The Price of Defense and the "Tariff" of Geography

Yes, the Atlantic protects America. Allies in Europe protect us more cheaply

The farther enemies have to go to reach America, and the more allies those enemies have to fight through to have the opportunity to threaten America, the more affordable the defense of America is.

America must participate in the defense of Europe. It is true that America with the broad Atlantic between America and Europe doesn’t have the same incentive to sacrifice to defend Ukraine as Europeans who are in Russia’s line of fire do. Europeans must do more to defend themselves. But that doesn’t mean America can afford to let Europeans defend us. And the price to America goes up the farther west we draw the line in the sand.

America has an interest in keeping substantial military forces and bases in Europe even in peacetime as an insurance policy, as I argued in Military Review over twenty years ago. Leading from behind may work for a while on inertia, but ultimately an American presence is necessary to keep Europeans focused on our common enemy rather than going off on their own missions that undermine American interests.

Indeed, putting more of the defense burden on America used to be a feature rather than the bug we call the situation today. We wanted our allies on a short logistics leash so they couldn’t independently start a war that could escalate to general nuclear war—a war where America’s homeland would be the primary target for Soviet missiles.

First, it isn’t wise to tell our European allies that we consider them expendable because we only want them to inflict losses as the Russians advance west and we pull back across the Atlantic for the real battle. Recall that early Cold War military plans saw West Germany as that buffer, with NATO falling back behind the Rhine for the main line of resistance. That didn’t do much for the morale of allies east of the Rhine, especially when West Germany became an ally in NATO. So eventually that strategy was scrapped and we chose to defend the NATO-Warsaw Pact border.

Today, with a dramatically smaller American presence in Europe since the Cold War, we find, as our vice president did, that we must remind Europeans of our common interest in freedom of speech and the other freedoms that go with it. As I had to be reminded some years ago:

It is easy to forget--and this was a useful reminder to me--that Europe with its autocracies and monarchies was not fully part of a free West (although obviously part of the Western tradition) until we rebuilt Western Europe in that template after World War II. And NATO expansion after defeating the Soviet Union was more explicit in demanding democracy and rule of law for new members.

Do not neglect the possibility that the proto-imperial European Union will use the “crisis” of re-balancing defense responsibilities to strip away the prefix that frustrates the ambitions of the gray autocratic bureaucrats. While we keep our eyes on the China ball, the EU might become the power that organizes the warmaking potential of Europe to be a threat to America.

As an aside, sometime Soviet apologists would claim the Warsaw Pact was a defensive alliance because it was formed after NATO was formed. That is nonsense. Soviet-occupied Eastern European military forces were fully subordinated to the Soviet military right from the start. The USSR didn’t need an alliance any more than a division headquarters needs an alliance with its brigades. Forming the Warsaw Pact was pure propaganda to pretend the Soviets also led an alliance rather than control vassals. So thinking NATO provoked Russian hostility post-Cold War by accepting new NATO members from those former vassals are just serving up Excuses for Russian Imperial Ambitions 2.0.

But I digress.

Remember, too, that the cost of defending America goes up the farther west we hold the line. Consider the price of helping Ukraine with old weapons and intelligence (which is good real world practice, too) hold the line in eastern Ukraine. Sure, it costs money. But our troops don’t man the line. And we are giving away old equipment—that is great for Ukraine which still has ancient Soviet stuff—we’d replace anyway.

Then recall the price America paid to hold the line in West Germany with many hundreds of thousands of troops manning fleets of modern tanks and warplanes, tactical nuclear weapons in large numbers in Europe, and sustained with a massive Second Fleet patrolling the Atlantic and a large Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.

Then consider the price America would have to pay if the line we hold is the Atlantic Ocean.

And if we lose the Battle of the Atlantic 3.0? The threats skyrocket. Enemy warships from Europe haven’t threatened our shores since the Spanish-American War and haven’t landed on our shores since the War of 1812.

So far, America will remain in NATO. America is not abandoning Europe. Yet it is time for Europe to pay more for defense. But there is no free lunch for America. If America pays less now to defend Europe relative to Europeans, America might still end up paying in another way. Be careful what we wish for.

NOTE: I made the image with the Substack capability.