> if it weren't for the current defensive arrangement with the US, would europe spend more on defense? Europe is a lot of countries, the US-Europe alliance is

> if it weren't for the current defensive arrangement with the US, would europe spend more on defense? Europe is a lot of countries, the US-Europe alliance is old enough that there have been at least three or four distinct time periods where the answer to this question fluctuates (cold war, post cold war, post-9/11, post Syria) Furthermore, defense is not some sort of measurable good; especially for countries in the EU who are surrounded by non-enemies, how much they choose to spend on defense is in large part a political question. It's really hard to say e.g., whether Germans would have chosen to spend more on defense if the US decreased its defense spending in Europe. And the answer would probably be different in the different time periods I mentioned above. E.g., given the German attitude toward US military presence in Europe over the past 20 years [1], I suspect the answer for that period is "no". But ultimately the answer to this question will be different from country to country and from decade to decade, and a truly nonpartisan answer would be "there's really no way to give a definitive answer for all of Europe across that time period.". > do we americans overestimate our contribution to the defensive posture of the west? Americans underestimate (or often simply don't even know about) their contribution to many of Europe's most pressing security and welfare expenditures. The 15 year war in the middle east is now taking an enormous economic and political toll on Europe. It's not too far-fetched to say that Europe might have been both safer and richer today had the US spent substantially less money on its military over the past 15 years (read: not waged wars in the middle east). [1] https://www.thelocal.de/20180711/almost-half-of-germans-want-us-army-to-leave-the-country https://www.thelocal.de/20180711/almost-half-of-germans-want...