Shortly after we got transferred back to the states in the late 1960’s and my dad went to work for the Pentagon, the proverbial shitake mushrooms hit the fan as the defense budget costs were audited revealing $1000 nails, gold toilet seats, $5000 paintings, etc… It was an embarrassment but it showed how budgets were created, inflated, and spent. It also showed – why?
In the government, when you submit a budget, if you don’t use up all the allocated funds, the subsequent year you are given less. Therefore, some genius came up with the idea of overspending so that each subsequent year you would get more. That’s how it went in a nutshell. And that’s how it continued from the advent of Democrat Lyndon Johnson, until present day.
In light of Trump demanding that NATO allies immediately spend the ‘required’ 2% of GDP on defense, the backlash is typical – “the USAF spent $32,000 on special cups”. Therefore, Trump is a spendthrift who can’t call out member states who don’t ante up their part.
Of course, they have completely missed the point.
The oddball spendthrift is the one country that is the EU’s wealthiest, Germany spending just a tad over 1%. Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Norway, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania all underspend according to the NATO rules of Protocol. And they all have since 1991 when Clinton was President and the Soviet Union was dissolved. The threats for which NATO was created; Italy and the Soviet Union, no longer existed.
Of 29 member states, 5 meet the 2% threshold, Poland is quite close, and the remaining don’t. So why have rules at all if no one cares to abide by them? Why have NATO is even the EU’s wealthiest nation refuses to pay their fair share?
Yet somehow, Trump is the bad guy…
Trump called for the 2% mark to be met immediately with a future goal of 4% and the media is going ballistic. Why? Because they say the US doesn’t spend that much, in fact the US spends only 3.6%… Interesting argument. Trump is apparently setting the stage for an increase in defense spending and the media completely missed the message.
Adding to the idiocy is the fact that Merkel who just instituted an extension of sanctions against Russia, simultaneously signed a deal for $11 billion to bring the Russian pipeline into the EU, and demonized Trump for even criticizing the hypocrisy of the situation, while demanding that the US continue to pay the bill to protect Germany from the ‘bad guy’ – Russia.
In 2017, Germany reported a 41.2 billion Euro surplus which represented 1.2% of their GDP. SO why didn’t they meet their NATO budget criteria if they had the funds to do so? Military expenditures represented roughly 10% of their Revenues.
The reason they don’t is because no one is crying wolfe! They are not called to their word. And their integrity has flatlined.
NATO: The US was initially not a member of NATO until Democrat, Harry Truman, decided that including the US would help to expand the globalization goal in eradicating communism – ie, Soviet Russia and Fascist Italy. At the time Germany was not a member given they were the front for WWII. In 1955, despite France’s adamant denunciation, NATO brought West Germany in as a member. By 1966, De Gaulle had transferred all defense forces out of NATO due to the perception that it had become a US/UK stronghold.
Short term memory: France did not return to NATO until 2009 with advent of Obama’s Presidency and the rise of the Global elite cabal.
While NATO membership continued to expand from its initial 5 countries as of 1948, it is not clear why given the threats it was created to deter had long ago been eradicated. Still, it was somewhat of an elite party and everyone wanted to be on the list although no one wanted to pay their fee, they likened it to a freebie supported in most by the US.
Over the course of it’s life NATO has worked somewhat in conjunction with US military forces. Essentially, they became a US adjunct financially, while the EU states that it was formed to protect continued to pay less and less over the next 26-27 years from 1991 to 2018. The US military budget is $886 billion. That accounts for over half the Discretionary Spending and roughly 20% of the entire Federal Budget.
NATO is obsolete. Whether or not they accomplished anything of value since their ascension to power is debatable. Their purpose has been removed from existence over the last 26 years. EU and Canada have recognized this and their contributions have been on a steady free fall ever since.
Dump NATO.