Try to convince me that President Trump is not right about Nato

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by logical1, Jul 13, 2018.

  1. logical1

    logical1 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    President Trump has the facts and the number right about NATO. The US is paying way too much to support NATO. It simply is not right the American taxpayers should be carrying way more of the cost of NATO than what is our fair share.

    Try to convince me he is wrong.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2018
    US Conservative likes this.
  2. kriman

    kriman Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This thread is no more trolling than any other thread I have seen here. I am interested in why people believe we should be paying more than our share of NATO. Other presidents have complained about us paying more than we should. Trump is going further to do something about it.
     
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  3. Nonsensei436

    Nonsensei436 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    World stability and unity is in our best interest and it’s as simple as that. Is hard to conduct trade amongst chaos.
     
  4. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    He is absolutely correct about NATO, I've been saying this for years and wondering why in the hell the US carries our allies on our back when we are all supposed to be allies. I understood it during the Cold War, we were willing to foot the bill in order to keep NATO strong in opposition to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The superpower that was the Soviet Union is gone now, The Russian Federation is not the USSR.

    Now I get it, our NATO allies aren't all as affluent as the United States and they can't afford and/or choose not to spend $600 Billion + on their military every year, but they can contribute more than they do.

    They don't contribute more because they never really had to because the US was always willing to pick up the slack. But lets face reality here, this might be arrogant but NATO=United States. NATO needs the United States and if the US pulled out of NATO there would be no NATO and everybody in NATO knows that. Sure NATO may still exist but the alliance looses virtually all of its credibility if the US pulls out of it and they know it and so does the world.

    NATO was a Cold War necessity for the United States. In 2018 NATO is a luxury, it's of course great to have an alliance but we don't NEED them anymore they way we did during the Cold War. It's time for the member nations of NATO to pay their fair share.

    In an alliance with 29 members it's not fair for one nation to be paying nearly 1/4 of the entire alliance budget and 67% of the alliance defense budget. I don't care how much more money we spend on our military than everybody else.
     
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  5. rcfoolinca288

    rcfoolinca288 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What facts and numbers are those? How about you post them for us to see?
     
  6. rcfoolinca288

    rcfoolinca288 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Umm... how do we figure out how much of our defense money is actually going toward NATO?
     
  7. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Can't really nail it down to the tee, NATO's defense budget is calculated by combining the defense budgets of the nations within it. Since the US obviously spends a lot more money on defense than anybody else our proportion is is larger. It's not so much that we are writing checks to NATO's defense budget, it doesn't work that way. You can calculate it based on what American defense budget funding is being used in support of NATO, for example American military installations, Naval groups in the area, etc. So basically if we combine the "military's" of all of the 29 NATO members then the US accounts for roughly 72% of it. So in a theoretical global war with NATO vs somebody else then the US would be contributing about 72% of the military for that campaign if we went full scale total war.

    NATO has it's own "NATO" stuff though that is funded by the member nations directly such as NATO bases and infrastructure and some military stuff. The US directly cuts a check for about 22% of all of that every year. That's the big problem, the NATO defense budget part not so much because that's based on how much we spend on our own defense. And it's not 90% it's 72%.

    However, the US does directly cut a check to fund 22% of NATO's own stuff, which in an alliance with 29 member nations having one single nation footing nearly 1/4 of the bill for anything is unfair.
     
  8. Guyzilla

    Guyzilla Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    HEre is why. Trump, out of his OWN mouth, said that NATO IS NOW MOAR RELEVANT than evah. AFTER of course, HE made them pony up, and swear an oath to his way of thinking. He swears.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2018
  9. rcfoolinca288

    rcfoolinca288 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Here's the problem I see and I think you pointed out, that amount of money is going toward our military, with or without NATO. Our defense spending by nature is atrocious and inefficient. Government contractors are notorious for ripping of tax payers money so the amount of money we spent doesn't equate to the actual efficiency we should receive. So even the 72% spending "toward" NATO is questionable, since we been using our military for other useless adventures at times.

    This is a more meaningful figure correct? since this is what we actually paid toward the bases, personnel, equipment etc. that would have current direct impact. While it might seem unfair, it's a far cry from the 70% to 90% Trump touted. Now, I seem to recall seeing this figure at 22% to be around 500 million plus per year we spent toward NATO. That vs. we are spending in excess of 3 billion for Israel per year which we have pledged for the next 10 years, but nobody seems to whine about that.
     
  10. kriman

    kriman Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is probably no absolute way to determine it. However, most people think of NATO as just being Europe. NATO is also involved in the defense of North America, specifically the US and Canada. As a start, you could count all military expenses not in the US or Europe because ultimately all of those resources would be involved.
     
  11. mitchscove

    mitchscove Well-Known Member Donor

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    They aren't serious. Here's from 2013 when lefties hated NATO and our military. Fashion is everything to some people and it's fashionable to oppose everything Trump does.

    Time for the United States to Leave NATO
    In Lord Ismay's classic formulation, NATO's founding purpose back in 1949 was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."

    Sixty-some years later, the verdict is in: mission accomplished. The uni
    ted and democratic Germany of the 21st century poses no security threat whatsoever. Meanwhile, the implosion of the Soviet empire has yielded a Russia that no longer possesses the military or ideological wherewithal to threaten Europe.

    The achievement of these two great objectives renders redundant the remaining item in Ismay's triad. The United States has done its job and ought to go home. Convert NATO into a European partnership, wholly owned and operated by Europeans, thereby allowing Washington to focus its attention and resources on more important priorities.

    The devolution of NATO into a European alliance should occur in phases, but the place to begin is with this basic proposition: In 2023, the United States will withdraw from the alliance. That will give Europe an entire decade to figure out how to defend itself from the nearly non-existent threats that it faces and to get used to the fact that the Cold War has, in fact, ended. Somehow or other I think they'll be able to manage.

    But wait! The "new" NATO has long since shed its identity as a defensive alliance. Over the past two decades, it has become an instrument for intervention "out of area," not only within Europe, but also further afield. Surely, one might argue, the U.S. departure from the alliance would reduce NATO's ability to project power. It would indeed. Without the participation of U.S. forces, today's interventionist NATO possesses only a negligible capacity to intervene. Or to put it another way, whether in Kosovo or Afghanistan, NATO serves chiefly to camouflage and thereby legitimate what is substantively a unilateral action by the United States.

    Americans keen to see Washington exercising "global leadership," also known as., imperial policing without end, may wish to preserve that camouflage. Americans persuaded that it's time to rethink U.S. foreign policy may wish to expose that camouflage for what it is.

    https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordeba...ness/time-for-the-united-states-to-leave-nato
     
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  12. rcfoolinca288

    rcfoolinca288 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Your logical deduction is sorely lacking. One op ed = the entire group?
     
  13. Lee Atwater

    Lee Atwater Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Pentagon Conducted ‘Damage Control’ Following Trump Threats To Pull Out Of NATO

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pentagon-damage-control-following-trump-threats-pull-out-nato

    When President Donald Trump left the NATO summit on the heels of threats to pull out of the alliance, the Pentagon made calls to defense officials in Europe to offer reassurances that the U.S. would not abandon their defense posts in the region, NBC News reported Friday.

    Multiple current and former diplomatic and military officials who spoke with NBC characterized the calls as “damage control” and a reinforcement of “alliance commitments.”
    .......................................................................................................................................................
    The adults are forced to clean up after Baby Donald...............again.
     
  14. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    I agree with our defense budget being inefficient but I disagree about it being too high. We don't have a pure funding problem we have a mismanagement problem. The ridiculous way we spend that defense budget is comical, if the DoD were a normal corporation then the financial officer and CEO would have been fired decades ago. Any service member who has ever served can attest to the outrageous amount of money things cost in the military. Anybody who has ever had to purchase a piece of issued gear they misplaced will tell you just how comically ridiculous the prices are for stuff. Contractors LOVE the military, the DoD is the absolute worst negotiator in the history of humanity. The way the DoD handles the money it's given is about as efficient as giving your 5 year old a hundred dollars and telling him to go buy groceries at the store.

    But yes, the 72% isn't directly going towards NATO, it's just what we spend on our military vs everybody else in NATO. To break down you'd have to spend months analyzing data from every single military operation down to the individual service member who's actions have anything whatsoever to do with NATO. It's impossible to obtain such a figure.

    I understand that the US throws money at other nations amounting to way more than what we give NATO, but the discussion here is NATO at the end of the day. Either way, in an alliance of 29 nations, no single nation should be paying 22% of the budget. Now I get it, I don't expect Luxembourg to pay a sizable chunk, their total GDP is like $64 billion dollars, many of our individual states in the US have higher GDP's than that and their entire military has less people in it than my high school graduating class. But the burden could be lessened for the US a little bit if all other member nations agreed to pay just a little more.

    Again not to sound arrogant, but NATO needs the United States a lot more than the United States needs NATO. The US is what makes NATO a military alliance, without us there is no NATO. Germany, France, UK, etc surely contribute heavily both financially and militarily, but everybody knows that if the US left NATO then there would probably not be a NATO anymore...
     
  15. Moonglow

    Moonglow Well-Known Member

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    How much does the US pay?
     
  16. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    This morning Teresa May said he is right.
     
  17. Lee Atwater

    Lee Atwater Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I would wager that the majority of folks in the Pentagon would disagree with that characterization. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement with the benefits derived by the US being under appreciated by the minions.
     
  18. kriman

    kriman Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is no way an absolute number can be calculated. As a minimum, it the cost of all troops in Europe. As a maximum, it could be considered the cost of all troops not in Europe or North America.
     
  19. Moonglow

    Moonglow Well-Known Member

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    Well I see, so if we dismantle those units like before the war just think of the money we could save..Yet Trump would never do that, save money, he's not GEICO..
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2018
  20. kriman

    kriman Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't consider myself a minion, but I will respond anyway.

    Having served in NATO, I doubt that. Just because it benefits us, does not mean we should carry an unfair burden. It most likely benefits Europe more than us.
     
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  21. kriman

    kriman Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So you are saying we should get out of NATO completely? Since Europe needs NATO more than us, I don't completely disagree.
     
  22. ButterBalls

    ButterBalls Well-Known Member

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    Talking points memo the one stop shop for a daily dose of SPINDANGO!

    Damage control LOLOL, there wouldn't be if the other nations had been contributing! Now that sugar daddy is pulling out they are scrambling to feed the kiddies ;)
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2018
  23. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    I never said NATO isn't beneficial, but it's not NECESSARY. It was necessary during the Cold War. As powerful as the US was, the USSR was just as powerful militarily for a lot of years and they had the Warsaw Pact. A conventional war with the US vs the USSR plus Warsaw would be a war we would have lost. Hell it's been argued that a conventional war with the USSR alone may have been a war we would have lost if we didn't both have nukes to throw at each other until we blew the world up. It was all a chess game anyway, there would never have been a conventional war with the USSR. Point is, we NEEDED NATO back then for pure survival, on paper we simply could not combat a Soviet alliance back then by ourselves, we needed help as long as Russia had allies.

    In 2018 we stand alone as the sole super power left. No matter how powerful a nation is it's always better to have allies to share the burden in war and it is beneficial to have NATO. But it's not purely mutually beneficial. If global war broke out Montenegro, Slovakia, Estonia, etc NEED the United States on their side. The United States doesn't NEED Montenegro on it's side.

    That's what I'm saying.
     
  24. Lee Atwater

    Lee Atwater Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Something for you to consider.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/trump-nato-defense-four-percent/564911/

    Perhaps some of the savings could be spent on the threat of cyber attacks on our elections. Arguably a bigger threat to the US than military action.
     
  25. Lee Atwater

    Lee Atwater Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Funny how you folks always take the easy way out.........making snide remarks about the source of info............due to an inability to refute what is being reported.
     

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