Dan Caldwell, a public policy advisor at The Defense Priorities Foundation, told Business Insider that “Europe needs to wake up to the fact that regardless of who is the next U.S. president, the United States has real limits on its power.”
The U.S.’s ability to keep troops in Europe and supply arms to Ukraine is “not sustainable indefinitely,” Caldwell said, citing national debt, inflation rates, a constrained industrial base, and military recruitment struggles.
While not convinced that Trump would withdraw from NATO, Caldwell said that the U.S. could use incentives to get European countries to bolster their militaries.
“The best way to do that is by withdrawing troops from Europe and making clear that we are rolling back our force posture in Europe,” he said, adding that he believed it was “not a bad thing if the United States encourages more European strategic autonomy.”
“For the Europeans, there’s a lot of talk about Trump-proofing their defense,” Caldwell said. “In reality, they need to America-proof their defense in the sense that they can no longer rely on America to continue to cut a blank check to Ukraine and to secure their own backyard regardless of who is U.S. president.”
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