It is odd how the media portrays the NATO issue that is at the forefront of the Merkel and Trump hostility. While few countries within NATO ante up according to the rules, the US has somehow become the Entitlement Program, the Welfare supporter for Europe’s military.
Germany does have their own military, of sorts. There are roughly 60,000 troops and a budget of roughly $48 billion which has remained relatively unchanged since 2001 and represents just 1.2% to 1.5% of their GDP. Merkel has been under fire for not meeting NATO criteria and simply shifting the burden on the US. Her response? She will work on it – and maybe by 2024, Germany will be able to meet the legal requirement. Not exactly a spiffy response…
Of the twenty eight members of NATO, only five made or exceeded the 2% rule. Why?
There are some who believe it is too steep and interferes in the 3% deficit rule imposed by the EU on its member states. It then becomes something of a juggling of funds from one basket to the other – like Kiting checks.
Unfortunately, this argument opens up the Pandora Box of the EU concept as a whole. The migrant crisis as a whole. And the welfare system as a whole.
The five countries meeting the 2% rule include: US, UK, Greece, Poland and Estonia. Oddly poignant is the fact that Greece meets the military requirement but is sanctioned for not meeting the EU 3% deficit requirement.
Germany is pitiably at the bottom of the chart currently hanging out with The Netherlands (1.2%), Canada (1%), Denmark (1.2%), Belgium (.9%)and the rest of the deadbeats who feel no compunction to meet the criteria. Perhaps, imposing sanctions and fines and penalties would wake everyone up. A consequence – what a novel idea…
What good is a rule if no one respects it enough to meet it?
Given the US is shouldering anywhere from 3.6% to 4% of GDP, it is understandable that We The People might have a problem with that discrepancy. Located in Brussels, NATO primarily spends all it’s funding on the EU. And while the EU is our ally, propping up their entire military is not in The Constitution… it is more of a Sugar Daddy effect.
NATO defense spending has specifically targeted Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Poland and Portugal. It becomes rather impertinent of Merkel to take a holier-than-thou attitude about Trump’s position on NATO spending when Germany hangs out with the 1.2% crowd and refuses to come to the plate. And in fact, after the 2% ratification agreement in 2014, Merkel ‘reduced’ military spending by 1.3% which would coincide with the influx of 2 million immigrants into Germany in 2015. Kiting checks.
In addition, this immigrant crisis diverted NATO funds to ‘helping the refugees’. By default, that means that the US is the largest financial supporter of refugees…in Europe.
But Merkel’s reaction to the US not continuing it’s propping up of NATO for the EU is like getting persnickety at your bank when they bounce a check because you refuse to cover the dollars. And then turning up your nose at the NSF fee, and demanding the bank front you the money. How dare the bad bad bank do such a thing!
The fact that the US and UK virtually support NATO actually creates a hierarchal Commonwealth with the EU as a ‘subject’ of the Kingdom overseen by the US and UK. I doubt that the Europeans would think highly of such a societal pecking order, and yet their Socialist agenda still demands the US act as Sugar Daddy.
Why? Entitlement. But it’s also a lack of explanation and argument of what is and has happened. The Europeans truly believe they are more informed and educated than the Americans. The Canadians truly believe they are more informed and educated than the Americans. And yet, they fail to see that we ‘uninformed Americans’ support them financially. We would be more than happy to stop that funding… thus dismantling the global Socialist, Communist Kingdom hierarchy… Which is why Merkel – is running scared. She is entrenched in that agenda with the Rothschild and Soros agents fervently working the helm.
But that’s the power of Socialism – it creates a false reality in which everything is – what you are told to believe. A child told he/she is stupid, will ultimately believe ‘they are stupid’, it has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with the power of persuasion and manipulation.
And so we have a persnickety Merkel, angry and offended by Trump, because he is considering pulling the rug from beneath the global round table and in so doing will reveal the reality of all the dust-bunnies that lie beneath.