OK, the title is a bit crude and is deliberately mocking in tone. But it has to be because there is a deeply-entrenched, almost sacred presumption embedded in the nation’s foreign policy catechism that “allies”, “alliances” and “coalitions of the willing” are the be-all-and-end-all of enlightened, necessary and effective foreign policy.
American policy-makers and diplomats perforce should therefore never leave these shores for the wider world without them. This dogma perhaps reached its epitome in Secretary of State James Baker’s “coalition of the willing” during the utterly pointless first Gulf War of 1991 and has plagued us ever since. Unfortunately.
In fact, the truth is more nearly the opposite – so it needs to be stated coarsely, almost defiantly. To wit, allies in today’s world are mostly an albatross, completely irrelevant to the military security of the American homeland and a major source of unnecessary friction and even outright conflict among the nations.
In a word, America is such an outsized economic and military Hegemon that all the little and mid-sized nation’s it has lined-up in formal and de facto alliances are inherently incentivized to pursue policies that minimize their own defense investments – even as they are also encouraged to throw diplomatic caution to the winds. That is, Washington’s “alliances” enable the domestic politicians or elected governments of these small allies to be more aggressive or confrontational vis-à-vis the “bad guys” designated by Washington than they surely would be if operating only upon their own steam.
For instance, the former Estonian prime minister between 2021 and 2024, Kaja Kallas, and now foreign affairs chief for the EU has been a loud-mouthed, vitriolic critic of Russia and hardline supporter of sending other people’s money [i.e. yours] to the support of the equally pointless proxy war against Russia on the Ukrainian steppes.
Of course, with a population of just 1.3 million, GDP of barely $40 billion and armed force of 8,000, Estonia amounts to a cipher of an ally in the scheme of things. So it does absolutely nothing for America’s homeland security, even as it has emboldened Kallas to become a loud irritant to the Big Bear of a country next door.
Then again, if there were no such thing as NATO and the Article 5 military shield of the US, do you think Kallas would be noisily whooping it up for Zelensky? Would her people have tolerated her posturing as little David waving a sling-shot at the Goliath next door?
We dare say the very opposite would have prevailed. Estonia and its leader would have taken care to make nice to their extra large sized neighbor – as small countries have done from times immemorial.
And if making diplomatic nice and conducting mutually beneficial economic commerce wasn’t working for some reason, although it almost always does, they would have been obligated to arm themselves to the hilt. That is, mobilize 10-25% of GDP for defense, if necessary, rather than the pittance of 2.9% of GDP that Estonia actually spends. In turn, that would establish deterrence – the standing up to a potential aggressor the heavy cost in blood and treasure it would be obligated to face in breaching the borders and sovereignty of a smaller neighbor.
And, no, for crying out loud, the 21st century world is not unique when it comes to the relationships between big, small and middle sized nations. What we described above as making nice in diplomacy and economics and making deterrence clear is actually the way the world of nations is supposed to work, and, prior to the rise of the Hegemon on the Potomac, actually usually did.
Most certainly the gods of history have not conferred upon Washington’s politicians and apparatchiks a mandate to befriend and safeguard from one end of the planet to the other every Little Guy from the heavy breathing of nearby Big Guys.
Kaja Kallas on X: “Ukraine’s brave and fierce fight for freedom has been an “inspiration” to the Estonian people. Many have joined the voluntary Defence League.
Indeed, in a world not dislocated by the Hegemon on the Potomac no one would think to describe the reckless foolishness of Kiev in militarily attacking and brutalizing the Russian speaking populations of the Donbas after the Maidan Coup of February 2014 as an “inspiration”. It was actually stupid beyond belief – something that neighbors not addled by the Hegemon’s military shield or egged on by the CIA, NED, USAID, the State Department and Pentagon would have no problem recognizing and observing.
Indeed that observation applies to the whole passel of little countries that have been admitted to NATO since the turn of the century. For instance, when it comes to the five small Balkan countries that do not even share the Black Sea shorelines with Russia, here is the pitiful military capacity and defense heft (measured as % of GDP) that they bring to America’s homeland security.
In order to put this pittance of military manpower in perspective, moreover, we first note by way of comparison the size of police forces in major US cities. While these domestic police men, women and theys may eat too many donuts on the job and thereby fail any combat readiness tests, when it comes to sheer human muscle the city police forces listed here outrank most of what these Balkan “allies” bring to the table.
Size of Police Forces In Major US Cities:
- New York City: 36,000.
- Chicago: 13,100.
- Los Angeles: 10,000.
- Philadelphia: 6,500.
This is by way of saying that all of the above cities have bigger forces of men in blue than do most of the small the NATO allies depicted below, where we show their active military manpower and their defense spending as a % of GDP.
- Croatia: 14,300/1.8% of GDP.
- North Macedonia: 8,000/1.7% of GDP.
- Slovenia: 7,300/1.5% of GDP.
- Albania: 6,600/1.7% of GDP.
- Montenegro: 2,350/1.6% of GDP.
Clearly, these countries are not shaking in their boots about the Russian Bear. In the most recent year of red hot proxy war between NATO and Russia on the hapless steppes of the Ukraine, none of these five even bothered to spend 2% of GDP on defense!
Indeed, even the bigger fry positioned cheek-by-jowl with Russia on the Black Sea didn’t evince any greater fear of the Bear. Romania spends only 2.2% of GDP on defense and its voters just elected a president who wanted to make friendly with Putin – which democratic chosen leader was, of course, ixnayed by Romania’s “allies” in Brussels and Washington.
Likewise, Bulgaria spends but 2.2% on defense, as well. And, understandably, Serbia has not even seen fit to join NATO. Well, not since its capital was bombed to smithereens in 1999 by NATO war planes, owing to its insistence that Kosovo not be severed from its sovereign territory owing to the writ of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Even then as Russia’s firm ally in the region, Serbia spends about 2.3% of GDP on defense and has about 28,000 active men in uniform in its armed forces. That is, Serbia’s neutral forces total about the same as the combined military might of the five small fry on the Adriatic side of the Balkans.
Moreover, it also turns out that these five wee NATO members actually spend about the same pittance for military capabilities as is hoovered-up by Ukraine-bordering Hungary and Slovakia. The former spends about 2.0% of GDP on defense while the latter’s military spending is 2.1% of GDP. Yet both governments next door to the Russian Bear are militantly opposed to the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and successfully get along with Moscow quite well!
In short, none of these countries really seem to fear the Russian Bear or they would be spending double digit percentages of their GDP making themselves so well armed as to make a unappetizing meal for the alleged aggressor in Moscow. To the contrary, they have either joined NATO to get into the Atlantic Club or have simply eschewed the opportunity (Serbia) or gone along for the ride (Hungary and Slovakia).
The point is, extending NATO to the Balkans was a stupid joke perpetrated by Warfare State apparatchiks in Washington and Brussels. It does absolutely nothing for America’s homeland defense militarily, while enabling Russia’s small next door neighbors to spend a pittance for defense and from time to time squeak-up to the Bear in a provocative manner that they would not dream of doing on the strength of 8,000 lightly armed soldiers of their own.
Of course, the same thing is true up north on the Baltic. The three Baltic republics both experienced and do remember their decades of Soviet occupation. Yet their present day budgetary statements make abundantly clear that they do not really perceive post-communist Russia to be the same existential same threat at all. That’s why they spend nickels and dimes on make-pretend militaries, even as their politicians like Kallas demagogue about Putin in order to stir up the home voters and incur the favor of the warmongering neocon apparatchiks who dominate the NATO and the EU.
Still, no countries with the wafer-thin military capacities depicted in the numbers below truly fear their Russian neighbor. If they did, with or without NATO, they’d put their budgetary dollars where the unfortunate rhetoric of some of the loud-mouthed politicians lies.
Armed Forces Size and Defense % of GDP:
- Lithuania: 14,100/2.8% of GDP.
- Estonia: 7,700/2.9% of GDP.
- Latvia: 6,750/2.4% of GDP.
In short, the Donald’s observations about the state of the world usually amount to a random collection of the true, the false and the foolish. But in the case of all these pipsqueak NATO allies he surely hit the nail on the head.
Washington’s “Allies” in The Baltics
That is to say, all of these allies are far more trouble than they are worth. The military security of the American homeland can be secured by an invincible strategic nuclear triad based on bombers, land-based ICBMs and its deep sea nuclear subs – none of which require foreign bases or foreign “allies”. That, and a powerful conventional Fortress America defense of its shorelines and air space would more than do the job of maintaining the military security of the American homeland in today’s world.
Neither of these military capabilities are enhanced in the slightest by the pipsqueak allies that have been drafted into NATO since 1999. Nor in today’s world is there any risk that a larger power as economically lame as Russia or Ponzi-based as Red China could attack, conquer and roll-up tens of trillions of GDP, military age manpower and defense production capacities among large numbers of their small fry neighbors.
Indeed, both Russia and China well know that the cost of invasion, conquest and pacification in today’s world would not remotely be worth the candle. That’s perhaps why the answer to the question as to how many countries Red China has conquered in the last four decades is, well, zero!
To the contrary, what America’s 750 bases and 160,000 servicemen positioned abroad from Japan to Germany, Italy and the UK actually amount to are dangerous “trip wires”designed to:
- Provide an excuse for US defense contractors to sell weapons to the allied nations where US forces are based.
- Create an excuse to meddle in foreign conflicts owing to the fact that American servicemen are in harms’ way.
We will in elaborate further on this in Part 2, but suffice it here to note that during the heyday of America’s development as the greatest nation on earth – from the cancellation of the treaty with France in 1797 to the ratification of the NATO Treaty in 1949 – America had no alliances, no military treaties and no allies empowered to provoke conflicts with their neighbors on the understanding that Uncle Sam had their backs.
He didn’t and during those 152 years everything worked out for America as well as any nation in history before or since. And absolutely nothing has changed to alter the wisdom of Washington and Jefferson about avoidance of Entangling Alliances.
Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.
