International security

Does ‘Brexit’ Mean Security Woes Are Next?

That’s why the looming North Atlantic summit in Warsaw, starting July 8, will be closely watched. Now that Great Britain has made clear it wants to pull back from Europe, will it also trim its defense spending? The U.K. is one of the handful of European nations spending 2% of its gross domestic product on its military and has been the E.U.’s mightiest military power. “Not only will Britain likely be a weaker ally in the aftermath of Brexit, but Europe will also be feebler,” Kori Schake, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, writes atForeign Policy. But not everyone concurs. “Brexit, counter-intuitive as it might sound, will likely produce a stronger NATO,” argues ex-NATO chief James Stavridis.

But his is a rare voice. “Since World War II, the United States, aided principally by Britain, has worked to reduce the potential for international conflict, with particular success in Europe; encourage democratic governance; promote free markets; and lift billions of people out of poverty,” the New York Times noted in its lead editorial on Sunday. “A crucial brick in that system is now in danger of being removed.”