XPost: sci.military.naval

The Kiplinger Newsletter talks about Russia & NATO

Dear Client: Washington, July 7, 2022

Russia has made NATO matter again,
providing the transatlantic military alliance
with a new threat around which to unite.
The security of Europe is at stake.
The U.S. will play an essential role
in both strengthening the NATO military deterrent
and shoring up the continent’s energy supplies.
A few years ago, NATO was in rough shape,
with various alliance members at odds
over defense spending, troop stationing and more.
Now, Washington is sending more troops,
planes, ships and other hardware. Moreover, the Army
is planning a new permanent base in Poland.
Allies are ponying up more defense dollars.
In 2014, just three of NATO’s then 28 members
spent the alliance’s required 2% of GDP on defense:
The U.S., U.K. and Greece. Today, nine do, and a total
of 19 have plans to meet the 2% threshold by 2024.
Plus, new countries are joining the alliance.
Sweden and Finland will bring the total number
of member states to 32. Both already cooperated
with NATO to some degree. Their advanced militaries
will greatly improve the alliance’s ability to project power in the
nearby Baltic region.
It’s the biggest buildup since the Cold War, which should be a boon
to U.S. arms exporters. Several NATO members rank among the top buyers
of American weaponry, including the U.K., the Netherlands, Norway and
Denmark.
While Washington is ready to help defend Europe from Russia militarily...

Securing the continent economically will be much more difficult, as the U.S. has already discovered in its efforts to help wean Europe off Russian
energy supplies.
Prior to its invasion of Ukraine, Russia supplied 40% of the continent’s natural gas,
25% of its oil and 10% of the diesel fuel it consumes. Via European
sanctions
and Russian export restrictions, supplies have dwindled, and prices have spiked.
The U.S. has tried to make up the shortfall by increasing exports of
diesel and LNG...
liquefied natural gas. But it can only do so much. Meanwhile, European
efforts
to replace natural gas with nuclear and renewable power will take years
to pan out.
Trying to forswear Russian energy imports may prove unsustainable.
Another big question facing the alliance: How to handle China. Heretofore, Europe has been less enthusiastic than the U.S. about confronting
Beijing. Now,
China’s continued support of Russia...despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine...
plus Beijing’s investments in new military technology are changing that calculus.
Are we on the cusp of a new Cold War between NATO, Russia and China?
Time will tell. If so, it will be complicated, namely by the fact that
the U.S.
and its NATO allies are so economically dependent on their major
adversaries.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)