Why does the United States station approximately 70,000 troops in Europe?
It is not because the Europeans love us. Germans overwhelmingly cite France (46%) as their country’s most essential foreign policy partner, compared to 26% for the United States. Around 64% to 68% of the British public views the U.S. as having a negative impact or being a “force for bad” in the world, compared to under 10% who see it as a force for good. Italians now view China (51%) more favorably than the U.S. while 51% of Spaniards classify Washington as a threat to Europe. Over 60% of adults in France express an unfavorable overall view of the United States.
A foundational premise of libertarian theory is straightforward: meaningful fiscal restraint is impossible while maintaining a global empire. For decades, federal budgets have bloated under the weight of an expansive foreign policy that treats the American military not as a lean, defensive shield for domestic soil, but as a global guarantor of foreign security. Because overseas deployments, foreign bases, and entangling alliances account for a massive portion of discretionary federal outlays, any serious effort to slash government spending, eliminate deficit-funded inflation, and reduce the tax burden on individual citizens must start at the water’s edge. True fiscal responsibility requires dismantling the garrison state, abandoning the pretense of global policing, and bringing American military forces back entirely within our own borders.
From this perspective, America’s commitment to NATO functions as a massive, continuous transfer of assets seized from U.S. taxpayers to foreign governments. Because the U.S. military provides an overarching defense shield, European member states can systematically underfund their own national security and redirect national capital into domestic priorities. According to analysis from the Cato Institute, this dynamic allows European nations to shirk fundamental defense expenditures while relying on American debt-funded military deployments.
Europe’s internal policy choices have heightened their internal instability and security vulnerabilities across the continent. From a realist foreign policy perspective, the American commitment to NATO creates a classic “moral hazard” by insulating European governments from the direct security consequences of their own policy decisions. Because Washington guarantees European defense, allied capitals have historically felt less pressure to maintain robust military forces or strictly prioritize primary security concerns. The Cato Institute points out that this structural asymmetry allows European states to direct their national budgets into generous social spending while relying on American military power as an ultimate safety net. Consequently, American security guarantees inadvertently de-incentivize European self-reliance, effectively requiring U.S. strategy to absorb risks generated by decisions made abroad over which American voters have no direct control.
Proponents of military restraint and strategic decoupling, as detailed in analyses of American posture and alliance commitments, contend that withdrawing from NATO would allow the United States to reduce bloated defense expenditures and reallocate fiscal resources domestically, or better yet reduce taxes. Crucially, stepping back from the alliance would sever the automatic escalation mechanisms that risk dragging the American military into localized European conflicts, civil strife, or regional crises sparked by European internal mismanagement, ensuring that U.S. defense policy focuses exclusively on core national interest rather than policing European security.
This U.S. defense subsidy provides NATO members directly translates into an artificial competitive advantage for European firms in global trade. Unburdened by the need to fund a self-sufficient military apparatus, European governments can subsidize targeted domestic industries, invest in state-backed commercial infrastructure, and offset employment costs without imposing equivalent tax hikes on their export sectors. U.S. defense spending inflates foreign budgets, and American taxpayers end up underwriting the security of global supply chains and European commercial access, while foreign enterprises enjoy the market stability without bearing the associated tax liabilities.
Departing NATO would yield an immediate macroeconomic benefit for the United States by eliminating hundreds of billions of dollars in annual overseas expenditures, directly relieving the domestic tax burden and curbing deficit-driven inflation. By withdrawing from the alliance, the federal government could dismantle costly forward-deployed command structures, close overseas installations, and return vast amounts of capital to the private sector. Returning these resources to American citizens—whether through direct tax cuts or reduced federal borrowing—allows wealth to be productively invested in domestic commerce, entrepreneurship, and capital formation rather than consumed by foreign military garrisons.
Beyond direct budgetary savings, exiting NATO corrects a fundamental market distortion that artificially inflates the cost of American government operations and depresses long-term economic growth. Having departed NATO, the U.S. should immediately shift toward a commercial, arms-sales-based framework for foreign policy, the United States can completely insulate American lives from foreign conflicts while simultaneously driving down the net cost of our national defense. Under the current alliance model, the U.S. government pays twice: first by absorbing the massive overhead of stationing American troops on European soil, and second by assuming the unlimited liability of risking American soldiers’ lives to defend foreign territory. Replacing formal military guarantees with a commercial defense posture allows European nations to buy advanced American weapons systems—such as F-35s, air defense networks, and precision artillery—through cash sales rather than American military subsidization. Arming foreign nations through direct sales is vastly less risky than providing explicit security guarantees or maintaining forward troop deployments.
From a market perspective, selling military hardware instead of deploying troops transforms foreign defense from a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer drain into a transaction that strengthens the domestic economy without fiscal exposure. Purchasing U.S. hardware requires European nations to pay full market value for their own security, while the resulting economies of scale lower the per-unit production cost of those same weapons systems for the U.S. military. More importantly, cash-and-carry defense removes the geopolitical tripwires that currently threaten American lives: if a European nation is attacked, its defense rests entirely on the hardware it purchased and the soldiers it trained, rather than automatic U.S. military involvement. Commentaries from the Ludwig von Mises Institute emphasize that substituting foreign troop garrisons with market-based defense relationships restores a true minarchist defense posture, protecting American borders at a fraction of the cost while ensuring no American blood is spilled in regional foreign wars.
Under a commercial, arms-sales-based defense posture, avoiding foreign entanglements requires a strict adherence to a transactional, non-guarantee framework. Selling military hardware to a nation is fundamentally different from entering a mutual defense treaty like NATO’s Article 5. When the United States sells weapons to foreign countries, it operates purely as an arms exporter, explicitly decoupled from any obligation to send troops, enforce peace treaties, or intervene if those weapons are eventually put to use.
An advantage of relying on defense exports over alliance guarantees is that arms sales should not create foreign entanglements. Once military equipment is delivered, the buyer assumes full responsibility for its operation, maintenance, and strategic deployment. By eliminating permanent military bases and mutual defense pledges, the U.S. removes the legal and operational mechanisms that automatically drag American service members into regional conflicts. The policy becomes strictly “cash-and-carry”: if a foreign government faces an invasion, it must fight using the hardware it purchased and the troops it trained, leaving American forces unentangled inside our own borders.
Regarding nations that are not sold American arms, for the most part they should not pose a threat to the U.S. homeland for several core reasons. The United States possesses incredible natural defensive advantages, bordered by two vast oceans and two peaceful neighbors. As highlighted in research from the Mises Institute, the ability of any foreign power to project force across thousands of miles of ocean to threaten American territory is limited, regardless of whether that nation buys American hardware or not.
Nations typically attack or threaten others due to direct territorial disputes, resource competition, or forward military encirclement. By withdrawing U.S. troops back to domestic borders and ending aggressive forward deployments, the U.S. drastically lowers its target profile, eliminating the primary incentives for foreign states to harbor hostile intentions toward American soil.
A nation excluded from purchasing U.S. arms might pose a threat to its immediate neighbors, but it does not follow that it poses a threat to the U.S. homeland. When the U.S. ceases to act as the global security guarantor, neighboring regional powers are naturally incentivized to form their own defensive balancing coalitions and purchase defense equipment to deter local aggressors, keeping regional conflicts localized without American intervention. By replacing blanket defense guarantees with arms sales, the U.S. separates commercial defense trade from military intervention, ensuring that foreign wars remain local while American sovereignty and security stay fully intact.
The U.S. military should exist exclusively to defend domestic territory and American citizens from direct external attack. Deploying troops to guarantee the borders of foreign nations transforms a defensive force into an instrument of foreign intervention. Under a strict constitutional reading, permanent foreign bases entangle the nation in overseas conflicts without a direct threat to domestic sovereignty. Scholars have long highlighted how statesmen like President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against turning temporary postwar aid into a permanent military presence that subsidizes allied security at the expense of American self-determination.
The primary driver of anti-American terrorism and foreign hostility is often a reaction to American military presence on foreign soil. By withdrawing forward-deployed forces, the U.S. removes the main catalyst for international terrorism. A nation that does not station its armed forces in other people’s backyards removes itself as a target, neutralizing blowback before it starts.
In case you are wondering—the Russian population views the United States more favorably (33%) than the populations of most of our European allies.
