Alright, buckle up. What we have here in Stoltenberg's own words is an unintentional confession slip that lays bare the reality of Europe's geopolitical colonization by the United States.
Alright, buckle up. What we have here in Stoltenberg's own words is an unintentional confession slip that lays bare the reality of Europe's geopolitical colonization by the United States.
‘I’m leaving,’ Trump said. ‘There’s no reason to be here any more’: inside the meeting that brought Nato to the brink
The entire narrative is framed around a single, paralyzing fear that the empire might lose interest. Stoltenberg isn't worried about a military threat from Russia in this extract, what he's terrified of is the withdrawal of the American security umbrella.
The "alliance" is revealed as nothing more than a protection racket, and Stoltenberg is just an anxious middle-manager ensuring the tribute is visibly being paid to keep the boss happy. The "zero tolerance" for eye-rolling at Trump is the behavior of a vassal state that knows its security depends on the whims of a distant, mercurial emperor. They have to laugh at the right jokes and swallow their pride because their sovereignty is, and has been since 1945, fundamentally conditional.
The most damning evidence is the sheer transactional nature of it all. Stoltenberg’s strategy had fuck all to do with principles, shared values, or democracy. He came to provide Trump with a "graph that illustrated spending was increasing" and flatter him by attributing any spending increases to his leadership. The climax of the 2018 summit was Stoltenberg literally reading from a note Trump handed him in a performative act of submission to placate the patron.
When the Danish PM finally snapped, pointing out the blood tribute Denmark paid in Afghanistan, it was a fleeting moment of rebellion against this entire colonial dynamic serving as reminder that the "burden" isn't just money, but that protest that is immediately swallowed by the overwhelming need to keep the system intact.
In the end, Stoltenberg's "success" is measured solely by his ability to keep the sovereign engaged. His political survival hinged on feeding Trump's ego with the $33bn figure and a positive press conference.
The memoir unwittingly shows us that for Europe's political class, true strategic autonomy is a phantom. Their primary function is to manage the relationship with Washington, proving their continued usefulness to avoid being deemed obsolete, just like Trump initially called NATO. It's a portrait of a continent that has long since mortgaged its geopolitical soul.
