Trump's demand that NATO allies finally deliver real defense capabilities exposes decades of European free-riding on American power and treasure. The alliance's new spending targets mean little without matching military readiness, and Washington's scrutiny forces a reckoning with an arrangement that has long treated U.S. taxpayers as the default guarantor of European security. This shift matters because it challenges the entrenched habit of multilateral commitments that expand American obligations without clear returns. The Constitution grants Congress the power to raise armies and declare war for the common defense of the republic, not to subsidize permanent foreign dependencies. Unlimited entanglement abroad erodes the limited government the Founders designed and drains resources better reserved for securing the homeland. A leaner posture restores the fiscal discipline and national focus that true sovereignty requires.