trump and NATO

Sure. It's rhetoric, not a reasoned argument. Which is about all you have space for on twitter anyway. But if people come away thinking that the biggest benefit NATO has delivered over the last 70 years was to support our response to 9/11, they won't understand how important it has been and will continue to be. Invoking Article V is actually a manifestation of the treaty not working, because it means it failed to deter.

The most important thing that came out of the US invoking Article V in 2001 was that member states complied. The operations NATO undertook probably were not much needed (e.g., patrol the Med), but NATO showed that a member could invoke the article and their partners would comply with their obligations. That is huge for deterrence. Before WWII, Poland had a treaty of mutual defense with France. Hitler bet that France did not have the stomach to enforce it, and he was right. When he invaded Poland, France declared war and did nothing to help her ally. Half-assed alliances aren't helpful. Everybody needs to know that if someone messes with your friend, you're going to get irrationally belligerent right away. I think Trump is right to insist that NATO allies spend more on defense (and we should spend less), but I think he makes a mistake to cast any doubt on our commitment to NATO to pressure them into doing so. We need Russia to know that if they so much as look at France's girlfriend, we're going to kick their ass. We're not sending that signal at all right now.

 

What is the point of NATO member nations spending more on their defense budget?

I ask this understanding that the GOP controlled presidential admin and Senate is just going to increase defense spending regardless of if NATO members spend more. So if the main goal is to was the US burden which leads to lower costs at our end and we know that Trump is going to brag about "rebuilding the military that Obama destroyed" by throwing more money at it, what is the point? Can someone who agrees with Trump's rhetoric with NATO explain this part to me? What is the point?

I don't think the the defense contractor lobbyists are going to allow the GOP to spend less on our defense budget.

 

I don't know the Trump argument. The point as I see it is that all your allies in a mutual defense agreement should be credibly capable of contributing to the common defense to maintain the deterrence. I mentioned France's failure to help Poland in WWII. The truth is that even if France did go on offense to defend Poland's sovereignty then, they'd have been incapable of posing much threat to Germany anyway. Likewise, Poland wouldn't have actually been able to do much if France had been the first victim. The will wasn't there, but neither was capability, and Germany knew it could probably beat the both of them and also keep England at bay all at the same time if they needed to -- none of those countries were really ready to fight. NATO can work if all members are ready to fight. If, say the US gets in a huge fight with China, how much help are those European countries to us if they can't project their military strength over the ocean.

 

If there is an actual armed conflict that wasn't merely a proxy war between the US and China, current society would be over and we would be looking at a new era in human history.

NATO has been fruitful in pushing America's proxy wars and "war on terror". The US is the only nation that has actually invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter and NATO countries responded in kind even if it was our war and a war that had shaky merits for justification. Many British, German and Canadian servicemembers died for our stupid wars in the past couple of decades. American troops haven't done this in kind for those other nations under NATO. Obviously WW2 was a different story.

And from a pure American politician standpoint, this is all just red meat and bluster because any American politician knows very well that regardless of how much other NATO nations contribute, we are still going to continue to increase our defense budget.

 

Exactly. What is the point of the common defense if the only actor capable of effectively responding to a threat is the United States?

The most powerful alliance members outside of the United States can't even maintain the most limited military operations without the United States help, as we saw in Libya in 2011. It's an absolute embarrassment and a total joke. The Europeans have totally taken the security umbrella we have provided for granted for the last 70 years and as a result their armed forces are almost completely impotent. Congratulations to them, they have slept (relatively) comfortably for 70 years because of the defensive umbrella provided almost exclusively by the United States and subsidized almost entirely by the American tax payer.

The problem is, the United States providing the umbrella it does and has for the last 70 years for NATO members and others is that it is extremely expensive. We shouldn't be doing it. NATO was largely a Cold War measure and a Cold War creation. The Cold War ended 30 years ago. Soviet tanks aren't going to be rolling into West Berlin. What would happen if our Troops left Germany and Italy tomorrow? South Korea? Japan? Would the world fall apart? I doubt it. You can still be a NATO member without these expensive permanent military systems. We shouldn't be policing the world and protecting everyone's freedoms at American tax payer expense. It's fiscally untenable. I would love to see the United States reduce its military commitments around the globe and slash military spending. Unfortunately, neither Republicans nor most Democrats project to do so. It's frustrating.

Also, Trump isn't the only President to complain about NATO spending. Every administration has complained about NATO taking the United States for granted for a long time.

 

Your take is disrespectful to the NATO servicemembers from countries like Germany, Canada and the UK who died fighting OUR shaky pretense wars in "the war on terror". We are the only country in NATO history that has invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter.

 

I see you're not a NATO fan. But all that war on terror stuff we did, we mostly did with voluntary cooperation from allies who also happen to be NATO members. We used article 5 for some patrolling actions right after the 9/11 attacks, and they took command of the Afghan war. You will recall though that Bush had trouble getting cooperation from France and others for his adventure in Iraq, for example. Allies aren't always in for our dumb wars, and NATO is not the tool we use to make them join us.

As for how much we spend, I'd like to spend less, but I think it is independent of what other NATO members spend. I'm not hoping to shift costs to taxpayers in other countries -- I just want our allies to be battle-ready.

 

No. It isn't disrespectful to any individual service members. I have never and would never criticize them or their sacrifice. You would try to read that into what I wrote and manipulate things that way though. You are a nasty little person and there was a reason I didn't engage with you to begin with today.

Your little "Article 5" argument is asinine but that's par for the course from you. As if, because NATO members have helped out to some degree (most to an extremely limited degree) in Afghanistan, they are immune from any and all criticism every leveled against them. It's a laughable position.

The greatest beneficiaries by far from NATO have been the Western European countries that from 1945 (technically 1949) - 1990 and more theoretically from 1991 - present have had their freedoms guaranteed by American forces paid for by American tax payers. The service Western European nations have done us in Afghanistan pales in comparison to the service we have done for them over the last 70 years. To assert otherwise is beyond idiotic.

 

It isn't saying they are immune to any and all criticism. But it is a valid criticism of the idea that America doesn't really benefit from NATO. That is only criticism that argument shows to be baseless.

The fact of the matter is that all of the NATO nations benefit from the alliance. That's how alliances work. America being part of the alliance has protected European nations.

The combat missions by other members of NATO were not small and insignificant. They were substantial. They also reduced the cost of US money, resources, and lives which would have been used instead.

Sure if we look at those in comparison over 7 decades then it makes a difference.

But I think teamwork and alliances work when all parties involved benefit which is the case of NATO. There is no point in any of the nations trying to belittle the others by downgrading the contribution made by other alliance members. That only serves to create bad blood and weaken the alliance.

It's all very distasteful and petty.

Not directed at you, but we should be aware that when there is talk about other nations not paying their share that is kind of true but it isn't like everyone pays money into a community bucket. The money they are supposed to pay is toward their own defense spending. They're supposed to spend a certain percentage of their GDP toward their Defense budget. So it isn't like the community bucket comes up empty when they don't.

 

France didn’t fail to defend Poland. They attacked Germany because of the invasion of Poland. They be failed to defend the Sudetenland. And actually if they had tried to attack Germany then it would have been successful most likely. Francs and England greatly overestimated the strength of Germany before 1939. As for France, they had the best army in Europe at that time and could have handled Germany if Belgium hadn’t screwed up.

To clarify: Poland fell before the allies could do much about it. The allies were pretty shocked by the Molotov Ribbentrop pact. The failure was not protecting The Czechs.

 

Agreed about Czechoslovakia. They didn't honor their agreement then, and at a time when the German army wasn't so ready. Had they acted more decisively then, much would have been different. But, they absolutely did not defend Poland either. They declared war and waited for the Germans to march on the Maginot Line. Even if that strategy was successful, it would not have helped Poland.

My point in bringing it up was to say if you're going to have an alliance like this to deter aggression, members have to demonstrate that they are capable and eager to exercise it. It appears to me that NATO is slipping a bit. European countries are not as capable as they should be. The US does not appear as eager as they once did. And as a bonus it has a member, Turkey, who has perhaps fallen out of alignment with the other members.

 

WW2 is fun to talk about so I'm talking with you about not fighting!

I don't think they could have done anything to save Poland. The war in Poland was over in a month and they would have had to march across Germany and fight the full nazi army AND the Russians to win it back. That was never going to happen.

The Maginot defense strategy was actually brilliant. The plan was to force the Germans to do exactly what they did...invade the Benelux region where the French and British troops could defend them there instead of across all of France. The Prince of Belgium became a dick over stupid stuff and forced them out which allowed the Nazis to take the entire area before France and England could do anything about it. By then it was too late. The entire strategy to defend against German aggression was to fight the bulk of the war in Belgium and that rug got yanked.

That's all fair. I don't really know much about the military capabilities of Europe right now.

 

Sounds like a better deal for France than for Belgium. But, what you describe is the problem with multi-lateral alliances that we want to avoid. When the chips are down, if one party doesn't cooperate it can undermine the entire thing.

 

Well in fairness, the deal was good for Belgium because it got them a promise of defense when they couldn't have defended themselves otherwise.

But yeah, that's the issue with multi-lateral alliances. When you have a dumbbutt at the head of one of them it can ruin everything.

 

Nonsense, the greatest benefactor has been the US and it’s interests. The industrial military complex provides a ton of well paying jobs. Pretty hard to be a superpower project power without having bases all of the world (NATO members or not).

Frankly a % of GDP is such a terrible measure for contribution to military partnerships that will always make it seem like the US is some overwhelming net contributor.

Lastly, as mentioned this hasn’t stopped the Trump administration and the critics from significantly increasing the military budget despite other countries “not carrying their weight”.

 

The failure of France to extend the Maginot Line to the sea was crucial to the success of the German offensive. France would have preferred building it along the Belgium border with Germany, but Belgium wouldn't allow it. As you point out, Belgium, which had been allied with France for years after WWI, declared neutrality in 1936. That complicated French strategy considerably.

The part of the Maginot Line that was completed at a cost of 3 billion Francs was essentially impregnable. It was manned by fully one third of the French divisions, some of their best troops. The Germans made a lot of "noise" opposite it to "fake out" the French, but with only 19 divisions, one seventh of the force that attacked through Belgium and the Ardennes. During the conflict, the German army was unable to do much against it, and bombing it had little effect. A key mistake was not completing it opposite the Ardennes Forest. Closer to the coast, the high water table would have made construction difficult and even more expensive than the part that was completed.

Just one of so many mistakes made before WWII broke out, and not only by the French. The UK also made error after error attempting to appease Germany. She prevented France from acting strongly against Hitler when they were able to. France knew that they couldn't defeat a rearmed Germany alone, so they accommodated the UK's wishes. The Rhine would have made a far more logical border between France and Germany, and France possessed one side of it until British pressure forced them to hand it back to Germany. It's all pretty complicated.

Ironically, the Czechs were very impressed with the Maginot Line and copied its fortifications along their border with Germany. The Munich Agreement that sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler's Germany not only prevented that country from defending itself, it gave the Germans a close look at how the Maginot Line was built. They were glad that they didn't have to fight against the Czech version of it.

 

Not sure where to put this, but with Trump tossing out the possibility of a 100% tariff against France, now is the time to purchase your Le Creuset cookware.

 

changed our cooking lives, 100%. Never better $ spent.