So Trump has decided not to take Greenland by force. He announced that today at Davos. This is great news. It was becoming pretty apparent that a military move might:

– spark a stock market meltdown

– be met by force (even if we would win)

– break NATO

– lead to massive European Union counter-sanctions

– spark yet another impeachment effort against Trump

– provoke a civil-military crisis in the US (because the US military might not follow attack orders on the belief that they are illegal, because NATO’s 1949 Washington Treaty is signed and ratified and, therefore, US law).

But there is another possible cost which I saw little discussed: the loss of US bases in Europe in the wake a NATO’s implosion, and the consequent loss of US power projection into the Middle East. I develop this idea here, in my weekly column for 1945 web-magazine.

Here is my core claim:

[Expulsion of the US military from Europe in the wake of NATO’s rupture] will dramatically reduce America’s ability to project power into Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The US has dozens of bases in Europe. These are its largest in the world outside of the US mainland. They enable the US to project force throughout the western Eurasia and North Africa; they provide the massive logistic tail needed for modern military operations. Particularly, US airbases and friendly ports permit the maintenance and support required by modern, hi-tech air and sea platforms. As one former US commander in Europe put it, “a large-scale withdrawal would make US power projection slower, costlier, and less effective.”

MAGA might argue that the US does not need to project power into Europe or Africa…But Trump’s coalition does care – quite intensely – about US power projection into the Middle East. Trump’s staunchest supporters are evangelical Christians. For them, US alignment with Israel is a core national security priority, as is the ability to strike Muslim states perceived as anti-American. European logistical hubs help substantially with that. US bases in Middle East tend to be smaller and more politically controversial with their hosts than those in Europe.

I also point out that MAGA might not even have grasped this problem. Americans have become so accustomed to US global dominance – it’s 81 years now since we emerged on top after WWII – that I think we just take it for granted. We just don’t get that we need allies and partners to project into far away places like the Persian Gulf. MAGA certainly doesn’t get that at all. Their relentless belligerence strongly suggests they think the US can do almost anything without losing allies. That is incorrect.