Steven Fish, a political scientist who has done extensive research on the post-1990 political transition in Russia, explains the conventional perspective on how US alliance systems have worked in a way to strengthen US power and influence in the world:
There was undoubtedly a deterrent component to NATO's formation and existence because of the ideolgical rivalry between the US/West and Soviet Russia. There are also entirely obvious and legitimate historical reasons why many Eastern bloc countries, and others, wanted a guarantor against Russian revanchism. But there was, and remains, a profit motive too. Countries in NATO must use NATO-standard weaponry, the majority of which is American made. Thus there's always been an incentive to encourage market expansion and keep tensions boiling by poking the bear. The neo-cons worked hard at that. This gets overlooked by liberals, especially, due to Russophobia, and the fact that the Dems are now the natural home to the neocon ideology compared to the GOP. This flipping around of US party politics, in which mainstream Dems fully embrace the military industrial complex and a confrontational foreign policy while their GOP-MAGA rivals push for a return to Great Power politcs and spheres of interest (and Trump's crazed and chaotic transactional style) does not bode well for international relations. That's because neither side emphasizes any sort of sustainable diplomacy (seems like a lost art).
The dependence of European forces on NATO resources and support from the US is going to be a big challenge for European nations trying to develop more independent capabilities. They have also been buying a lot of their armaments from US companies, which means the US military-industrial complex will get more profits from it without even the US even being willing to stick with the mutual-defense commitment. (Or to stop making military threats against NATO members Canada and Denmark!)
I think now more than ever that Biden's Ukraine policy was more-or-less operating on auto-pilot. And that the basic idea was that keeping the war going - by not even attempting any substantive peace nogotiations - would automatically be good for the US. The neocons and the liberal-internationalists were both on board for that ride. Seymour Hersh has mentioned reports he's been getting from Biden officials that Biden's cognitive declline was much more evident to his staff than has been publicly documented so far. More serious negotiations with Russia when they began massing troops on the Ukraine border at the end of 2021, or a year later when Ukraine had pushed back Russian forces, look like big missed opportunities to negotiate a settlement more substantial than Trump is ever likely to achieve.
There was undoubtedly a deterrent component to NATO's formation and existence because of the ideolgical rivalry between the US/West and Soviet Russia. There are also entirely obvious and legitimate historical reasons why many Eastern bloc countries, and others, wanted a guarantor against Russian revanchism. But there was, and remains, a profit motive too. Countries in NATO must use NATO-standard weaponry, the majority of which is American made. Thus there's always been an incentive to encourage market expansion and keep tensions boiling by poking the bear. The neo-cons worked hard at that. This gets overlooked by liberals, especially, due to Russophobia, and the fact that the Dems are now the natural home to the neocon ideology compared to the GOP. This flipping around of US party politics, in which mainstream Dems fully embrace the military industrial complex and a confrontational foreign policy while their GOP-MAGA rivals push for a return to Great Power politcs and spheres of interest (and Trump's crazed and chaotic transactional style) does not bode well for international relations. That's because neither side emphasizes any sort of sustainable diplomacy (seems like a lost art).
The dependence of European forces on NATO resources and support from the US is going to be a big challenge for European nations trying to develop more independent capabilities. They have also been buying a lot of their armaments from US companies, which means the US military-industrial complex will get more profits from it without even the US even being willing to stick with the mutual-defense commitment. (Or to stop making military threats against NATO members Canada and Denmark!)
I think now more than ever that Biden's Ukraine policy was more-or-less operating on auto-pilot. And that the basic idea was that keeping the war going - by not even attempting any substantive peace nogotiations - would automatically be good for the US. The neocons and the liberal-internationalists were both on board for that ride. Seymour Hersh has mentioned reports he's been getting from Biden officials that Biden's cognitive declline was much more evident to his staff than has been publicly documented so far. More serious negotiations with Russia when they began massing troops on the Ukraine border at the end of 2021, or a year later when Ukraine had pushed back Russian forces, look like big missed opportunities to negotiate a settlement more substantial than Trump is ever likely to achieve.