Patton was prescient on the communist threat. Do you think we should have heeded his advice?Actually, we trained, gave funds and weapons to bin Laden (may he rot in hell while being raped by goats) when he was fighting the Russians all while knowing he was going to turn on us as soon as he could.
We did the same thing with Russia during WWII. Paton said that we should have taken them out while we had the men and equipment already there, but we didn't - all while knowing they would turn on us.
Germany is "spending" money because they thought that when they forced us to close our bases that we'd either establish new one in Poland, Czech, etc or just keep dumping greenbacks into their failing economy to keep them propped up. They've gone the political route, 'raised' taxes, and are putting a small amount of money to their military which probably won't be anywhere near enough to get them out of the hole they've dug. They have (for too long) been dependent on the American cannon fodder that was stationed there during the cold war whose only purpose was to slow down (not stop) the Russian Bear. I say that having lived and served there in the 80s/90s and having family (German) still there.
We can't be complete isolationists, but we've created a welfare world where all these countries sit on their asses spending monies on <insert BS> while thinking that if they get into trouble, USA will send them pallets of cash or use our lives to rescue them again....
You don't feed wild animals because they forget how to take care of themselves, the same is true of people and countries. We don't "owe" them anything - but they think we do.
I have never argued that NATO should not start stepping up. They should.
And agree on your final point. We cannot be complete isolationists, but we need to choose our battles.