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> Countries still need protecting

Countries don’t need protecting. Countries should aim to protect themselves. The EU doesn’t need the US for its protection and should have invested in a proper army decades ago.

It’s obvious that the main benefit for the USA is that NATO dissuades the EU to actually be a power. That some countries in the east are happy to play lapdogs is a major issue.

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> Countries don’t need protecting. Countries should aim to protect themselves. The EU doesn’t need the US for its protection and should have invested in a proper army decades ago.

It's simply not possible from some countries to protect themselves for other larger aggressive countries (such as Russia) that can both out spend them and have many more bodies to throw at the problem.

A collective defensive alliance in this cases makes sense as both a deterrence to any possible belligerents and as a practical measure if someone does try something.

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