Unlike a lot of my other posts, this will not be from the perspective of my fictional country, Borgundy. This is Parvusimperator the American talking. -Ed

During the Cold War, NATO was a damned good idea. A more permanent alliance. Get interoperability right before war begins. Get joint exercises done. Get experience working together. Get units (especially American units) forward based, where they can be ready for trouble.

All well and good. But the Soviet Union is no more.

So what do we think of Russia? Well, Putin likes his saber rattling and his little wars. Well and good.

And most of Western Europe does not like defense spending. Fine. Neither do I. I’d rather pay less taxes, personally.

Here’s what I hate. Freeloaders. And that’s what the vast majority of NATO members are. FREELOADERS.

To hell with defense welfare. Germany and Italy and the rest can sure afford two stupid percent of GDP per annum on defense.

We shouldn’t have to support you all. We oughtn’t have to support you all. We increasingly can’t afford to support you all.

Finally I can write what I’ve wanted to say for years. Pull your damned weight or we’ll leave.

It’s simple, really. If Russia is worth losing sleep over, then spending 2% GDP per year is something that’s worthwhile. And if they aren’t a threat, if y’all have got this, then fine. We’ll take our army and go home. And you shouldn’t have a problem with that, right?

You don’t need our armed forces. No, the Libya intervention went fine without us. We were called for help purely for sentimental reasons. Serbia wouldn’t have been any trouble at all. And those Russian tanks, they’re rusted out. Going nowhere. Probably not even loaded with ammunition.

Don’t like the 2% GDP per year target? Okay, fine. That’s just the median level of spending from the end of the Cold War until 2003. It’s not enough, good point. Name some other benchmark and meet it. Any way you cut it, our European allies are a bunch of useless freeloaders, who couldn’t stop a paper brigade of dummy tanks. ISAF sucked in the ‘Stan against a bunch of underequipped terrorist scum. They’ll do worse against an actual army with materiel.

Were it up to me, I think y’all should have a year to get your act together. And then, since we all know you won’t, we’ll take our stuff and move it elsewhere. Maybe back to the States. Maybe to Korea and Japan. They actually spend money on defense. Make the pivot to Asia real.

And I would then hand Vladimir Putin a ceremonial blank check. He’s your problem now, useless socialists.