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NATO’s $Trillions Delivered Two Strategic Defeats in Four Years. Now We’re Too Broke to Fight.

Both men were scathing about the absence of honest strategic thinking. Politicians equate money spent with security achieved. Senior officers too often tell ministers what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear

In conversation with Douglas Macgregor and Steve Jermy

Ian Proud, Aug 13, 2026, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/natos-trillions-delivered-two-strategic?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=211003191&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

I sat down with two of the most clear-eyed military realists working today: retired US Army Colonel (Ret’d) Douglas Macgregor and Commodore (Ret’d) Steve Jermy RN.

The starting point was simple and damning. A couple of years ago NATO countries accounted for 53 per cent of global military spending. That share has only grown as European governments have scrambled to increase defence budgets. Yet in the space of four years the Western alliance has suffered two major geostrategic defeats — first in Ukraine, now in the Persian Gulf against Iran. That is unprecedented in my lifetime.

Macgregor put it bluntly. The force structure the United States (and by extension much of NATO) has built over the last thirty years was designed for short, offensive wars against weak opponents who lacked serious air and missile defences. Commit that force against a large, prepared adversary with mountains, underground facilities and modern stand-off weapons, and the limitations become obvious very quickly. “Wrong force, wrong mission, wrong place, wrong time,” he said.

Jermy approached the same problem from the other side of the Atlantic. He pointed out that Western armed forces are configured primarily as air-sea powers, while the opponents we have chosen to confront are land powers capable of denying us both air superiority and sea control. He also returned to a theme he has written about for years: industrial capacity and energy remain the real foundations of military power. Without them, no amount of money spent on exquisite platforms will deliver victory.

The Royal Navy’s collapse from roughly seventy major surface combatants in his day to a handful of frigates and destroyers today is not just a British problem — it is a symptom of a wider Western failure to match resources to strategy.

Both men were scathing about the absence of honest strategic thinking. Politicians equate money spent with security achieved. Senior officers too often tell ministers what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.

The result is a succession of campaigns that fail the basic tests of strategy: they are neither effective, efficient, nor enduring.

We talked about historical examples that still matter — Campbell-Bannerman’s refusal to commit a British army to the Continent, Eisenhower’s acute awareness of manpower limits, George Kennan’s clear-eyed distinction between vital and peripheral interests. The common thread is the same: great powers that refuse to define their actual interests end up exhausted and broke.

The most sobering line came near the end. Macgregor noted that going broke may ultimately force the reform that political will has so far refused. We are reaching the point where the West can no longer afford the wars its leaders keep starting.

You can watch the full conversation here.

It is not comfortable viewing, but it is necessary. If we are serious about peace rather than perpetual conflict, we first have to stop lying to ourselves about the balance of power.

August 15, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, weapons and war