US to allies: No more 'free' military support; terms, conditions apply

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: The National Interest
19 Jan 2023 19:53
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The National Interest report says that the war in Ukraine has turned the tables on the US foreign policy approach to its allies.

Illustration of a US tank emerging from behind the American flag (Rob Dobi)

Washington has a new message to its allies: Relying on American military leadership will have to come with terms and conditions, no more "free rides", a report by The National Interest revealed on Thursday.

The media outlet said that the earlier discussions have addressed the "free riding" problem in general, especially when it comes to US foreign policy.

In short, free riding refers to American allies earning US military protection and privileges acquired through Washington's global influence and hegemony, without providing anything - or barely anything - in return.

US international allies, during the cold war era and what came after, were at the center of criticism by Washington for "relying on the United States to spend its national treasure in terms of higher military expenditures to provide them with global security," the report continued.

"If anything, the message coming from Washington these days is that if the allies want to be able to continue to rely on U.S. military leadership, they are the ones who would have to accept the economic conditions set by the Americans," the report said.

The conditions, according to the media outlet, are "ending their energy deals with Russia, sanctioning it, and joining the United States in a long and costly economic-technological war with the Chinese."

US "subsidies" to its allies' defense budgets have enabled them [allies] to spend less on their military industry and focus more of their revenue on their social and economic needs, "while fiscal tightening forces Americans to cut expenditures on education and health," according to the news sites.

According to the report, this begs the question:

"Why should America continue bankrolling the defense budgets of countries like Japan, surplus economies whose companies compete with American businesses in the global arena?"

The dominating position of the US in the Middle East, which has been sustained through large military and financial expenses, allowed Washington's allies that are dependent on foreign energy imports to have freedom of access to the energy resources in the Gulf region, the report noted.

In addition to all the abovementioned points, there is also the current world reality where the US is committed to deploying its nuclear arsenal to defend its NATO and Asian allies in the case that they [allies] come under threats from adversaries with nuclear arms.

"Hence, the Americans are supposedly ready to see New York and San Francisco being nuked in order to save Berlin and Tokyo from annihilation," said the outlet.

Thus, pressing NATO states to raise their defense budgets and their military and economic contributions to the coalition has become a bipartisan ritual of sorts in Washington "until President Donald Trump’s behavior made it look faux pas," the report said.

Anti-globalization sentiments in the United States

Americans are expressing unwillingness to "continue supporting the liberal economic order while the allies were breaking free-trade principles," the media outlet stated.

"But then that was the way the industrial miracles of Germany and Japan had happened, very much at the expense of American economic interests," it continued.

The cost implications on the United States from the wars it fought in the "Greater Middle East" started to challenge the de facto rhetoric in Washington regarding the US role on the global stage.

According to the report, the US is "supposedly ready" to help out its allies who resort to it and protect their access to energy resources in the Gulf region, "while the allies pay very little in exchange, and even try to force the United States into costlier military interventions in the Middle East, as France did in the case of Libya."

War in Ukraine; turning point

After the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine and amid growing "Chinese threats to Taiwan," the report said that - "according to the conventional wisdom" - US allies may have finally realized that "free riding" is not an option anymore when it comes to dealing with the United States.

"They need to start playing a more activist role in the protection of Western interests against the threat of powerful global disruptors" and now have to "contribute to the production of that international public good".

Allies will have to step up their roles, "since alone the United States will not continue to provide it cost-free," the report said.

'American Hegemony Lite'

The media site pointed out Germany's response to the Ukraine war and Japan's reaction to growing tension with China as examples that allies are, indeed, making a shift in their role as US allies.

"These developments seemed to have changed the balance of power in Europe and Asia, where America can supposedly now count on its allies to play their roles as its deputies while the United States remains primus inter pares (first among equals), call it American Hegemony Lite," the site said.

No more free pass for allies practicing protectionism

Toward the beginning of the Cold War, "liberalizing American trade policies while dealing with nations that practiced protectionism made some sense," the report noted, arguing that some allied economies, such as Germany and Japan, were still in a state of recovery from the destructive outcomes of WWII, thus had to protect their local industries from outside competitors.

"But those who assumed that Trump’s economic nationalist policies would change under the more internationalist President Joe Biden are discovering now that that approach enjoys bipartisan support," the report stressed.

The news site continued that the decision made by Biden not to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which would have required the US to cut tariffs on some Asian imports, and his administration insisting on providing subsidies to electric-vehicle despite outrage from European allies in particular, who accused the US of practicing unfair protection to US-made products, are signs that Washington has turned upside-down the Cold-War-era deal with the allies.

"It was based on the expectations that the United States needed to win the geostrategic commitment of its allies through concessions in the geo-economic area," the report said.

US allies developing nuclear programs could not have been a bad idea

In its concluding statement, the report said that despite the conventional discussion that it is in the US interests to stop allies from establishing independent military powers, which could make the world a "more dangerous place," the United States was one of the countries that launched a "series of wars in recent decades that have made the world more dangerous."

"In retrospect, if Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Ukraine had nuclear weapons, the world would have probably been less dangerous today," the news site claimed.