An influential conservative voice is making a blunt case: If Canada and Europe want to escalate tensions with Russia, they should do it without the United States covering their backs.
In a new American Thinker column, writer J.B. Shurk argues that decades of U.S. military guarantees have allowed NATO allies to underinvest in their own defenses while redirecting money toward social programs — and now those same allies are pushing for a wider war that Washington should refuse to join.
Shurk’s argument comes amid a period of heightened transatlantic friction. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking at the G20 gathering in Asheville, North Carolina, recently criticized Canada’s defense posture, noting that Ottawa is “near the very bottom” of NATO military spending rankings — “cellar dwellers around with Spain,” as he put it. Bessent suggested Canada had traded military readiness for “global warming” fantasies and welfare spending while relying on America’s “free” security umbrella.
The piece uses that moment to launch a broader critique of the alliance’s free-rider problem, a long-standing grievance among U.S. defense hawks. According to Shurk, most NATO members have for decades depended on American taxpayers to provide the bulk of the West’s security — even though treaty obligations require each nation to pay its fair share.
A Structural Problem Decades in the Making
Shurk traces the imbalance to NATO’s founding in the post-World War II era, when European economies lay in ruins and the U.S. emerged as a military and economic superpower. The U.S., he argues, accepted that its “unparalleled powers came with unparalleled responsibilities.”
But seventy-seven years later, that arrangement has produced two dangerous distortions, he contends.
First, member nations pocketed the savings from U.S. protection and shifted government spending away from their militaries and toward ever-expanding social welfare programs. That dynamic, Shurk writes, has enabled Canada, the United Kingdom, and much of the European Union to embrace forms of socialism — heavy regulation, green energy mandates, and generous handouts — that would have been “prohibitively expensive” if these nations had been forced to defend themselves.
“U.S. taxpayers have been subsidizing socialism throughout the West,” Shurk asserts, adding that without American security guarantees, these countries would not have had the money for public healthcare, housing, transportation, and other welfare state benefits — nor would they have been able to pour resources into what he characterizes as economically suicidal climate initiatives.
The second distortion, he argues, is even more consequential: NATO members now conduct themselves on the world stage as if they possess military resources they don’t actually have, absent American assurances. This has emboldened them to take aggressive postures they would not otherwise dare to adopt.
Provoking Russia While Refusing to Help in the Strait of Hormuz
Shurk points to a striking dichotomy in current U.S.-ally relations. On one hand, member nations have reportedly refused to assist American operations in the Strait of Hormuz, where the Trump administration is working to eliminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions and what it calls the “terror premium” Iran extracts from oil shipments. On the other hand, these same allies have grown increasingly belligerent toward Russia.
He notes the uncomfortable position Europe has maneuvered itself into: EU “green energy” policies have made the bloc dependent on oil and gas from Russia, the Middle East, and the United States. Appeasing Iran while provoking Russia, he warns, increases the likelihood of Europe’s economic collapse.
Shurk credits President Trump with seeking to limit direct confrontation between the U.S. and Russia, describing Trump’s view that the Ukraine war was a “stupid and unnecessary conflict” that would never have happened under his watch. In Shurk’s telling, NATO’s eastward expansion toward Russia’s borders and what he calls the “European and American-instigated 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine” set the stage for the current war — a framing consistent with Russian narratives, though contested by Western governments.
Since returning to office in 2025, Shurk notes, Trump has worked to end the fighting. But Canada, the U.K., and the European Commission have continued pledging military support for Ukraine — a country that is neither a NATO member nor part of the EU. Shurk argues these nations would be far less likely to be expanding the war if they didn’t have the U.S. NATO commitment behind them.
A Drone Incident Sparks Talk of War
The column’s closing section focuses on recent events that have sharply ratcheted up tensions. September 1, 2026 — exactly 87 years after Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland launched World War II — is when Germany accused Russia of committing an act of war, according to Shurk.
The flashpoint: a small quadcopter drone carrying an improvised explosive device was found near Ukrainian cargo planes at the Leipzig-Halle Airport on August 4. After a month-long investigation, German authorities pinned the “drone attack” on low-level Russian agents. Germany raised its threat assessment to “high” and expelled Russian diplomats. One prominent German defense executive has pronounced that “Germany and Russia are at war.”
Russia, for its part, called the allegation “nonsensical” and “far-fetched,” comparing it to the 2022 accusation that Russia blew up the Nord Stream pipelines — sabotage that Shurk notes appears to have been the work of Ukraine.
Despite the contested nature of the allegation, NATO members quickly lined up to declare their readiness to confront Russia. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk assured NATO’s support for Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote that “the EU stands in full solidarity with Germany.” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte all accused Russia of a “hybrid attack” against a NATO member. European leaders in Brussels are reportedly assembling a war cabinet.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy threatened the safety of civilian airliners flying through Russian airspace — a move Russian President Vladimir Putin characterized as “a move toward state terrorism” that would necessitate “a response.”
“Let the Free-Riders Fight WWIII”
Shurk’s conclusion is stark and unapologetic: Canada and Europe’s NATO members want more war. Non-NATO Ukraine wants more war. The United States should get out of the way.
“Let the free-riders fight WWIII,” he writes.
The column reflects a significant strand of thinking in conservative and Trump-aligned circles, one that views NATO not as a pillar of American strength but as a vehicle for European freeloading — and that increasingly sees the alliance’s eastward push into Russia’s periphery as reckless provocation rather than principled defense.
It’s a perspective that puts the writer at odds with much of the mainstream foreign policy establishment on both sides of the Atlantic, which continues to view NATO as the essential bulwark of European security and supports arming Ukraine against Russian aggression. Polling has shown a majority of Americans still favor NATO membership.
But with the war in Ukraine grinding on and tensions between Russia and Europe escalating over incidents like the Leipzig-Halle drone episode, the debate over who should bear the cost — and the risk — of confronting Moscow is only likely to intensify.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/09/let-nato-s-free-riders-fight-wwiii/