Is a Perfidious Ally Really an Ally?

You have heard the song before. The treacherous and deranged Trump administration is distancing itself from our sometime European allies. In truth, it’s only the Western European allies, and especially, lame duck German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She seems especially are horrified that Trump has broken with Obama policy on immigration and Iran. For that reason, Merkel, in order to show off her large cojones, has conspicuously broken with her American ally.

Think about it, a nation that cannot defend itself militarily, that depends almost entirely on the United States for its defense, is planning to cut back on its military spending. However often you genuflect to the greatness of the NATO alliance, the truth is that most of the European nations that sit under its umbrella are weak and ineffectual, incapable of defending themselves, and unwilling to fulfill their financial commitments to NATO. They prefer to spend their money of social welfare programs.

At the least, they are parasites and sponges. To defend the alliance bespeaks a complete naïveté. And yet, Frau Merkel is at it again. Not only is her nation unwilling to pay for its defense it is not even good to its word. It had promised to contribute more to NATO, but is now getting ready to break its word.

Perfidious allies should not expect to be treated as loyal and trustworthy allies.

And that is not even the end of it. Germany is contracting for a natural gas pipeline that will make it dependent on Russian gas. And you thought that Trump was Putin’s puppet. Apparently, Merkel is Putin’s bitch. And Germany is using German technology, from Huawei to install 5G networks. And let’s not forget that Germany is also hard at work to help Iran circumvent American sanctions. The fact that Iran is the leading state sponsor of anti-Semitic terrorism does not seem to bother the leader of the nation that led the world in anti-Semitic genocide.

The Wall Street Journal has the story.

The German government is poised to renege on its pledge to raise military spending, the latest gesture of defiance by Chancellor Angela Merkel toward President Donald Trump.

If confirmed at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the move would mark a fresh step in the gradual estrangement between the U.S. and its erstwhile loyal European ally and comes after Mr. Trump’s repeated attacks of North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders for not meeting a 2% military-spending target.

In recent months, Berlin has rebuked Washington’s demands that it limits gas purchases from Russia, ban Chinese components from its communication networks, and prevent German companies from doing business with Iran.

In another sign of Berlin pushing for Europe to chart a more independent geopolitical course, Ms. Merkel is planning an unprecedented summit between European Union heads of government and Chinese President Xi Jinping next year, European diplomats said Monday.

Ms. Merkel publicly pledged last year to increase German military expenditure to 1.5% of gross domestic product by 2024 and bring it closer to the 2% level members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have set themselves as a target. The promise followed mounting and increasingly overt pressure by Washington under Mr. Trump.

The government might still change its mind. The vote on the draft proposal will occur tomorrow:

The government has yet to endorse the draft, which will be put to the cabinet on Wednesday. It will again approve the final plan in early summer before parliament has the last word.

And, by the by, Frau Merkel is going to join with other European leaders to host Chinese president Xi Jinping next year. At a moment when Europe is falling apart.  At a moment when it is losing influence in the world, when France is suffering a minor grade public insurrection, when Eastern Europe is increasingly alienated from the Franco-Germanic immigration policy, when England, under the incompetent leadership of Theresa May is still trying to figure out how to implement the results of its Brexit referendum, Frau Merkel decides to step on to the world stage, mostly, I suspect to interfere with American policy:

Separately, Ms. Merkel’s decision to host the Chinese president with other EU leaders next year comes partly in response to Mr. Trump’s effort to reset his country’s own relation with the emerging superpower.

EU heads of government rarely meet collectively with other countries. Such high-level summits tend to be with other regional groups like the Asia-Europe Meeting or, recently, the League of Arab States. Germany holds the presidency of the EU in the second half of 2020.

There was no immediate comment from Ms. Merkel’s spokesman.