Man!
I have issues with some Brits (that pedophile looking Pierce Morgan and others attempting to insert themselves into our internal politics when it comes to our 2nd Amendment rights) but the British people will have every right to be pissed about this. Check out this article via the Guardian...
You better brace up and be prepared to get punched if you tell a British serviceman that served in Afghanistan some stuff like that.
You better duck for cover when you realize that the UK was laughed at for supporting us in this war...especially when the US is about to cut back on defense spending itself.
The arrogance in this statement is stunning. Who is running that shop and how did they think this was a good idea????
Oh, once again you doubt me? Check out the vid below and then ask how we can lecture anyone on defense spending.
I have issues with some Brits (that pedophile looking Pierce Morgan and others attempting to insert themselves into our internal politics when it comes to our 2nd Amendment rights) but the British people will have every right to be pissed about this. Check out this article via the Guardian...
The UK and other European countries must use the money saved by withdrawing from Afghanistan to re-equip their military and help reverse worrying cuts in defence spending, the American ambassador to Nato will warn on Tuesday.Ivo Daalder said if Europe did not invest in new capabilities, its over-reliance on America would continue at a time when Washington had made the far east and China its new strategic priority."If we don't start soon in investing in those capabilities then the gap between the US and the rest is going to grow. And if it is bad now, then it will be worse. If we have problems, they will be even worse."You better have balls the size of King Kong to tell a British Mother whose son died in Afghanistan some stuff like that.
You better brace up and be prepared to get punched if you tell a British serviceman that served in Afghanistan some stuff like that.
You better duck for cover when you realize that the UK was laughed at for supporting us in this war...especially when the US is about to cut back on defense spending itself.
The arrogance in this statement is stunning. Who is running that shop and how did they think this was a good idea????
Oh, once again you doubt me? Check out the vid below and then ask how we can lecture anyone on defense spending.
On Mr Morgan,
ReplyDeletethought this might raise a smile
https://www.change.org/petitions/the-people-of-america-keep-piers-morgan
Whilst I agree with the idea that the UK should be spending more on defence than it does, i'd suggest that, as the US Ambassador points out, the US has made Europe none of its concern, therefore what European militaries are doing and how capable they will be post-Afghanistan shouldn't matter to them (East Asia is not Europes concern militarily anymore, hasn't been for anyone but the UK for a long time really). Unless the US still expects NATO to be its personal reserve force in its conflicts in far flung parts of the world. The UK has tried that, and it can easily be argued that its the main reason our force is now going to be fucked post-Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteSo Mr Ambassador, kindly piss off and get on with cutting your own military so you can grovel to the Chinese in a decade.
P.S Sol, do us a favour and keep Morgan, consider him payment for forcing the likes of Madonna on us in the Uk for so many years.
Yeah I wouldn't be excited to be told after supporting the US and spending national treasure (lives and money) in Afghanistan that it's not time to save money after drawing down there.
ReplyDeleteThat said not being excited, or even not wanting to hear it, doesn't change the fact that NATO defense spending is pathetic and has been for decades. During Kosovo the US had to fly the vast majority of the strike missions and this is back when the UK and France were spending 2.8 and 2.7% of GDP on defense (Germany 1.5%). About a decade later almost everyone is below 2% and the UK and France barely had enough munitions to cover Libya which was in terms of strike sorties a minor operation. Indeed France is going to take a few years to build back it's stock of munitions.
While I personally appreciate NATO voting to support the US under Article 5 ISAF was never given enough troops or equipment and there were constant issues between some nations willing to engage in more robust operations than others. It did not appear, to take one example, that there were ever enough non US helicopters.
Non US NATO has more GDP and population but spends about 25% as the US on defense. If that smaller percentage was sufficient so be it but it's clearly not. US defense cuts might eventually get the US down to 3% defense spending. The agreed NATO standard is 2% which almost nobody actually meets. The 2% the UK spends might even be adequate for them if they took the nuclear weapons off budget, as has been suggested since at least the 1970's, but I'm not aware of any defense professionals that see the UK's budget as adequate.
The US has been talking about NATO burden sharing for decades. It was a huge issue in the 1980's. It's one reason why NATO has agreed minimum standards. Mentioning almost no nation is meeting these agreed standards should not be an issue. But yeah nobody wants to hear it so shoot the messenger.
well if you take that tack then you have to discuss if NATO is even needed today. quite honestly the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan SHOULD have been UN led instead of NATO led.
Deleteperhaps even better would have been simply a coalition of the willing. but NATO? its a dinosaur, its a headquarters to give Generals commands but it really isn't a necessary institution anymore.
That's certainly a discussion worth having Sol. After Kosovo and Libya it should be apparent who needs whom in this relationship. The issue for the US is probably whether direct military ties through NATO are still worthwhile within the greater security regime, whether some of our bases are still useful (and whether they're dependent upon NATO), etc.
ReplyDeleteI used to be a staunch NATO supporter. I haven't been since 2003. France convincing Turkey to keep our troops out and make Iraq that much harder rather turned me off to NATO. ISAF was a disappointment with some national contingents being wonderful exceptions.
That said NATO voting to support the US under Article 5 was exactly the kind of security regime that supports US policy. Saying it should have been a UN effort is to almost say it should have been useless.
Frankly we need a counter to the UN, a group of stable democracies, far more than I worry about whether we're in or out of NATO.
Of the 70,000 or so personnel we're currently planning on continuing to base in Europe about 10,000 or so are normally forward deployed outside Europe. I'm not sure leaving NATO would mean we'd lose every useful European base but I'm not sure it's worth leaving either. It's probably destabilizing geopolitically which isn't in our interest.