second mistake lies in draining the U.S. military of capabilities needed to deter China.

The deployment of two additional Navy destroyers and Air Force F-35 squadrons is particularly notable in this regard. As China rapidly builds more and more of its most capable warships, missiles, and aircraft, it threatens to outmatch the U.S. in combat scale dramatically. Indeed, the People’s Liberation Army already has a vast portfolio of fighter jets, bombers, ballistic missiles, and both surface and sub-surface warships it can deploy. It is producing far more than the U.S. each year. But putting more U.S. assets in Europe means fewer assets for the Pacific. And while the F-35 is grossly overrated and the Congress can’t figure out that the U.S. already has a serious deficit of warships in the western Pacific Ocean, sending more of these things to Europe risks making a serious problem critical. Considering the PLA’s doctrinal interest in surprise, there is no guarantee that the U.S. would have enough warning time to move assets from Europe to the Pacific during a crisis.

The crisis is coming, however.

After escalating its proximate military aggression against the very closest of U.S. allies, threatening to invade Taiwan, and increasingly exerting military control over trade routes worth around $5 trillion, China must be considered the absolute preeminent U.S. national security concern. If China can dominate these interests, it will usurp America’s position as the global hegemon and replace the post-1945 order of democratic sovereignty with one of communist feudal authoritarianism.

The era of hard choices has thus arrived. Retaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent and ground forces umbrella for NATO, Biden should recognize that the U.S. cannot do everything it wants everywhere it wants. China must be the deployment focus, and wealthy Europe must finally pick up the slack.