We are standing at a crossroads where our leaders must decide what future we want.
Despotism
On the one hand, we can have a future where we might make right. Israel has more weapons than Palestinians, so they have the right to kill them all. Russia has nukes, and Ukraine does not, thanks to Bill Clinton. Russia has the right to rape as many Ukrainian girls as they please. Ukraine is a smaller country; they cannot attack Russia. The United States cannot get involved because Russia, with an economy and population of less than a quarter the population of NATO, is going to threaten us with nuclear bombs. They have the might that makes them right.
If China attacks Taiwan, that is their right. North Korea has the right to reclaim South Korea. If Israel is overpowered by Arab states, then that is just how it is.
Oh wait, but we also have a level of white supremacy on top of this, so even though Israel is small, they are right because they are white.
So white supremacy is the first priority, and then they might make right on top of white supremacy. This fully explains the foreign policy of the Biden administration. Beyond white supremacy, we have a large bipartisan consensus of nationalism in United States foreign policy. This leads to travel visas for citizens from other NATO member states. A resistance towards free trade with Europe, except if it is just the United States enforcing our ridiculous copyright law on other countries into a global law.
The world of that future is where Russia will eventually attack NATO. America will leave NATO, and Europe does not yet have the focus on domestic military manufacturing to counter Europe by itself, or so we like to tell ourselves.
Europe doesn’t spend enough on their militaries because they are so busy being socialists.
Russia is going to utterly destroy Europe after they finish Ukraine.
We can only stand by as people are massacred, and countries that are improving are invaded and turned into puppet states. We are too weak.
Or that’s the narrative I have been seeing in the media.
The Real World
If we look at real data, we find that Russia spends 4% of its GDP on military, while Germany and France are below 2% targets. Russia has a larger population than either, so Europe is screwed. Right?
But that is not the case. China has the world’s largest GDP at $35 trillion and the United States has the second largest GDP at $28 trillion. The European Union has a GDP of $25 trillion. Russia has a GDP of $5 trillion.
Russia’s 4% of its GDP comes out to only $86 billion in total military expenditure. Germany and France together come out to $109 billion. If you add up the military expenditure of the 14 highest expenditure states in the European Union, there is a total of $308.1 billion. Over 3.5 times larger than Russia’s military expenditure.
If Turkey, the United States, and the United Kingdom are added in, we have a military expenditure 14.5 times the size of Russia’s military expenditure. That is $1.26 trillion. Global military expenditure is $2.2 trillion. Over half of all military expenditure is from NATO countries.
My point is that we have the power to defeat Russia fully and make the world a safer place. We do not need to support Israeli aggression and we have the power to force them to come to a solution with Palestinians whether they want to or not.
The United States has military alliances with countries in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. These include countries as populous as Brazil and as rich as Luxembourg and economies the size of Japan, the United Kingdom, and Germany. All of these countries are democracies or were when we signed the treaty. We also have defense pacts with Uruguay, Estonia, Iceland, and Haiti. We have military relationships with democracies large and small, rich and poor. None of these countries are going to be attacked.
One country that is missing from our long list of military allies, however, is Israel.
The United States sends a massive amount of military aid to Israel, but we are not obligated to come to their aid. If Israel was bombed with a nuclear bomb in retaliation for the genocide in Gaza, the United States would be under no obligation to come to their aid.
Israel is not part of any treaty that would place it as a prospective member of any alliance of the United States besides the OECD. Aside from the OECD, the United States and Israel have no official ties beyond the aid that is sent there to get the vote of evangelicals.
But we all know America is getting less religious, and the desire for an actual solution to the Israeli-Palestinian war is growing. It is just a matter of time before the United States has a president who does not support sending Israel blank checks without solving the crisis.
Ukraine, however, is a totally different story. It is a member of the Council of Europe, Baku Initiative, GUAM, an observer of the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative, and the Council of the Baltic Sea States. Ukraine has been actively seeking out closer relations with democracies for 20 years now, and that is their right as a sovereign nation.
I love this map because it clearly describes the political situation in Europe. Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia need NATO membership. They can then utilize history, legislative examples, and experts from their allies (which includes the United States) to root out corruption and democratize further. The advantage they have of being so late to the democratization game is we know what works. They don’t need to experiment with many of their challenges because these problems are solved.
This is the real world we are in. NATO countries spend the majority of global military expenditure. No one can seriously harm NATO. With this great power, we can assist people around the world in creating a more just and peaceful world. That is the future I want to live in.