Allies wonder if the West can withstand the Trump presidency (Iran, drug)
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The fool is a country that is paying over and over again for these countries who are not meeting their obligations! In the meantime these countries are ignore what we do for them. What good is NATO when its countries wont do what they agreed to do?
Pennywise and pound foolish....
While it would be nice to get better contribution from all of them, and we should make that a goal, the point that Trump does not seem to understand is that our prosperity depends on theirs. If we shoot them in the knee, we are only shooting ourselves in the foot.
Putin would love to see Trump "stand up for what he thinks is right". He is loving that the USA, under Trump, is alienating ourselves, and pushing our allies away. He's like a pack of Hyenas, isolating the weak part of the heard, so he can kill them. Trump is quickly making us the weak link, and Putin is exploiting his stupidity, and by proxy is exploiting us as a country.
YES: NATO Members need to pay more. But it's a delicate walk, that needs to be done with some level of forethought. Not a strong card of Trump.
To give an analogy, it's like trying to wean someone off of psychoactive drugs (ritalin, abilify, etc). Sure, they need to be off of them, but if you do it Cold Turkey, it is very dangerous, and they could suffer much worse than they are suffering on the drugs. It takes months, if not years to get someone fully off these drugs. It will take years, if not decades to fix the problems with NATO that took decades to evolve. Trump's naive plan will only cause more problems. As usual, he has somewhat honed in on a valid problem, but has shown extreme wrecklessness and ignorance in his way of solving it.
I do have to wonder whose interest do these pro-trump fans hold? Certainly not the interests of the United States. Dare I say - this has become an anti-American site. Tsk tsk
Other countries will complain about us until they need our help, then they expect us to be there to save them.
And we will apparently continue to alienate them, until we **** off the wrong enemy, and go to fight them, and realize that not only do we not have any friends to fight by our side, but we don't have bases to launch our fights, airspace to take the fight to them, or trading partners to finance our fight.
The fool is a country that is paying over and over again for these countries who are not meeting their obligations! In the meantime these countries are ignore what we do for them. What good is NATO when its countries wont do what they agreed to do?
1. Do you think US would spend less on military if NATO did not exist?
While it would be nice to get better contribution from all of them, and we should make that a goal, the point that Trump does not seem to understand is that our prosperity depends on theirs. If we shoot them in the knee, we are only shooting ourselves in the foot.
Putin would love to see Trump "stand up for what he thinks is right". He is loving that the USA, under Trump, is alienating ourselves, and pushing our allies away. He's like a pack of Hyenas, isolating the weak part of the heard, so he can kill them. Trump is quickly making us the weak link, and Putin is exploiting his stupidity, and by proxy is exploiting us as a country.
YES: NATO Members need to pay more. But it's a delicate walk, that needs to be done with some level of forethought. Not a strong card of Trump.
To give an analogy, it's like trying to wean someone off of psychoactive drugs (ritalin, abilify, etc). Sure, they need to be off of them, but if you do it Cold Turkey, it is very dangerous, and they could suffer much worse than they are suffering on the drugs. It takes months, if not years to get someone fully off these drugs. It will take years, if not decades to fix the problems with NATO that took decades to evolve. Trump's naive plan will only cause more problems. As usual, he has somewhat honed in on a valid problem, but has shown extreme wrecklessness and ignorance in his way of solving it.
I do not care what the individual countries of Europe do, but as for the US, I am all for leaving NATO. NATO is outdated, and is an organization in search of a mission.
I have had this view long, long before Trump, feel free to search the forum for my thoughts.
At that, Trump is an idiot, as the saying goes "if goods do not pass through borders, troops will". NATO including the US were trading even with the USSR, and we have huge amounts of trade with China despite spending billions of dollars on countering China's military build up. At that, NATO is not even "against Russia", it is a collective defense, originally organized for defense against the Soviets, which now no longer exist. To say "NATO is for defending Europe against Russia" is disingenuous. I think Trump just wants Europe to buy energy from the US, at high prices of course, and to have more leverage to threaten Europe with as they did other countries over the breast feeding resolution.
Actually, I do not think Trump even can think that strategically, he just likes to blabber.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
NATO soldiers from Europe and Canada have been laying down their lives in a US Led conflict since 2001 and have spent more in bloodshed that any supposed costs.
It was also US bases in Europe such as the vast US Military Hospital in Germany that helped save the lives of many US Service Personnel, whilst the US gained valuable intelligence throgh it's European bases, and they also supported US operations in the Middle East on land, sea and air, as well as supplying important logistics.
If America wants to close it's strategic assets in Europe then so be it, but America itself will be a lot weaker without them, at a time when other countries are projecting their presence on the world stage.
Here's the bigger picture -
You do not need NATO or similar collective defense to have a collective attack on a country. There were also non-NATO countries involved in Afghanistan, as well as the first Gulf War.
NATO is an organization with no mission, so it now makes up one that has nothing to do with defending members. Having an extra layer of bureaucracy serves no purpose. If country "A" is attacked, the countries "B, C, D..." can assist or not, a formal, bureaucratic alliance is not needed. Alliances can be formed at the start of hostilities, for coordination of responses, and disbanded after, just has been done numerous times (exactly how many US led military actions have involved NATO?)
With Trump threating NATO with comments like "Germany is a captive of Russia," "It's very inappropriate." when Trump himself has shown unprecedented tolerance of Putin and meddling in American elections.
Politics throughout history have depended on alliances and agreements between nations that help ensure peace and stability. Trump is systematically trying to dismember and dissolve every ounce of glue that is holding the world together.
My view on this:
- Trump wants to find buyers for US energy exports; but there is no reason for the EU to do that because Russia is much closer and has proven to be a solid, reliable supplier; if I am not mistaken there are actually new pipelines being planned or already built.
- If Trump doesn't like the way it is, go ahead and end Nato; a lot of the military spending in the US doesn't have to do with Nato, it is simply part of the whole imperialist approach; so go ahead Trump, end Nato and tell US troops to pack their **** and finally get out of our continent. Without Nato Russia will cease to be a problem, anyway. There is no ideological threat from the East, hence no military threat, either. Europe should accelerate the creation of its own military, which includes companies supplying the technology. So US companies no longer get our money, either. In the end, the end of Nato would be the best thing that could happen to Europe.
- The West, I think that is an illusion, anyway. There is no unity at all, just because we are mostly white. There were a lot of little documentaries from Russia because of the soccer world cup. Those people are more similar to us than US Americans are.
Europe should create a free trade zone from Lisbon to Shanghai.
If country "A" is attacked, the countries "B, C, D..." can assist or not, a formal, bureaucratic alliance is not needed. Alliances can be formed at the start of hostilities, for coordination of responses, and disbanded after, just has been done numerous times (exactly how many US led military actions have involved NATO?)
But you can't make these things up on the fly. Armed forces are organization, not just armed men. If you haven't done the boring, number-driven, nerdy staff work ahead of time, you can't run combined operations. This takes time, and time is what you no longer have in 21st century warfare.
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