Guntsu
244
And in the end with all the bluster the US won’t be giving up any of its bases on foreign soil, quibbling over “fair share” is not enough for the US to pack up.
e7alr
245
I have Germany’s defense spending, actual dollars, and as a portion of GDP, from 1960 to 2021. The document you dismiss references 2 full budget years prior to the economic slowdown where Germany actually ran a surplus. Yet they didn’t even attempt to meet their NATO obligation in those years, yet did expand their welfare programs. This is true for most of the Western European members of NATO. We have given you specific examples of where they have done it in individual years and their pattern of long time spending below NATO commitment levels is a matter of record. But feel free to continue to be intellectually dishonest on the topic.
I dunno. I believe Trump would have given it a serious try.
Sure, sure.
You can now say, with full confidence, that NATO shorts defense spending to pay for social programs.
You still can’t prove it, but much like trickle down, it is now in the firmament of things the right knows that just aren’t true.
e7alr
248
Actually we were considering moving the German bases to Poland. This would have led to a shift from a large permanent party to a force model like we had in Kuwait from 91 to the second Gulf war. Pre-positioned equipment, with a forward deployed HQ staff and rotating combat brigades deployed for 4 months at a time. No large dependent footprint, no bloated Kaserne infrastructure. Just routinely scheduled rotations for training with Polish and other Eastern European armies and continuous maintenance and operational use of the equipment set. Easy reinforcement schedule, as the next heavy brigade(s) could stand green ramp alert status. All it takes to redeploy is troops and individual equipment as all other equipment is already at the pre-positioned sites. Each rotation serves as a REFORGER run through making a real reinforcement much smoother. And the Eastern Europeans were much more willing to fund the expenses because their memory of life under Russians is very clear in their memories.
Guntsu
249
Political talking points the strategic advantage that we have globally by having US bases in foreign countries is too great.
We get reach, speed and intelligence we would be gimping ourselves if we ever decided to actually close them down.
Yeah, I get all that, but Trump doesn’t think like that. He is a transactional, short term thinker.
DougBH
251
Who was talking about accepting the mythology because it confirms ones bias.
This has already been covered.
e7alr
253
No, some of NATO’s Western European member states have a well established record of failing to meet their commitments to national defense funding under NATO agreements. They prioritize social welfare spending over meeting their alliance responsibilities. They do this to satisfy domestic political expectations, as they fear having to tell their citizens that they have over promised and don’t fear any actual consequences for failing to meet alliance obligations.
Like many other things, Do we believe you, or our lying eyes, when we review the documented history of funding decisions of Western European social welfare states?
