On Thursday, European leaders were not happy to hear President Trump verbally smack them for being deadbeats regarding their agreed-upon NATO responsibilities. The members are supposed to spend two percent of GDP on defense but few actually do, leaving Uncle Sucker to do the heavy lifting.

This problem has been going on for years. Its beginning can be traced to America’s handling of Europe’s defense needs following WWII as a part of rebuilding politically and keeping the place safe from predatory Russkies. The Europeans got used to the idea of a generous US paying their defense tab, which allowed them to build lavish welfare states in recent decades. At this point, Europe’s liberal ruling elites have become politically infantilized by their assumption that the US will protect them.

Below, the deluxe new NATO headquarters in Brussels cost well over a billion dollars and illustrates the bureaucratic focus of the organization. Check out the video virtual tour to see the extravagance.

On Thursday, retired General Jack Keane expressed his disgust with NATO’s failure to fulfill its primary mission of protecting Europe.

JACK KEANE: Most of them lack moral and national will to defend their own people. It’s actually shameful what has taken place with NATO. ISIS has successfully conducted 32 attacks against eight NATO countries, killing hundreds of NATO citizens. And you have the head of NATO in the Wall Street Journal today saying that terrorism is threatening our values, our freedom and our very way of life. And yet in the same article he says but we’re not going to be involved in combat operations against ISIS. That is fundamentally a lack of will, and these are feckless leaders who are not going to stand up and defend their people. This is how far NATO has dropped in terms of its effectiveness. After hundreds of people are killed, they’re still not willing to ask their soldiers to go out and risk their lives to protect their own citizens. That is the problem that Mr. Trump has with NATO. While he has financial issues with them to be sure — their not taking up the burdens financially of supporting the alliance — the real issue that’s even more significant is the lack of political and moral will.

Below is the Wall Street Journal opinion piece from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that Jack Keane mentioned, reprinted in Australia. It sounds tough enough most of the way through, but in the third paragraph from the end, the author states, “It would not mean NATO involvement in combat operations.”

In short, the top NATO honcho believes the life-threatening combat missions are the responsibility of the Americans, not Europeans. And that’s the problem in today’s Europe — the lack of will for self-defense.