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Until the USA goes full dictatorship (admittedly less hypothetical than I’d like)

I have bad news for you.

I'm not trying to exaggerate the situation, but they're imprisoning journalists, kicking random people out of the country or keeping them in conditions so bad that it sometimes kills them, they just bombed a random country ignoring the system that's supposed to make that illegal without authorization, and so on and so on. They just assassinated a Democratic politician.

It's all a spectrum. People are still in the streets without being shot, they're still backing down or being forced to free some particular people. But the standard of "going to war without authorization" is a guard-rail that fell years ago, and more are falling every week now. If you're waiting for the moment to fight back against the dictatorship, this is it.

So, you're right that higher NATO spending is bad for the US. That's why historically they haven't pushed for it. But now the US is im the grip of nepo baby morons that have no understanding of anything. They think army guys & bombs are le hecking epic & that's the extent of the reasoning. See also: like every hereditary monarch ever.

European democracies obviously do understand the long term implications which is why they're taking the opportunity to arm up.