Alliances Are Not Pay-to-Play Schemes
The Steady State, by Diane Blust
“As far as I can tell, no one has flagged what’s arguably the most scandalous revelation of the leak: The Trump administration saw itself as using the United States military to ‘send a message’—and Trump was pushing to extract money from Europe in return for deploying U.S. men and women in uniform.” Jonathan Larsen
I fear for my country. Yes, because amateurs are in charge of national security. But not only are they amateurs who don’t have the slightest idea what “opsec”[Operational Security] means, but they apparently have no grounding in history, in the crafts of diplomacy or intelligence, and in the basic tenets of international relations.
Our military men and women are not stationed in far off, dangerous places to protect the interests of other nations. We do not put the lives of our men and women in uniform in danger halfway around the world to do favors to other nations or to protect shipping lanes that may appear to be more important to other nations than to our own. As incomprehensible as it may be to Vance and Hegseth, we do these things because they are in America’s interests first and foremost. The European benefit is secondary. We do not expect payment for protecting democratic allies – at least, we didn’t until this current administration. And I would be willing to wager that no President of the United States ever considered using the US military as a means to extract payment of some type from our allies. We do this because it is in America’s interests. To paraphrase a well-worn comment from nineteenth-century British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston: In international relations there are no friends, only interests.
In a few months we will mark eighty years since the end of WWII. We have not seen a world war in eighty years. We have seen wars and conflicts, we have lost brave American heroes in far off corners of the world, but we have not seen a devastating and costly world war. This was not the result of just dumb luck. It took the hard work of politicians, diplomats, intelligence officers, military men and women, and ordinary American citizens engaged in “people to people” contacts throughout the world. Because of these heroes, known and unknown, we avoided a world war that might have killed millions, ruined countless lives, devastated nations and national economies, and collapsed the international economy.
It's worth remembering and acknowledging the tremendous economic and social benefits that redounded to the United States because of the last eighty years of relative peace. And it’s worth acknowledging those benefits came in part because of our strong international alliances. Of these, NATO is the most significant. We kept a sometimes-tense peace in Europe from the founding of NATO in 1949 until Putin’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. The current administration and its national security officials seem to think alliances should be a pay for play affair. A careful examination of history would prove them wrong.
When Al-Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, 2001 the United States invoked Article 5 (mutual defense) of the NATO Treaty. Our NATO partners came to our defense, sending their young soldiers to fight and die for us in Afghanistan. Non-NATO allies also joined to support the United States in the war against Al-Qaeda. I don’t recall reading that any of those allies requested repayment from the United States in the form of minerals or favors or anything else. They understood that terrorism was an international scourge affecting all nations. It was in their interest to help eradicate a dangerous terrorist threat.
On countless other occasions and in countless other ways – known and unknown to the public – allies around the world answered when the United States called for assistance. We did not get here on our own. We got to this place of relative prosperity because others helped us keep the peace and fight the bad actors. I hope this second round of “America First-ers” will reflect on history.
Diane Blust retired after 25 years with the CIA. She spent 15 years in Western Europe as an operations officer. In retirement, Ms. Blust has volunteered with non-profit organizations dealing with sustainable development and local food issues. Ms. Blust is a member of The Steady State, a coalition of more than 250 former national security, intelligence, and diplomatic professionals,