That is because, if US rhetoric is to be believed, the members of NATO have been free-riding on the USA for decades when failing to meet their obligation to appropriately fund their defence budgets.
I do not accept this argument. In my opinion, the US accepted the obligation to defend the West following World War II in exchange for the West’s use of the dollar as the world reserve currency.
It’s an idiot view. It’s an incorrect view. But it is a view.
But is it a view held by even a single American?
Why should the US pay for our defence if we can’t be bothered to? The US should pay so that we accept the dollar? The man’s mad.
And of course they have been “delinquent” (DJT).
As of 2015 (prior to DJT’s comment above), only Greece, Poland, Estonia and the UK met or exceeded the 2% commitment.
Luxembourg, Spain, Canada, Italy, Hungary and Belgium were below 1%.
And don’t forget, these budgets include all of the pensions paid to retired NATO officers and (correct me if i’m wrong), the UK foreign aid budget…
Addolff
So you’re saying that the money the UK (and Oz) piss away on Yemen so the Houthis can attack our shipping in the Red Sea is a contribution to our defence??
It’s a view someone might get who’s in the process of inserting his head up his own asshole. Somewhat dim & mostly bollocks.
The dollar has its position because of the size of the US economy. OTOH, the US is quite pleased to flex its economic and military and diplomatic muscle in its own interest and enjoys the idea of being ‘Leader of the Free World’. Isolationist it is not , reluctant be be leader even less so. ‘ NATO doesn’t pay its way’ is a convenient moan the US trots out, but maybe it’s a situation they tacitly enjoy.
We should hand over management of military production and financing of it to a modern Lord Beaverbrook. Someone with proven expertise in finance, taxation, economics and past holder of offices as director and senior partner in massive commercial organisations.
A certain resident of Ely comes to mind.
Luxembourg, Spain, Canada, Italy, Hungary and Belgium were below 1%.
Spanish are currently politicking franticly for control of that vitally strategic asset, Gibraltar. The Spanish military couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. They’ve only fought in two wars in the past two centuries ( 3 if you count the Colombian War of Independence ) In all cases they were fighting against themselves & were on the losing side. Before that they were mostly notable for running away.
Prospects for secure international trade through the Med do not look good.
Having a stab at why did they subsidise it , rather than why should they. It was because Europe has been the focus point of two world wars, both of which US was reluctant to get in but was dragged in eventually. But having done so it became accepted paradigm they’d that they’d be dragged in if it happened again, so they might as well organise and fund effective deterrence. Now why did they let the treaty obligations slide? because no president gave a toss about that until a certain DT came on the scene. Same for UN contributions. Simply they didn’t see the electoral mileage to be made, they didn’t have the rhetoric, nor gumption to rock the boat. Granted not rocking the boat has advantages, but as that became the new paradigm it was noted and the euro locals took advantage, for their own electoral reasons.
Not quite, Hallowed Be
I’ve been working on and off in the US for 12 years or so, and other nation’s NATO contributions have been irritating Americans for most of that time. At least partly because Europeans were so sniffy about uncouth Yanks and their gun-lovin’ ways.
Obama tried to get Europe to pay up before DJT did, but Europe Sir Humphrey’d him, promising a review over the next 10 years.
JC- yes Ok, and so far we only have a difference of rhetoric and style to compare, not of actual difference made, but but my guess is sir Humphrey will need something more up his sleeve than schmooze in DT 2nd term.
Just as a technical note:
the West’s use of the dollar as the world reserve currency.
The dollar US may be the dominant world reserve currency but it’s hardly the only one. So’s the UK pound. And more particularly, second in line after the dollar as a reserve currencyis the Euro.
So surely by Spud logic, the EU should be obliged to match its military commitments to its reserve currency status, since it must be benefiting from it?
Well let’s put aside the obvious absurdity of the argument for one minute. Murphy is in favour of Hamas and also their Allies in the EU (I don’t think its a stretch to call them this) Brexit is bad ergo the EU is good. Israel is bad (and ‘Far-Right’) ergo the Palestinians are good. A close relative of mine is a collaborator of Murphy’s and while it’s a stretch to say their views are absolutely identical both share a Manichean view of the world. There are good people aligned to them and their opponents are automatically evil, as is anyone who associates with them. Bizarre that someone of pensionable age can have that simplistic a worldview in my eyes but that’s another matter.
Where I am slightly nonplussed is that he is a Green Party supporter. They’re in favour of unilateral disarmament – taken from this link.
https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/policy/peace-and-defence/
Green Party will develop a non-offensive defence strategy that will harmonise with our strategy to promote greater global peace and common security through dialogue, diplomacy and the building of trust. The defence budget will be progressively reapportioned to peace promotion and security priorities, to better combat the real and present threats we face as a result of the Climate and Ecological emergency.
Apparently that was on Monday I am guessing.
In addition while being directly responsible for the support of four of the key drivers behind inflation.
– Unlimited immigration
– Net Zero
– Previous bouts of QE being monetized
– Continued and ongoing expansion of the National Debt
For the fifth which is the Ukraine War he doesn’t actually really mention it at all – it’s as though the conflict doesn’t exist. He is strongly pro Hamas but oddly silent about the Russia/ Ukraine situation. Wonder what has prompted this particular outburst?
@Rhoda
The US has long had a streak of isolationism. The Monroe Doctrine was the first in a long line of isolationist tendencies. It was strong before both world wars, and even afterwards as the US picked up the free world defense burden. It can still be seen today as the debate goes on over military aid to Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. This isolationist streak is present for some on both the Right and Left, one of the few things they agree on.
The cheapest method by which to ensure a country will not be invaded is to go nuclear.
The US doesn’t want that for any country that isn’t already so. Canada could have done it in about 6 months back in the 1950s, and likely still could. We didn’t do so because of US pressure.
Likewise with jet fighters – the Avro Arrow was cancelled, among other reasons, because the US wanted that market.
So the US “pay more for your defense” in a lot of cases works out to “buy more of our weapons”.
Isolationism is a very loaded word, isn’t it? Is Estonia for instance isolationist because it takes so little interest in Caribbean affairs & hasn’t sent a peacekeeping force to Haiti?
Governments’ primary responsibilities are to their own citizens. Not the rest of the world. So looking from the inside out rather than the outside in, it’s a matter of priorities.
Maybe the safety of the Western World is in Americans’ interests. But you do have to convince Americans of that. So it might be a better to try rather denigrating America & Americans at every opportunity.
– OTOH, the US is quite pleased to flex its economic and military and diplomatic muscle in its own interest and enjoys the idea of being ‘Leader of the Free World’. Isolationist it is not , reluctant be be leader even less so.
I think that era is over; I think the US has lost interest in globalisation and playing world cop, and is pulling its tentacles back much closer to home. It is reindustrialising like mad and pulling away from overseas supply chains as much as possible. Both sides of the aisle seem on board.
BiS
Funnily enough the Estoniand quite seem to enjoy getting involved. They were in both Iraq and Afghanistan ( I think ). They also had really nice kit apparently.
Estonians were definitely in Afghanistan – think they may have even been the third largest contingent in Helmand (after us and the Danes). Had occasion to hitch a ride back from a FOB to Bastion in one of their APCs – their kit was generally modern and well maintained, but they were having to borrow some stuff – all the rations they had were British ones for example. So they maybe don’t have the expeditionary capability to be more actively non-isolationist…
That would have meant my brother was feeding them. Which is amusing for a comment on here.
Yeah. I was aware of Estonia’s participation In Afghanistan. My Estonian mate did a stint there. Estonia”s well fulfilled its NATO commitments. It’s notable as being one of the only two Eurozone countries has.
It’s a shame Estonia joined the Euro. The Crown had the currency code EEK !
Thank you OY halfway through typing I suddenly couldn’t remember which one they were in.
@BiS yeah… the visible bits..
Clogland had, by far, the largest fleet of F16’s in the world. All of them have been over any of the theaters from the Serbian mess on twice over.
All of our Navy the same, most times filling in for more domestic uses of US military vessels, freeing them up to go elsewhere. That includes our subs..
The landrats about 50%, given that we left the heavy artillery at home. For (former) Air Mobile and Engineering corps it’s hard not to find a veteran. Half have multiple tours under their belt, quite often in places that no-ones ever heard of, because those theatres aren’t Interesting Enough globally for the Press and the Big Bois.
But, yeah… Not NATO “contribution”… Because formally most of that action was under the UN “peacekeeping” umbrella. Which NATO won’t acknowledge as “NATO contribution”.
Cynical old me wonders whether all of these overseas adventures aren’t just a waste of blood and treasure and most countries would be well advised to keep to their own business unless real national interests were in real danger.
Also: What we are seeing in Ukraine is what warfare is like when the other chap can see everything and engage anything with a good chance of success. Re-configuring our own forces before we see how it plays out would be unwise. The old rules are gone and nobody really know what the new rules are.
Thirdly: What would Afghanistan or Iraq have been like for our troops if the asymmetric low-capability side had cheap chinese drones with extemporised explosives such as used in Ukraine? They could not be dealt with outside of WW2 nazi methods in my humble opinion.
@Rhoda
In the past three decades our Military Command has clearly expressed the Opinion that if our efforts weren’t Good Enough, they’d happily go back to just worrying about our actual sovereign territory. Thrice.
The amount of backpedalling from the Political chairwarmers all the way up to UN/NATO was such that you could replace two putative North Sea wind farms and cause a power spike large enough to blow most fuses in the country with it.
Oh, and there will never again be a french or brit officer in even nominal command of our troops. They’ve ruined that with Srbreniça…. hard….
Second point is… 3-4 generations raised without any Discomfort whatshowever… what do you expect?
Third… where do you think the explosives for the AED’s came from?
Through Pakistan/Iran, from our chinese “friends”.
(who weren’t even invested in the effort, they simply could sell their Stuff… China has its own way of dealing with the Islamic Menace. Nasty, but effective…)