America’s military finds itself pulled in several directions – and even the $582bn (£403bn) defence budget rolled out earlier this month will not be enough to satisfy all of its needs.
New challenges – from Russia and the so-called Islamic State (IS) group – are forcing the Pentagon to change its plans, and reopening old arguments about whether its allies are doing enough.
One of the headlines to come out of the new budget was a quadrupling of spending on US military preparations to defend allies in Europe.
When Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, says the alliance is facing its “most challenging security environment in a generation”, he is thinking principally of the challenge posed by a “newly assertive Russia”.
“The US is doing what they’ve always done – bail out Europeans unprepared to fund defence properly,” says General Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato’s number two soldier until two years ago, “but more than that, it’s recognition that Europe is strategically vital for the US and that the withdrawal of the last of the US heavy brigades a couple of years ago went too far in the face of the very real threat posed by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
There are no comments at the moment, do you want to add one?
Write a comment