Donald Trump stressed the importance of allies spending more.
He has made explicit what has US policy been at least since Russia invaded Crimea: that NATO and other allies cannot continue their post-cold war pattern of underspending on defense and letting the US carry the burden.
The old formula where the US military provided most of the forces and paid the bills, allies provided access for bases, is generally regarded as outdated in the defense community.
Time and time again, successive Administrations have pressed allies on this issue in private and public; received public commitments like the NATO Wales Summit Declaration in 2014, only to have allies abandon the commitment: “We agree to reverse the trend of declining defence budgets” and get off scot free aside from a discrete and mostly private tongue lashing that has no discernable effect on behavior.
Likewise, in Asia, Japan failure to rapidly ramp up defense spending in the face of growing threats from North Korea, China and Russia is a growing concern.
President Trump will no doubt appoint a Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense that will be tasked with renegotiating every security arrangement (formal and informal) and put in place enforceable penalties for allies who shirk their obligations.
In effect, Trump will be adopting a strategy Professor Mearsheimer and Walt termed “offshore balancing” where the principal responsibility for balance of power falls on the regional allies except in Asia where US presence is indispensable.
The US will no longer be the “first responder”, but, e.g., make Europeans take responsibility for NATO.
Canada will be the primary buffer against Russia in the Arctic and China on its west coast.
Allies in Asia will all be told to step up to the plate as the free ride is over.
Trump’s persuasion skills will come in very handy in convincing allies that it is in their own interest to do so.
Or else.
One sided cold war era deals where S. Korea pays USD$867 million (2014) toward the cost of about 28,500 US troops may not be “next to nothing”, but at $30,000 annually per head (not counting all the other costs incurred by the US outside of S. Korea including the nuclear umbrella), it certainly is a small fraction of the cost of defending S. Korea that the US incur on any reasonable accounting basis.
And that is before the question of whether the US can count on S. Korea to defend the US; or the cost of the Korean war which resulted in 36,574 killed, 103,284 wounded and cost $341 billion (2011$).
South Korea paid nearly nothing for the Korean war, which would have ended with North Korea overrunning the South with predictable outcomes had the US not intervened.
President Trump will no doubt take a business like approach to calculating costs, past, present and future for these allies.
Likewise, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait only paid $51 billion between August 1990-March 91 for the 600,000 mostly US troops that fought and won the first Gulf war. After Kuwait’s liberation, the US paid for most of the cost of constraining Saddam Hussein’s civil war in Iraq.
The second Iraq war that followed, ostensibly to remove Saddam Hussein’s WMD program, charitably described as “elective surgery” cost three (3) trillion dollars with few allies contributing.
The United States is still there, unable to extricate from Iraq. Liberation from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and “Arab Spring” that followed did not democratize the region. Instead, it destabilized the whole region and spawned erstwhile successors to al Qaeda like ISIS.
The Trump Administration will likely seek a regional solution that does not require the US in the first instance to ensure stability in the Middle East.
Take on partners? Russia, perhaps?
Offshore balancing will be a fundamental change for America. In a majority of post-war conflicts, the pattern is the United States paid a majority, if not the lion’s share of the bills.
Time after time, allies like UK and France are quick to demand US protection and intervention, like in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi, or admonitions by free riders like Canada to intervene in Ukraine, but when it comes to meeting their obligations to the alliance, fall short. How underfunded are defense spending by allies?
Allies like Germany spending on defense (1.2%) of GDP, or Japan (1%), Canada (.9%). Nations directly challenged by China’s assertive claims to the South China Sea like the Philippines and Indonesia spend 1% GDP.
This behavior is incompatible with an America that adopts a strategy of “offshore balancing”.
Donald Trump career as a businessman cannot be fooled or soothed into ignorance with the fundamental problem caused by free rider “allies”. No wonder Trump is unpopular with world leaders.
But then, so is President Obama when he made tough decisions to not, or at least curb interventionist impulses. “Free riders aggravate me,” as President Obama observed in March, 2016.
President Trump will not be just aggravated, he will get even as all treaties and security alliances are renegotiated.
What would satisfy a Trump Administration?
A return to 2% GDP spending on defense by allies will not be sufficient considering the need to recapitalize depleted non-US allied armed forces, and also to compensate the US for past free riding.
President Trump’s negotiating team will likely insist on allied defense expenditures that rise above 2% for a period of time to recapitalize their militaries before permitting it to drop to 2%, with provisions for increases should near term threats materialize. An opening offer from the Trump negotiators might be for defense expenditures to rise to 3% GDP by allies within 2 years or lose American protection.
Or he might condition, e.g., US commitments to NATO in Europe and Canada, on allies providing a sufficient self-defense capability. Don’t be surprised if Trump adopt a Ryanair model for alliances: relatively inexpensive tickets, but everything else is “extra”.
Allies might be billed for every individual deployment, or extract a charge for the nuclear umbrella.
Allies in Europe and Canada who recently had no difficulty funding hundreds of billions for settling millions of refugees (and the security issues) and running large fiscal deficits are not exactly in a position to plead poverty.
Once rearmament by allies is agreed to, unlike previous Administrations, expect the Trump Presidency to insist on binding terms with penalties and consequences for failure to meet targets and performance metrics.
And expect his negotiators to be onto typical allied scams like padding defense expenditures with inflated personnel and pension costs, etc. or foot dragging.
Their team will be measuring performance of allies like they evaluate any business partner.
Thus, there is every reason to presume that what allies will deliver what they agreed to with the Trump Administration: A sharp rise in defense expenditures among allies. Allies that allowed their defense to run down and need to recapitalize, will likely create a boom for allied, and particularly US based defense contractors.
Trump is a business realist who recognize that whatever deal he strikes have to be reasonably feasible for the other party.
Danny Lam is an independent consultant based in Calgary.
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