jem, get a fucking grip. Why do you guys continue to swallow trumps lies hook line and sinker. Trump has done nothing. NOTHING! Virtually everything out of his mouth is a lie. Stop watching Fox News where his continuous lies in which he claims credit for things he had nothing to do with are seldom pointed out. Trump is mentally ill. The EU spends more on NATO than does the U.S.!!! Learn that simple fact, don't forget it, and stop this nonsense. You are looking at total military spending not spending on just NATO. THINK! The U.S. has troops all over the world. The EU nations to a much less extent, mainly having to do with support of U.S. military involvement around the globe and to fulfill their UN obligations. Also, Trump has criticized the EU nations for reducing their NATO expenditures. In fact, both the U.S. and the EU have drastically cut their military expenditures since the end of the cold war. Call this a peace dividend if you will. That dividend may go away if our crackpot President continues to create chaos around the world. Don't lose sight of the fact that the EU Economy is as large as, or arguably larger, than the U.S. economy, but the EU is largely concerned with defense rather than propping up dictators around the world. In contrast, the U.S. has been interfering in the internal affairs of other nations since the Spanish American War. I don't think you will find any modern EU nation's government actively interfering with another nations elections. The U.S., on the other hand, has a long history of doing exactly that! And now the Russians are giving the U.S. some of their own medicine. They gave the U.S. Trump, just as we gave Iran the Shaw. Can't say we didn't deserve it.
https://vdare.com/articles/patrick-j-buchanan-is-a-coming-nato-crisis-inevitable Patrick J. Buchanan: Is A Coming NATO Crisis Inevitable? Patrick J. Buchanan July 12, 2018, 04:50 PM Of President Donald Trump's explosion at Angela Merkel's Germany during the NATO summit, it needs to be said: It is long past time we raised our voices. America pays more for NATO, an alliance created 69 years ago to defend Europe, than do the Europeans. And as Europe free-rides off our defense effort, the EU runs trade surpluses at our expense that exceed $100 billion a year. To Trump, and not only to him, we are being used, gouged, by rich nations we defend, while they skimp on their own defense. At Brussels, Trump had a new beef with the Germans, though similar problems date back to the Reagan era. Now we see the Germans, Trump raged, whom we are protecting from Russia, collaborating with Russia and deepening their dependence on Russian natural gas by jointly building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea. When completed, this pipeline will leave Germany and Europe even more deeply reliant on Russia for their energy needs. To Trump, this makes no sense. While we pay the lion's share of the cost of Germany's defense, Germany, he said in Brussels, is becoming "a captive of Russia." Impolitic? Perhaps. But is Trump wrong? While much of what he says enrages Western elites, does not much of it need saying? Germany spends 1.2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, while the U.S. spends 3.5 percent. Why? Why—nearly three decades after the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the crackup of the Soviet Union and the overthrow of the Communist dictatorship in Moscow—are we still defending European nations that collectively have 10 times the GDP of Vladimir Putin's Russia? Before departing Brussels, Trump upped the ante on the allies, urging that all NATO nations raise the share of their GDPs that they devote to defense to 4 percent. Brussels may dismiss this as typical Trumpian bluster, but my sense is that Trump is not bluffing. He is visibly losing patience. Though American leaders since John Foster Dulles in the 1950s have called for a greater defense effort from our allies, if the Europeans do not get serious this time, it could be the beginning of the end for NATO. And not only NATO. South Korea, with an economy 40 times that of North Korea, spends 2.6 percent of its GDP on defense, while, by one estimate, North Korea spends 22 percent, the highest share on earth. Japan, with the world's third-largest economy, spends an even smaller share of its GDP on defense than Germany, 0.9 percent. Thus, though Seoul and Tokyo are far more menaced by a nuclear-armed North Korea and a rising China, like the Europeans, both continue to rely upon us as they continue to run large trade surpluses with us. We get hit both ways. We send troops and pay billions for their defense, while they restrict our access to their markets and focus on capturing U.S. markets from American producers. We are giving the world a lesson in how great powers decline. America's situation is unsustainable economically and politically, and it's transparently intolerable to Trump, who does not appear to be a turn-the-other-cheek sort of fellow. A frustrated Trump has already hinted he may accept Russia's annexation of Crimea as he accepted Israel's annexation of Jerusalem. And he appears earnest about reducing our massive trade deficits in goods that have been bleeding jobs, plants, equipment, capital and technology abroad. The latest tariffs Trump has proposed, on $200 billion worth of Chinese-made goods, would raise the price of 40 percent of China's exports to the U.S. and begin to shrink the $375 billion trade surplus Beijing ran in 2017. Trump said upon departing Brussels he had won new commitments to raise European contributions to NATO. But Emmanuel Macron of France seemed to contradict him. The commitments made before the summit, for all NATO nations to reach 2 percent of GDP for defense by 2024, said Macron, stand, and no new commitments were made. As for Trump's call for a 4 percent defense effort by all, it was ignored. Hence the question: If Trump does not get his way and the allies hold to their previous schedule of defense commitments, what does he do? One idea Trump floated last week was the threat of a drawdown of the 35,000 U.S. troops in Germany. But would this really rattle the Germans? A new poll shows that a plurality of Germans favor a drawdown of U.S. troops, and only 15 percent believe that Germany should raise its defense spending to 2 percent of GDP. While Trump's pressure on NATO to contribute more is popular here, apparently Merkel's resistance comports with German opinion. Since exiting the Iranian nuclear deal, President Trump has demanded that our European allies join the U.S. in reimposing sanctions. Now he is demanding that the Europeans contribute more to defense. What does he do if they defy us? More than likely, we will find out. COPYRIGHT 2018 CREATORS.COM
NYT Admits "Trump Got From NATO Everything Obama Ever Asked For" Did something get into the water at the New York Times? Because the latest from their Editorial Board - which "represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher," is entitled: Trump Got From NATO Everything Obama Ever Asked For It begins: Now that the smoke has cleared from the NATO summit meeting, the most tangible result is apparent: President Trump advanced President Barack Obama’s initiative to keep the allies on track to shoulder a more equitable share of NATO’s costs. Mr. Trump even signed on to a tough statement directed at Russia. For once he saw eye to eye with his predecessor. -New York Times To be sure, the Times dings Trump for bruising a few EU egos (while making his Chief of Staff John Kelly cringe during a particularly blunt public excoriation of Germany), and they rebuke the President for suggesting the US might withdraw from NATO if military spending targets aren't met by member nations. At the end of the day, however, the New York Times just gave President Trump massive credit for achieving significant progress on a longstanding dispute over fairness and commitments. * * * Trump Got From NATO Everything Obama Ever Asked For But alliance members leave Brussels bruised and confused. By The Editorial Board The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section. Now that the smoke has cleared from the NATO summit meeting, the most tangible result is apparent: President Trump advanced President Barack Obama’s initiative to keep the allies on track to shoulder a more equitable share of NATO’s costs. Mr. Trump even signed on to a tough statement directed at Russia. For once he saw eye to eye with his predecessor. Yet whether Mr. Trump himself is clear about the strategy he’s pursuing, or whether he in fact has one, remains as mysterious as ever. Mr. Obama persuaded NATO leaders to increase their military spending at a meeting in Wales in 2014, after a newly aggressive Russia invaded Ukraine. Back then, alliance members pledged to work toward raising spending levels to 2 percent of their gross domestic products by 2024. All 29 allies have begun to increase their military budgets in real terms, and two-thirds of them have plans to reach the 2 percent target by 2024. And they reaffirmed their “unwavering commitment” to these targets in the communiqué issued at the end of the two-day summit in Brussels this week. Of course, two days of gratuitous and self-defeating Trump bombast and threats preceded this resolution. The president publicly browbeat and insulted allies as deadbeats taking advantage of American generosity. He then raised the ante, demanding that they meet the 2 percent target — it’s a target, not some specific legal obligation — by January and then go on to raise spending to 4 percent of G.D.P. Why that much? What strategic objective, what threats to the alliance, is Mr. Trump worried about? He didn't say. Since he came into office, Mr. Trump’s urging has gotten some allies to accelerate spending increases. The response to his latest remonstrations, though, was mainly bafflement. Even after a military spending increase under President Trump, American military spending is only 3.2 percent of G.D.P. this year. What’s more, it’s expected to fall to 2.8 percent in 2024, leaving it unclear as to how even the United States would meet the 4 percent figure. As Mr. Trump, and Mr. Obama before him, have argued, Europe can do more to help itself. The allies rely too heavily on the Americans to transport troops and equipment, for instance, and the fact that France ran out of bombs during the 2011 Libya operation demonstrated a crucial weakness. There may be other shortcomings, too — NATO is not transparent with its data. Greater spending by American allies might mean the United States could lower its own spending and bring thousands of troops home. Mr. Trump didn’t make that argument, but he has often talked about withdrawing forces and closing bases, whether in Germany or Syria or somewhere else. So would the president then push for cuts in the Pentagon budget, which now stands at roughly $700 billion, more than the next eight countries in the world spend together, and use it for, say, badly needed infrastructure? Don’t bet on it. Mr. Trump has relentlessly pushed for a bigger military, seemingly mesmerized by the flashy hardware and the show of hard power that it projects. Even so, the spending metric is a narrow measure of what NATO needs to meet today’s challenges, and it may need to be discarded. One example is Denmark, which has made important contributions to alliance operations in Afghanistan and has sacrificed considerable trade with Russia because of sanctions — yet spends less than 2 percent of G.D.P., according to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Other allies could better advance their own security, and NATO’s, by spending more to solve the migration crisis and other problems that have fanned nationalism and authoritarianism, and weakened democratic institutions, especially in Turkey, Hungary and Poland. This trend, encouraged insidiously by Russia, may be the biggest threat, eroding the alliance from within. Such sensible discussions weren’t possible in Brussels, as allies were left instead with angst over Mr. Trump’s hint that he may withdraw from NATO if the military spending targets are not met. He said on Thursday that he could probably withdraw from NATO on his own authority. This threat seems more in line with Mr. Trump’s broader interests. He has made clear that Russia’s attack on Ukraine and seizure of Crimea are of little matter to him. He’s spoken more warmly of President Vladimir Putin than of any ally, even disputing the Russian leader’s role in undermining the 2016 election. For these reasons, it’s imperative that Congress, which has abdicated to Mr. Trump on many crucial issues, pass immediately legislation prohibiting him from leaving NATO unilaterally. The Senate had to ratify the treaty when America created NATO, and it should block any move to destroy the alliance that has been an anchor of trans-Atlantic stability over seven decades.
Direct contributions to the NATO budget are irrelevant, you stolen valor fraud. Bureaucracy and the new $1 billion HQs in Brussels won't win a war. What matters is the minimum 2% GDP commitment to member nations' defense budgets, the purpose of which is for everyone to maintain some semblance of military capability and combat readiness. As it stands now, according to NATO, the United States is spending twice what everyone else in the entire NATO Alliance is, combined. From NATO's website (w/my highlights):
Oh Poindexter, you had just had a nice holiday, I'd feel bad if I put you back in the meat grinder so soon. Higher thoughts!
I love you and I forgive you Poindexter. I'm a changed man after helping one of the Arnies this afternoon.