United States and Canada

Response to Gates: Europe’s Waning Influence

By Kori Schake, the New York Times

From Kori Schake, the New York Times: Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s speech was less a slap at Europeans to spend more (a case he has made consistently during his tenure) than a warning that their influence is waning.

Response to Gates: Alliance of the Unwilling

By Josef Joffe, the New York Times

From Josef Joffe, the New York Times:  The French defense budget is 1.8 percent of G.D.P., the British is 2.2 percent — a long way from the 3 percent to 4 percent in the cold war.

Gates to NATO: Drop dead?

By Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy

From Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy:  NATO has been on borrowed time ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, because military alliances form primarily to deal with external threats and they are hard to hold together once the threat is gone.

Russian submarine mates with U.S. sub rescue system in NATO Exercise

By Allied Command Operations

Bob Gates’s sermon to Europe applies at home as well

By the Editors of the Washington Post

From the Editors of the Washington Post:  [Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates rightly blamed European governments for being “apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.

Is the U.S.-European Relationship Really in Decline?

By James Joyner, the Atlantic

From James Joyner, the Atlantic:  The blistering farewell speech to NATO by U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates warning of a "dim, if not dismal" future for the Alliance drew the Western public’s attention to a longstanding debate about the state of the transatlantic relationship.

U.S. signs agreement to station F-16s and military personnel in Poland

By Reuters

From Reuters:  NATO allies Poland and the United States signed a deal on Monday for the stationing of U.S. airforce personnel on Polish soil, a symbolically important move for Warsaw as it keeps a nervous eye on neighbouring Russia. The accord, endorsed by U.S. President Barack Obama during his visit to Warsaw late last month, […]

Gaddafi thanks Congress for challenging Obama on Libya Op

By Mark Landler, the New York Times

From Mark Landler, the New York Times:  Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has written to members of Congress thanking them for criticizing President Obama last week over his involvement in the NATO-led military campaign in Libya.

Can European leaders avoid driving NATO over a cliff?

By Joseph Wood, the German Marshall Fund of the US

‘Collective Military Irrelevance’

By the Editors of the Wall Street Journal

From the Editors of the Wall Street Journal:  Defense Secretary Robert Gates is leaving office with a bang, and yesterday his target was a NATO alliance that he said is risking "collective military irrelevance" by spending so little on defense that it can’t defeat a two-bit dictator like Moammar Gadhafi