NATO, I think, is on the way out; and only 35 years late.

It was formed as a collective defense arrangement among governments in Europe, plus Canada and the USA. The thinking was that Communist Russia was predatory, and by no means fully disarmed after WW2, so rather than let it gobble up one State after another, let's present a united front - with US nuclear weapons as a last resort. There is some degree of truth in all that.

Its possible utility expired in 1990, when the USSR collapsed for want of a pricing mechanism. But NATO had become a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies exist primarily to benefit their employees, so it's still there. But maybe, not much longer.

President Trump has made clear that the FedGov won't continue indefinitely as the club's primary financier, so all European members must increase their military spending to make up for a withdrawal of the USA. Ouch; the US umbrella is folding up.

Guess how they can do that. Only two ways exist: (a) raise taxes, including the inflation tax, or (b) cut spending on other activities.

The fun bit is that they are all tapped out regarding (a) because of the Laffer Curve. Eurogovs tax people even more than US ones, and Laffer found that there is a rate of tax that maximizes revenue. It's a little over 50%, of what people earn. And Eurogovs are already at or over that limit. Any further raising of rates, and revenues will fall. Oops.

Accordingly, they are left with option (b): transfer spending from other activities, to military ones. And that's where the squealers come in. They just hate losing "bennies."

Here's how some (in Brussels, the very home of NATO) expressed that hatred. "They want YOUR pensions too" says one banner, in French. Another inflated a Learjet-shaped balloon urging taxation of "the rich", helpfully translated into English for their international viewing audience. (Actually "the rich" are already taxed at higher rates than anyone else, but perhaps they didn't know that.) Protest demonstrations in other countries deplored the notion of cuts in "social spending" - just as if "social" was not the same as "socialist" in this context. Oh, woe! How can the flow of tears be stemmed?

Not easy, because all the pompous government people would have to eat their words, which have clearly said they think Russia is a threat. It isn't. Russia has proven itself fierce in defense, but has never initiated war on Europe; even when Communist, it merely held on to what Churchill and FDR had agreed to at Yalta. (An exception was Finland in 1939, where some land was stolen before it fizzled out.) So to solve their dilemma, the Eurogovs might reverse themselves and declare Russia as peace-seeking as Putin has promised.

Will they do that? - stay tuned; I've no idea. Meanwhile, we can clearly notice: government doesn't work. They have prolonged the Ukraine War far beyond any kind of necessity, and cut off valuable trade with Russia, and pretended they need to re-arm, but can't afford that without aggravating those they claim to be "serving."

The rational alternative - for each European country to become a zero government society - would not have had a NATO-like alliance, or would have scrapped it at the first opportunity, nor placed nuclear bases along the Russian border, and would not have interfered with trade across that one or any other. Any person living in them who felt nervous about aggressors, from down the street or from Moscow, would have equipped himself with a suitable armory as a "porcupine defense."