Germany and France have announced joint plans to build a, as in one, fighter jet, in their ‘ambitious new defense strategy’.  This one jet may be ready within – two years… or more because first they have to create a ‘concept study for a shared air combat system’, and the study may require two years to complete.

The construction for this fighter jet is a combined effort between Germany’s Airbus and France’s Dassault although funding is an issue and the respective governments are looking for outside ante’s.   Airbus’ military chief, Fernando Alonso, has stated that simply buying a bunch of US made F35’s would be a much less expensive alternative but such a purchase would greatly impact Europe’s sovereignty.   What?

Suddenly, it would appear that Europe has decided it will adopt the anti-Trump agenda of sovereignty – they just won’t announce it to the people.  In fact, the cost of this monstrosity unmanned fighter jet has also been kept under wraps given the tenuous budgets of France and Germany are already squeezed by trade issues and immigration welfare.

What they have announced is a $75 million budget to be shared by Dassault and Airbus to develop the ‘architecture and manufacturing structure’ for the project.  Essentially, it is a committee fee that may or may not determine if the project is even feasible.  And in essence, the spending does little to nothing to advance Europe’s military, and may be a smoke screen or deflection from the fact that their NATO ante remains in the twalette. Previous collaborations have proven quite embarrassing as differing opinions created vast disparities and eventually entire projects crumbled with nothing to show for the $$$$.

Of course, this time will be different.

While Macron made the demand that the venture not include bidding from US Lockheed Martin in order to maintain ‘sovereign rule’, the fighter jet will be fitted with US Nuclear Bombs.  So I guess sovereign only means – sometimes.

But they need to do something given their defense ministers have whispered the fact that most of their current inventory is obsolete or in dire need of costly repairs.

While Trump demanded that the EU countries ante up their fair share of military spending per the NATO Agreement, they have been reluctant.

NATO was created to defend European countries from a “Russia invasion”.   Canada, Turkey and the US came on board after the fact.   Russia came aboard briefly but NATO ejected them after the Ukraine coup.   Like a good deal of the Federal government, NATO has become a nonessential burgeoning expense propped up by the US and a handful of EU countries to conduct military exercises.  While NATO has been an alliance in Afghanistan, and the first Gulf War, it is now mostly relegated to ‘protecting civilians in north Africa’.   Why?  Why is NATO protecting countries that aren’t a part of NATO?

A quick perusal of the NATO site indicates their current projects to be a handful of meetings, shaking hands, and discussing security while taking jaunts to Romania, Slovakia, Macedonia, Kosovo, London and Brussels.   Of course no organization would be complete without creating a sub-feature that addresses ‘equality for women’, as in NATO is now a sponsor for protecting women’s rights.  AH!

Of course the blatantly obvious question in all this military discussion is why are Germany and France creating their own military instead of anteing up their fair share for NATO?   Unless they too believe that NATO has become superfluous.

Time Magazine has an answer: Their justification for the fair share debacle is because the 2% of GDP is simply a ‘guideline’, not mandatory. And therefore, Germany, France and most of the EU are within their right to give NATO money – or not, in any denomination they feel like.   Therefore if a country, such as the US, decided to ante nothing, we would be within that same ‘guideline’ rule.   By George I’ve GOT IT!

It is the same rule that the Paris Climate Accord created, i.e., ‘a guideline’ that neither Germany or France have ever met, and don’t intend to meet in the near future, although a 30 year agenda sounds good because Merkel and Macron will be long gone by then sitting on a beach drinking Mai Tai’s.

I wonder if the $39 billion BREXIT bill is a ‘guideline’?  Given that contracts are not really binding, and $$$ aren’t really available, and rules aren’t really governable?  And organizations are really superfluous… conducting occasional meetings, flying hither and there… while Kosovo ‘peacekeepers’ are really volunteers, but they are multi-ethnic, lightly armed, professional and support the UN.  But Kosovo is not a member of NATO, so why is NATO even there?    I ramble.

Bottom line, France and Germany are trying to give the impression they are doing something constructive toward building a military when in fact what they have is completely unusable, would offer no protection to the people, and they don’t have the money to create a military defense – so instead, they have created a committee to evaluate the construction of a jet and held lots of photo ops to impress the media with a proposal/guideline of a jet that is way too expensive, and they can’t afford.

But it isn’t mandatory…