WARNING: LONG THREAD 🧵
Dear Americans,
Your political and media class has sold you a very convenient fairy tale for decades - the tale of how your tax dollars pay to defend freeloading Europe.
While it's an emotionally satisfying narrative, it's also wrong.
THE U.S. DOES NOT SUBSIDIZE EUROPEAN DEFENCE.
You are not running a charity, you are running an empire. And empires are costly.
Your forward deployments, your bases, your carrier groups, etc. - they are the pillars of a global security architecture that mainly serves you: to protect your trade routes, your currency, your corporate supply chains, your ability to project force anywhere on the planet in hours and days, not months.
Let’s walk through this like adults, and not emotional toddlers, shall we?
1. Power projection, not philanthropy
Your prosperity rests on your ability to project power -military, financial, informational.
Your ports are not overflowing with cheap goods and energy because the world thinks you’re cute or because U.S. Treasuries are sacred. You sit at the center of the system because you guarantee that system with force: sea lanes, chokepoints, sanctions, no-fly zones when it suits you.
No one forced the U.S. into that role. Washington chose it because the benefits - geopolitical leverage, economic primacy, dollar hegemony - are enormous. Stop pretending it’s some unreciprocated act of kindness toward Europe.
Your prosperity rests on your ability to project power -military, financial, informational.
Your ports are not overflowing with cheap goods and energy because the world thinks you’re cute or because U.S. Treasuries are sacred. You sit at the center of the system because you guarantee that system with force: sea lanes, chokepoints, sanctions, no-fly zones when it suits you.
No one forced the U.S. into that role. Washington chose it because the benefits - geopolitical leverage, economic primacy, dollar hegemony - are enormous. Stop pretending it’s some unreciprocated act of kindness toward Europe.
2. Europe is your global hub
Open a map. Then look at where your stuff is.
Europe is the logistical backbone that lets you wage war and conduct operations across Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia without having to move everything across the ocean every time.
Ramstein and the rest of the European network are not there to “protect Germany’” They are there because from European soil you can:
- Fly troops and cargo to Iraq, Syria, the Gulf, the Sahel, Afghanistan and back with minimal time loss.
- Run command-and-control, ISR, and drone operations into multiple theatres.
- Treat wounded and rotate forces efficiently because the entire infrastructure is already in place.
You could try to rebuild that from scratch inside CONUS or in less stable regions. It would cost you billions, take years, and give you worse geography. Forward basing in allied countries is, in many analyses, cheaper than constantly rotating equivalent forces from the U.S. and trying to replicate those hubs at home.
So no, you’re not “paying to defend Europe.” You’re paying for real estate that underwrites your global reach.
Open a map. Then look at where your stuff is.
Europe is the logistical backbone that lets you wage war and conduct operations across Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia without having to move everything across the ocean every time.
Ramstein and the rest of the European network are not there to “protect Germany’” They are there because from European soil you can:
- Fly troops and cargo to Iraq, Syria, the Gulf, the Sahel, Afghanistan and back with minimal time loss.
- Run command-and-control, ISR, and drone operations into multiple theatres.
- Treat wounded and rotate forces efficiently because the entire infrastructure is already in place.
You could try to rebuild that from scratch inside CONUS or in less stable regions. It would cost you billions, take years, and give you worse geography. Forward basing in allied countries is, in many analyses, cheaper than constantly rotating equivalent forces from the U.S. and trying to replicate those hubs at home.
So no, you’re not “paying to defend Europe.” You’re paying for real estate that underwrites your global reach.
3. NATO standards + U.S. arms industry
Another inconvenient fact: NATO’s standards and interoperability heavily bias procurement toward U.S. systems - especially in high-end kit like fighters, air defence, and long-range precision weapons.
Result? Europe has become one of the largest markets for U.S. arms exports, with a growing share of America’s weapons sales now going to European allies.
European NATO members have doubled their arms imports in recent years; well over half of that comes from the U.S.
That money flows into U.S. defence contractors, U.S. R&D, U.S. jobs - very often in the same red states whose politicians rant the loudest about “subsidizing Europe.”
So ask yourself: who is subsidizing whom?
And here’s what nobody else tells you: the moment Europeans actually “take defence seriously” and rebuild their own industrial base - joint procurement, local ammo and missile production - that dependence on U.S. defense hardware starts to shrink.
Another inconvenient fact: NATO’s standards and interoperability heavily bias procurement toward U.S. systems - especially in high-end kit like fighters, air defence, and long-range precision weapons.
Result? Europe has become one of the largest markets for U.S. arms exports, with a growing share of America’s weapons sales now going to European allies.
European NATO members have doubled their arms imports in recent years; well over half of that comes from the U.S.
That money flows into U.S. defence contractors, U.S. R&D, U.S. jobs - very often in the same red states whose politicians rant the loudest about “subsidizing Europe.”
So ask yourself: who is subsidizing whom?
And here’s what nobody else tells you: the moment Europeans actually “take defence seriously” and rebuild their own industrial base - joint procurement, local ammo and missile production - that dependence on U.S. defense hardware starts to shrink.
4. Europe doesn’t “pay nothing”
That line is just lazy thinking, be serious. European host nations:
- Provide rent-free land for bases.
- Waive or reduce taxes, customs duties, and fees that would otherwise fall on U.S. forces.
- Co-fund infrastructure, housing, roads, utilities, and training ranges.
- Contribute billions collectively in Host Nation Support and NATO common funding.
When you add in the in-kind subsidies - land, tax breaks, waived fees - the picture is very different.
In many cases, keeping a brigade forward-stationed in an allied country is less expensive (and can be cheaper) than constantly rotating it from the U.S. and building all the infrastructure yourself.
Again: this is not a one-way subsidy. It’s a business arrangement that suits both sides.
That line is just lazy thinking, be serious. European host nations:
- Provide rent-free land for bases.
- Waive or reduce taxes, customs duties, and fees that would otherwise fall on U.S. forces.
- Co-fund infrastructure, housing, roads, utilities, and training ranges.
- Contribute billions collectively in Host Nation Support and NATO common funding.
When you add in the in-kind subsidies - land, tax breaks, waived fees - the picture is very different.
In many cases, keeping a brigade forward-stationed in an allied country is less expensive (and can be cheaper) than constantly rotating it from the U.S. and building all the infrastructure yourself.
Again: this is not a one-way subsidy. It’s a business arrangement that suits both sides.
5. Article 5
Reminder - Article 5 has been invoked only once in NATO history. Not for Europe. For you, after 9/11.
European and other allied troops then followed the U.S. into Afghanistan for nearly 20 years.
Over 1,000 non-U.S. soldiers from NATO and partner countries were killed there. Thousands more were wounded, many from countries that hadn’t lost soldiers in war since 1945.
If you insist on describing NATO as a “subsidy,” remember that this “subsidy” has already been paid in blood by your allies. To pretend otherwise is not just economically illiterate; it’s dishonourable.
Reminder - Article 5 has been invoked only once in NATO history. Not for Europe. For you, after 9/11.
European and other allied troops then followed the U.S. into Afghanistan for nearly 20 years.
Over 1,000 non-U.S. soldiers from NATO and partner countries were killed there. Thousands more were wounded, many from countries that hadn’t lost soldiers in war since 1945.
If you insist on describing NATO as a “subsidy,” remember that this “subsidy” has already been paid in blood by your allies. To pretend otherwise is not just economically illiterate; it’s dishonourable.
Bottomline: the U.S. does not subsidize European defense; it invests in its own global security architecture.
Does Europe under-invest in defence relative to its wealth? Often, yes. Are there wasteful dynamics? Yes. But the idea that “Europe freeloads” is a comforting lie your own elites sell you so you never seriously audit the size, structure, and purpose of your own defence budget. And they don't want to tell you that the prosperity you've experiences is paid for with the blood of American soldiers.
Also no, Europeans are not taking your tax dollars to “house migrants”. Many of those migrants are fleeing wars and state collapses in which both the U.S. and key European states played a direct role. That’s a shared responsibility, not a one-way theft.
So if you want to argue with Europe about burden sharing, by all means do it. But at least start from reality:
This isn’t a relationship where America nobly pays the bill and Europe rides for free. It’s a mutually profitable security arrangement in which Washington takes a leading role...because it wanted to.
Does Europe under-invest in defence relative to its wealth? Often, yes. Are there wasteful dynamics? Yes. But the idea that “Europe freeloads” is a comforting lie your own elites sell you so you never seriously audit the size, structure, and purpose of your own defence budget. And they don't want to tell you that the prosperity you've experiences is paid for with the blood of American soldiers.
Also no, Europeans are not taking your tax dollars to “house migrants”. Many of those migrants are fleeing wars and state collapses in which both the U.S. and key European states played a direct role. That’s a shared responsibility, not a one-way theft.
So if you want to argue with Europe about burden sharing, by all means do it. But at least start from reality:
This isn’t a relationship where America nobly pays the bill and Europe rides for free. It’s a mutually profitable security arrangement in which Washington takes a leading role...because it wanted to.
cc @texasgermanbre that's down your lane, something we talked about recently.
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