Europe no longer a capable military ally or are we really talking about Germany and the UK?

via Marine Corps Times.

"They're not doing enough," Carter said in an unusually blunt assessment of the Europeans' defense efforts. He said they are spending a smaller share of their overall economic wealth on defense than they did in the past.
"It's too low," he said. "And if Europe wants to be a force in the world it needs to be more than a moral and political and economic force, which Europe is because it shares many of our values and demonstrates them around the world. But it has to have the military power that goes with that as well.
"It has to have the military power to be a capable ally of ours, and we see that slipping. It has got to turn around. It's not that they don't have the money to do it."

Interesting.

We know from following recent news stories that this doesn't apply to the Nordic or Scandinavian countries. Additionally the former Eastern Bloc countries are all increasing defense spending....Italy, Spain, Greece are all spending more on defense than is probably sensible considering their financial situations...and Turkey's leadership is confused.

Which means this jab was really aimed at two countries.

Germany and the UK.

Serious question though.  Is that fair?

Germany is basically propping up half the EU financially and the UK has been on more military adventures than a nation its size can actually be expected to participate in.  Its easy to slam allies but maybe its not as simple as we'd like to believe.

What say you?