Needless to say, these statements and developments greatly angered European leaders who were evidently convinced the US would continue to station troops, send weapons, and provide funding for the continent’s security while letting the governments act however they wanted and while treating them as the primary parties in the proxy war we’ve been bankrolling.

By all indications, the Trump administration’s goal here is to pressure European governments to spend more of their own taxpayers’ money to fund NATO. Which is unfortunate, because Europe is deep in a self-inflicted decline right now, and US taxpayers should not be forced to take part in it at all.

From an American perspective, the decline of Europe is tragic as some of the best aspects of our institutions and culture can be drawn back to the period of Europe’s rise…….

As scholars like Ralph Raico, Nathan Rosenberg, and L.E. Birdzel Jr. have demonstrated, the highly decentralized set-up of Europe in the Middle Ages was the primary factor in generating the prosperity that went on to give the West more power and a safer, more comfortable standard of living than any other civilization in history. A respect for private property rights virtually unseen up to that point helped to create a justice system that only compounded the West’s success.