Foreign Policy

Having spent the last two meetings discussing national (US) politics, I thought we could turn our attention to Europe:

• Given the Trump Administration’s uncertain support for the NATO alliance, how should Europe react?
• Are the European members of NATO sufficiently aligned in their policies/objectives to coordinate well without strong US leadership, or are countries like Hungary likely to cause decision-making gridlock?
• Can Europe really achieve the 5% of GDP defense spending objective without undue political backlash? If they do, how? Higher taxes? Adjustments to social spending? What will these moves do to economic growth?
• Can Europe establish a unified front vis-a-vis Ukraine? Russia? China?
• What will be the implications for US policy (and the US economy) if the Europeans do become more independent and self-sufficient?

Last week, we decided to discuss Ukraine at our next meeting (today). We expected some news on the subject over the coming week, but no one anticipated the seismic changes we actually experienced.
So it should be a fascinating and, hopefully, fruitful discussion.