Sputnik:What could be the consequences of the current US approach to European countries in their security and are European nations satisfied being, as you call them, military colonies of the US?
Keith Preston: Within Europe itself it's clearly the case that anti-American sentiment is rising and I think that a lot of European countries are somewhat frustrated with essentially being military colonies of the United States and wish to achieve a more independent direction, however, it's also true that the relationship is one that the European nations benefit from on one level because they are able to defer the cost of their own military defense onto the United States. It's something of a situation where European nations are dependent on the United States for the military support they get through NATO, but it comes at the cost of reduction in terms their own political autonomy and they are essentially expected to cater to the interests of the United States in terms of international relations and economic policy and these other things. So it's a bit of a double edged sword for these countries. But there is evidence that in Europe itself on the left and on the right there is a growing ant-American sentiment. It has always been there, but it seems to be escalating.
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Sputnik: How heavy is the dependence of European countries on the US funding of their security? Would they be able to become self-sufficient when it comes to its defense?
Keith Preston: Europe is very dependent on the United States because all of NATO's military expenditures the United States pays for about 1/4 of that. The United States cover about 1/4, 25% of the entire military budget for NATO for the entire European continent. The rest of the cost, the 75% are spread out among the other 27 member-nations in NATO. Each of the individual European nations only contribute a very small share to the actual cost of maintaining NATO. And in part that if they were to have to increase the amount of expenditures that the European nations actually, cover that would create some serious fiscal problems for those nations because many of those nations already have serious budget deficits in public debt and things of that nature. They also have these large welfare states that are expensive and many of those nations append a very small percentage of their GDP or their national budget on military defense. If the other costs that are provided for by the United States at present were be eliminated or reduced and European nations were to have to pick up the difference, I think that would certainly create some fiscal problems for a lot of those countries. There would also be a lot of conflict between European nations over who would be most responsible for covering these costs as well; I think certainly that the nations that are poor nations with a GDP which is lower would feel that they shouldn't bear as much of a burden as, say, the wealthier nations or the larger nations. I thank that would be the source of conflict as well.
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Sputnik: So you don't see the European countries perhaps increasing their defense spending any time soon, because I was going to ask you how this, if it happened, would change and affect relations between Europe and the United States.
Keith Preston: Well I think that it's a bit of a tense situation there because I on the one hand, I think the European nations would like to be increasingly independent of the United States in a military sense because that also creates political and economic dependency. However, increasing their independence from the United States would increase their own internal costs. There is evidence that some of the European nations are moving in this direction. For example, I've seen some evidence that Germany is actually moving towards a more neutral position, Germany is assuming a friendlier stance toward Russia than what the United States is assuming at this point. France, for example, I recently saw French plans to reintroduce military conscription, which means that France is likely planning on increasing its own military budget and strengthening its own defense forces. There is some evidence for this that the Europeans are moving in a more independent direction. I think certainly the United States would be opposed to this, the United States uses the influence that it has in NATO and the fact that United States has covered the cost of so much of NATO to essentially exercise political control over certainly the western European continent and increasingly the eastern European region as well since the end of the Cold War; and I think if these nations started moving in the more independent direction, you would see some greater political conflict between Europe and the United States, not just over issues how is going to actually fund NATO and questions of that type, but also over important geopolitical questions. If Europe were to start charting a more independent course for itself, I think we would start to see Europe developing perhaps a less friendly stance towards the United States in terms of geopolitical issues, perhaps a friendlier stance towards Russia and perhaps assuming a somewhat different position on a lot of conflicts in the Middle East as well.
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Sputnik: That surely would affect the future of NATO
Keith Preston: Well it would, because if there were serious differences between the United States and the European nations over international relations, then it would be very difficult to maintain a coherent set of prominent mutual defense policies under the NATO alliance. The NATO alliance is a system where the various member-nations are more or less treaty-bound to come each other's defense during times of war or military attack on one nation or any kind of drastic situation of that type. But if there is no consensus among the member-nations on international relations, then it is going to be difficult to maintain this alliance, because there's not going to be any agreement on what are the actual threats are to the Europe or to the United States. The United States is becoming increasingly hostile towards Russia. The United States has tense a relationship with China. I think many of the European countries are hoping to have a less tense relationship with Russia.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.