70 years NATO birthday ...

Wrong

 

Lets be honest, 2% will not happen. Nobody in Germany and in Europe wants such a huge German Army sitting around.
That would be 1000 Leo II and hundreds of support tanks and hundreds of fighter planes and bombers and at least 300.000 soldiers.

They are all scared of the ghosts of the past. Combine such a Army with the economical power. It would create such an imbalance in Central Europe, just because of the history.
Just remember how easily the NAZI comparisons came out when Germany flexed its muscle during the financial crisis and demanded reforms from the hardest hit countries.
Now add 2% to it, which would be the largest modern Army in Europe, not the Eastern European crap from the Soviets, Leo II and not T74, or Leo I.

Yes Germany has to spent more, but 2%, No.

 

No absolutely not.
The US and Germany are friends, governments change and have nothing to do with our basic friendship.
Governments are just a picture in a long movie.
Same for the UK and its Brexit, those are family feuds and should be considered as such.

It is more important to look at what connects us and there is a lot.

 

He is wrong, very wrong.
What does Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, France and Luxemburg unite ?
The World Wars and the wars before.
Central Europe, those countries, were the battle fields of Europe and the WW escalated it.

Germany was very passive, it was France that took lead and started it. Germany obliged, steel and coal treaty.
The Benelux followed the lead.
Even today France is the pushing power and Germany is struggling to keep up.

We fought each other and caused millions of us to die, for what ?
Nothing, absolute nothing.
That's why we went the other way.
He is wrong about the US, too.
It took a civil war to unite that country, to some extent. The rug was woven with the power of a gun and it till shows.

Europe is the greatest experiment, born out of war, to form something like a European country, born of a history of over 1000 years and wars which killed millions.

But it has been done before.

Can you tell me were ?

 

I think you missed a few things, of that time.
The estimates of occupying Japan were several millions dead, after the fighting seen in the Pacific, just on the allied side.
Hind side does not count.
Those bombs at that time were a statement towards Japan.
Nothing more.

 

IOW, the NSDAP won control of the German government through the parliamentary democratic process. Happens all the time.

July 31, 1932:

"The real victory belonged to the Nazis. They more than doubled both their votes of 1930 and their seats in the Reichstag. With 37.4 percent of the national electorate behind them and 230 of the 608 deputies in the new chamber, the NSDAP emerged as Germany's most powerful political party." Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., "German Big Business & the Rise of Hitler," Oxford University Press 1985, pp. 232, 233.

Democracy often leads end in tyranny.

 

I used to think the US entered WWII to make the world safe for communism.
Now I think our men died to make Europe safe for Islam.

 

Dresden was a UK and US military action, combined.
The UK came at night and the US during the day, spaced out so they could get the recovery and first responders.
Dresden was just a retaliation, as were other cities at that time, you had the machine and you had to use it.

The A bombs were demonstrations, we can whipe out your civilian population, if you do not surrender.
No military targets.
That was the new thing about WWII, the war against civilians on a massive scale.

 

NATO is an anachronism of another time. From the Dept of Redundancy Department

Can we just get over it​

And the last one to leave NATO offices
please turn off the lights.

​

 

Like the UN.

 

Like Three Miles Island and the US cover up ?

 

Not the firestorm. The firestorm was caused (deliberately) by British bombers intentionally spreading incendiaries throughout the city center.

US bombers did their best to hit the railyards and had nothing to do with the firestorm.

That is incorrect. Hiroshima was a huge military center with tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers. It was also the military headquarters in charge of repelling our coming invasion of Kyushu.

Nagasaki was an industrial center with giant weapons factories.

There was no cover up at Three Mile Island.

 

True, but 37% is a minority government. To gain a majority you have to have 51%.
Since the previous government, a coalition of parties, could no form a new government, Hindenburg gave that job to Hitler, in the end.
Hitler formed a minority government and than used the emergency clause.
He was never elected, had never a majority, he was appointed and used the flaws in the constitution to become dictator.
A lesson well learned by the constitution of West Germany, starting from election laws, 5% clause, to its emergency laws

 

Wrong.
Dresden was a civil target, by the UK and the US, nothing more, overrun by refugees.
The US after the UK was done bombed the civilian areas that were burning and not what was left of the industry, it was not a target.
As were the other bombings done on German cities in 45, whipping out, because they had the machine.

The A bombs were a demonstration of power, nothing more. That was their only purpose. We can wipe out your cities, if you do not quit.
What was a needles revenge in 45 against Germany and its than undamaged cities, was a need of demonstration of power towards Japan to end the war.
I very much understand the nukes, but what happened to Germany in 45, the targets, Dresden, makes no sense and the other cities, untouched no military value.
I am not excusing Germany or Japan, they asked for it and got what they asked for.
But hind sight asks some questions, as usual.

 

Three Miles is still a cover up.
That was a melt down, and ?

 

That is how governments are formed in parliamentary Democracies. In the US candidates with far less than 50% of the vote win elections.
Lincoln, Clinton and Trump are examples.

"The real triumph, however, belonged to the Nazis. They scored the most spectacular gains ever made in a single election by any German party since the first national elections in 1871, emerging with 107 seats, 95 more than they had held in the old chamber....The obscure, inscrutable fanatics of the 1920s had suddenly become a major force in national politics. " Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., "German Big Business & the Rise of Hitler," p. 111.

By 1932 the NSDAP was by far the largest party in Germany. Later they would win over 90% of the vote in the internationally monitored election over the Saar annexation, and by that time they knew exactly what Hitler was. His popularity that went beyond the ethnic German population. National socialism was a horrifying potent political force in the 30s.

 

That is incorrect. Only the British bombers intentionally spread incendiaries throughout the city center in the hopes of starting a firestorm.

US bombers did their best to hit the railyards.

There is no cover up.

And it was fully contained within the properly-constructed safety structure.

 

Such an informative post, I learned so much.

 

Correct ... aside point that the agreement of Wales tells that we have to fullfill NOT NOW, but in 2024.
Llet us look on spendings in 2018 ... digits in billion USD



So you can see, Germany is on place 8 with nearly 50 billion USD and about 1.3% currently. If we meet the 2%, of course, with roughly equal GDP as a base, that's around $ 80 billion and we're number 3, well ahead of this supposedly evil and dangerous Russia!
f that happens, you can start the very short countdown, until the shitstorm against Germany starts, including the references to Hitler and the military upgrade before the Second World War and the renewed warning against dne oh so evil Germans then!

Already ridiculous ... if we do not meet the 2%, we are the evil Germans ... if we meet the 2%, we are again the evil Germans, eh?

The fact is that since 2014 we have increased defense spending from $ 35 billion to now $ 49.5 billion, which is about 40% more spending.
The stupid thing, however, is that GDP at the time in Germany has risen sharply and therefore this extra expenditure does not have the 2% impact. If we had the same GDP as in 2014, we would be way above the 2%!

Last but not least, and you're talking about it, the question arises about the need for more money. The fact is that our armed forces have an administrative problem dealing with the money ... even tax wasting.
As with almost all NATO members, conscription is also suspended here and our forces are made up of volunteers and professional soldiers, currently 170,000 to 180,000.
This number only needs a certain amount of "device" to operate it ... so for example 244 Leopard 2A6 A6M and A7, which will be increased to 328 by 2023. This already includes a stock of unused vehicles in depots as a reserve. What do we want then with even more Leoprad 2 tanks, where there are no soldiers for use for.

One should not misunderstand me, I also want functioning and well-equipped German forces. There are problems at the moment, and while some of the well-known and media-related issues are now over, there are other problems and the elimination costs money.
But ... I do not want a 2% fulfillment just to keep the idiot in Washington and others quiet and waste pointless taxpayer money!

 

Maybe ... but then take a look at the liar from the White House on this topic:

FACT: At the 2014 Wales Agreement, all NATO members were told to put 2% of GDP into defense by 2024.
Reminder: We currently have the year 2019 ... not 2024!

Testimony Trump, in this video here:



Conclusion: Trump, the current US president is an insolent liar!

But there is another point ... the joint NATO budget of about $ 2.3 billion for headquarters in Brussels and other things.
Here, the US, with a share of around 22%, pays the largest share, followed by Germany in second place with almost 15% share.
For the fact that the USA pay the largest share here, do they also have privileges ... or why is the highest NATO soldier always a US 4 star general and never someone from another country?

Everything ... but all facts that are not shared in the US media and certainly not by the Trump government of the American people. Such a thing is really evil, arrogant and ignorant ...

 

NATO - keep the member states' populations supine and they will never become warlike?

 

Yes and no...
Basically nothing is against a common alliance of states, because together we are strong.
However, NATO is now only a US instrument for its international interests, which has nothing to do with the meaning of NATO .... and you can see that in the very nature of the nature and number of US forces in Europe.
But also practical actions such as dancing in the front yard of Russia, for example Georgia or now the Ukraine, which should as far as possible be members of NATO. Or the stationing of Missile Defense in Poland and Romania, which at the time was supposedly NOT against Russia, but against North Korea and Iran ... only idiots have ever believed that.

Such a NATO is superfluous and this US behavior is harmful to Europe. I am therefore in favor of a dissolution of NATO. I am not a great friend of Macron, but his idea of a purely European alliance within the EU of all or some Member States as an alternative is better. If you do not want to join in, like for example Poland, let him be the US tool and keep an alliance with them.

Partly ... and that is mainly because the permanent members of the UN Security Council are ruining the UN with their VETO law. Without the abolishment of VETO law, the whole thing is still only a circus performance of their own interests.

And as long as countries like the US behave like a banana state, the UN brings nothing. Only when the US has learned that the UN is not a tool of their interests and they are rightly the bad boy and then the judgment as Akzeoteren as they always expected from everyone else, you can forget the whole thing!

 

Agree absolutely. The UN is impotent and toothless as a result of the vetoes.

 

@Mandelus

What is the mission of NATO
in the post USSR world?

Cats Paw?

 

Yes, politicians lie, and are arrogant. As long as you are not trying to portray yourself, or your politicians as anything different.