Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
“If the US intends to abandon Nato, the best hope of smaller nations is to strengthen their mutual defense alliances, perhaps even creating a unified European defense force. Even then, it would be considerably weaker than the US military. But deterrence doesn’t need military superiority to be successful, it merely needs to be strong enough to inflict considerable pain on its adversaries. Switzerland’s military wasn’t strong enough to defeat Germany in WWII, but they were strong enough so that Germany did not consider it worthwhile to attack.” (04/24/25)