Pentagon must balance military needs with the need for NATO allies to do more.

via Washington Examiner.

When it comes to U.S. security interests in Europe, the Pentagon must balance military needs with the need for NATO allies to do more.

That concern is again relevant following Senate testimony on Tuesday in which America's top military officer in Europe called for more military assets to be delegated to his command. General Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also NATO's supreme commander, says he needs more intelligence assets and two more destroyers, to add to the four already present. And Scaparrotti was clear with the senators."I am not comfortable yet with the deterrent posture that we have in Europe,” he said.

The basic issue here is not that Scaparrotti needs two more U.S. ships, but that the U.S. needs its NATO allies to free up their own ships. The central problem is that NATO members continue to limit the general's ability to deploy their destroyers where he needs to. Put simply, into the Black Sea. Only the U.S. and Britain are willing to do so with regularity.

Story here. 

This issue is beyond simple but our policy makers are making it unnecessarily complex.

Have you ever seen an able bodied individual that is sucking social programs dry?  Let's assume that they don't have a hidden ailment, that they are as they appear.  Strong, youthful and able to do at least a bit of manual/entry job labor.

But instead of working they sit back and consume the treasure of others.

Infuriating isn't it?

Unfair isn't it?

Yet it happens because leadership allows it to happen. 

Expand that thinking to the nation state level and you have the issue of the US and Europe.  They're more than capable of defending themselves against Russia as that country now exists but we continue to subsidize their defense while at the same time complaining that they won't do more.

From their chair the thinking has to be...why should we?  You guys will do it for us!

Tough love is often hated at first.  It requires the entity/person that its being applied to, to get off their behinds and do work.  But at the end of the day they're better for it.

The EU needs some tough love.