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JD Vance says US could drop support for NATO if Europe tries to regulate Elon Musk’s platforms
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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This seems like an insane threat.
The US is the primary beneficiary of NATO. Does he expect all those countries will keep hosting US military bases if NATO drops?
Are they actually US bases or are they actually NATO bases?
If the latter, then it'd just be case of "my swipe card doesn't work anymore".
It's a bit confusing to figure out who technically owns the bases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_installations
As near as I can tell, almost all of them are actually owned by the US. The more important aspect is how it affects the "deal".
The implied "deal" has always been that the US provides military resources to defend "the West" against the USSR/Russia and, in exchange, the US gets to be the primary voice in determining international policy (ie the famous "rules based international order"). That's why the US president has traditionally been referred to as, "the leader of the free world."
That deal has degraded a bit over time as other Western countries recovered from the damage of WWII and started flexing their own power.
Altering the deal so that everyone else pays entirely (or mostly) for its own defense also removes or seriously damages the incentive to follow the US vision of international policy.