caryking said:
hokiewolf said:
caryking said:
hokiewolf said:
packgrad said:
hokiewolf said:
packgrad said:
hokiewolf said:
TheStorm said:
Trump only wanted the US not to be carrying all of Europe's weight in funding... he wanted them to be paying their fair share instead of us always covering everything. We were never pulling out of NATO. To even say that we were is pure stupidity.
Pure Stupidity to leave NATO indeed. We agree on this.
https://www.c-span.org/amp/video/?c4745235
We also agree that Trump does not continue to push to leave NATO like you lied about above.
It's quite telling to google "trump continues to push to leave nato" so you can see where hokie gets his news.
he consistently questions why the US is in NATO on the campaign trail. You think that's doesn't give Putin hope that that will come to fruition in a 2nd Trump term and therefor continues with his insane war in the Ukraine?
Please explain to me how this signals strength against Russia?
He consistently signals that the US will support NATO as long as we are not alone footing the bill.
do you not understand how that weakens NATO and the US strength over Russia? I believe you do not.
Hokie, I think you are playing naive, on this... Trump was smart in trying to get all NATO members to pay their fair share (you know that liberal slogan). According to some, those country's are doing that now.
No, he demanded a ransom and threatened to leave NATO. That's not smart. It's also incorrect that NATO doesn't pay its fair share. That's just not true.
Not sure how you can publicly dump on an Organization that the only time the Article 5 was enacted was 9/11.
NATOs military budget is like $2 billion. Why is it even a discussion? I honestly think he thinks NATO is part of the UN, which is a whole separate discussion.
You guys really don't look stuff up and when you do and it doesn't jive with what you've been sold, you dismiss it as fake news or TDS.
Again, how does publicly threatening NATO help it's and the US position with Russia, when Putin very stated goal is the elimination of NATO?
Eventually, what Trump says you're going to have to accept it at face value. Pontificating during speeches about wanting to leave NATO and how the NATO nations don't pay their fair share is an increasingly stupid thing to say.
NATO's military budget is 2B. You know, I really don't know if that's true, let's say it is. How much is their administrative budget. Probably 400B plus…
I'll bet the US funds roughly 20% plus of the entire budget of NATO.
Trump leaned on NATO member to increase their own defense funding. Essentially arguing "we can not continue to be the world police alone, or carry most of the burden." His leaning on the other members worked. I know the TDS crowd, like hokie smapty and civ, can't bear to admit it worked, but it did.
"NATO statistics released in November 2019, just ahead of the London Summit, shows Europeans and Canada increased their collective spending by a combined by 5.6 percent in the last five years. That includes a 1.7 percent in 2015, 3.0 percent in 2016, 5.7 percent in 2017, and about 4.5 percent each in 2018 and 2019.
From 2015 to 2019, non-US NATO countries increased defense outlays more than 20 percent to $302 billion, while US defense spending increased from $660 billion to $685 billion. In all, NATO members' total defense investment could top $1 trillion in 2020. Today, while nine NATO-member countries meet or exceed the 2 percent target (including the US) seven are within 0.5 percent of the target, and all 28 have increased defense spending since 2014.
When it comes to investing in new equipment, the trends appear to be even better. NATO members have all agreed to invest 20 percent of their defense spending on new gear, and now, 16 NATO members are hitting the mark. Indeed, only Albania, the UK, and France have reduced their level of investment in weaponry since 2014. This separate accounting is useful because member states spend differently on pay, amenities and support for their troops, while the cost of equipment is largely equalized across the alliance.
At a lunch Trump hosted at the London meeting for the "2 percenters," he lauded the progress in investment and took credit for spurring allies to spend more on defense. "Someday," he said, "we'll raise it to 3 percent and 4 percent, maybe."
....
Whether all that new investment is because of the president is hard to determine. But in an interview with National Public Radio last summer, Garrett Martin, a NATO scholar at the American University School of International Service, said Trump may deserve credit. "Maybe there's a bit more urgency now because he's blunter than his predecessors in criticizing his European partners," Martin said."
What's hilarious is that Obama's guy basically told his other fellow defense ministers the same thing. "Y'all need to start paying more for your own defense or we're going to eventually get tired of it."
The French president has openly stated he is unsure if every member should come to the aid if another is attacked.
This idea that Trump talking poorly about NATO is unique or is in someway encouraging Russia in the war is 1 million percent TDS. Look it up.