US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is retiring on June 30 and therefore his visit to Europe was a chance for him to express his frustration with some members of the NATO alliance while allowing his successor Leon Panetta to backtrack if necessary or inherit the new policy. Gates essentially warned the Europeans that US patience was wearing thin.

Gates claims that the national restrictions were hampering operations in Afghanistan and premature European troop withdrawals linked to domestic political considerations were debilitating to the common effort.

The Libyan mission against a 3rd rate opponent in Europe's backyard and with no ground troops involved was similarly languishing due to a lack of will and a lack of available resources. This was a reflection of the fact that most NATO countries do not even devote a meager 2% of their budgetary outlays to defense spending.

The United States could not live with a situation where it primarily foot the bill:

"Some two decades after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the US share of Nato defence spending has now risen to more than 75 percent – at a time when politically painful budget and benefit cuts are being considered at home,"

There was growing resentment over the freeloaders:

In the past, I’ve worried openly about NATO turning into a two-tiered alliance: Between members who specialize in “soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping, and talking tasks, and those conducting the “hard” combat missions. Between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership - be they security guarantees or headquarters billets - but don’t want to share the risks and the costs. This is no longer a hypothetical worry. We are there today. And it is unacceptable.

Such a disparity has long existed in NATO and one could hear such American mutterings since the 1960s when the United States believed that Western Europe had sufficiently recovered from the devastation of the Second World War and had become economically prosperous under the American security umbrella. The Europeans however grew accustomed to disregarding the American dissatisfaction because during the Cold War they knew that the United States could not risk the loss of Europe to the Soviet Union.

This time around they would be advised not to underestimate the seriousness of Defense Secretary Gates' remarks.

First of all as Gates remarked that the Cold War is a receding memory. Mutual suspicion still exists between the United States and Russia, as witness the antimissile shield that the United States wants to construct in Eastern Europe against Russian opposition. However, this is a far cry from the Cold War. Russia's main pressure point is not tank battalions crashing across the Fulda Gap into West Germany but oil and gas pipelines to Western Europe and European dependence on Russian energy.

The United States, since the Great Depression of the 1930s, has not been in as parlous an economic condition as it is today and many American citizens as illustrated by recent polls ascribe the yawning deficits partially or primarily to the defense expenditures.

The growing importance of the Asia-Pacific area in the world economy means that that region is increasingly supplanting the European Union as a hub of economic activity. The same considerations that ensured the American defense of Europe now apply at least to the same degree in the Pacific region. Gates made this clear to the Europeans as well

President Obama and I believe that despite the budget pressures, it would be a grave mistake for the U.S. to withdraw from its global responsibilities. And in Singapore last week, I outlined the many areas where U.S. defense engagement and investment in Asia was slated to grow further in coming years, even as America’s traditional allies in that region rightfully take on the role of full partners in their own defense.

While Gates did not specify whom the Asian countries had to be defended against, it is no secret that a growingly assertive China preoccupies the United States economically and militarily. The United States would like to see the Europeans acting more like India, Vietnam and South Korea. If that will not happen then the United States will not prop up NATO on its own.