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Foreign Invaders crisis cost $150B in 2023, forcing some areas to cut police and fire services: report Israel kills head of Hezbollah Intelligence. Status: Not Logged In; Sign In International News See other International News Articles Title: Trump: NATO partners "agreed to substantially up their commitment" Source: HotAir URL Source: https://hotair.com/archives/2018/07 ... reed-substantially-commitment/ Published: Jul 12, 2018 Author: Ed Morrissey Post Date: 2018-07-12 09:30:26 by Tooconservative Keywords: None Views: 2436 Comments: 26 Mission accomplished? After a contentious NATO summit, Donald Trump held a surprise press conference earlier today to announce substantial increases in spending commitments by other members of the alliance. Trump declared NATO now a “fine-tuned machine” after his negotiations, but also hinted that he could have disassembled it if he wanted: "Everyone has agreed to substantially up their commitment": Pres. Trump says NATO member nations have agreed to spend more money on defense. https://t.co/rc4ztpQ6dg pic.twitter.com/RxIHuz0QoV — ABC News (@ABC) July 12, 2018 President Donald Trump declared NATO a “fine-tuned machine” in an impromptu news conference at the conclusion of his participation in a contentious NATO summit during which he has questioned the utility of the alliance and harshly criticized some of the United States’ closest allies for not paying more into the alliance. The alliance is much stronger than it was at the outset of the conference, Trump said Thursday, taking credit for what he said are increased commitments from allies to up spending, citing an increased commitment of $33 billion to the alliance. “Yesterday, I let them know that I was extremely unhappy with what was happening and they have substantially upped their commitment and now we’re very happy, and have a very, very powerful, very strong NATO; much stronger than it was two days ago,” Trump said. The president told reporters he “probably” had the unilateral power to pull the United States out of NATO if he chose to do so but said he thinks it’s unnecessary. Not only is that a foolish thing to say, it’s at least technically untrue. The NATO treaty was ratified by the Senate in August 1949, giving it the force of law, which means — theoretically, anyway — that Congress would have to act to formally undo it. In practice, though, Jimmy Carter unilaterally canceled a ratified defense treaty with Taiwan in 1978 without any action from Congress, and without any penalties except some political damage that largely got forgotten in the Iranian crisis the next year. Congress might take stronger action against a president that abruptly denounced our NATO membership, especially with this president. Even apart from that, it’s still foolish, considering how much the US relies on its NATO partners for security and military operations that go far beyond Europe. It’s the equivalent of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. And yet Reuters claims that Trump leveled that threat as a means to getting the contribution increases he demanded: U.S. President Donald Trump told NATO allies in a closed-door meeting on Thursday that governments needed to raise spending to 2 percent of economic output by January next year or the United States would go its own way, two people familiar with the discussions told Reuters. The ultimatum was delivered in a session at the NATO summit, the sources said. “He said they must raise spending by January 2019 or the United States would go it alone,” one person said. French president Emmanuel Macron denied that any threat ever was aired, publicly or privately: BRUSSELS (AP) — Macron says Trump 'never at any moment, either in public or in private, threatened to withdraw from NATO' — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 12, 2018 Maybe not, but the private meeting featured some “intense” back and forth anyway, according to one of Trump’s targets: Merkel said: “We had a very intense summit.” … The mood had appeared to have calmed as the summit went into its second day, focusing on operations beyond Europe. But, several sources said, Trump instead reopened in strong terms his demand that other countries spend more immediately. “The language was much tougher today,” one source told Reuters. “His harshest words were directed at Germany, including by calling her Angela —‘You, Angela.’” As well as Merkel, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Charles Michel, the prime minister of Belgium, were singled out by Trump for undershooting on their spending targets when U.S. taxpayers, funding a defense budget worth about 3.6 percent of their national income, foot much of NATO’s bills. In the end, Trump got the other NATO members to agree to his terms. That’s why he held a press conference to declare victory, but it’s likely only a momentary win. NATO members have been pledging increases for years, only to fall short later. Their countries aren’t fond of the idea of spending more money on defense, a legitimate frustration for the US. Perhaps Trump thought that threats of breaking the alliance might finally wake them up, but those are very likely to have more effect on NATO’s opponents and enemies, who have waited almost 70 years for the alliance to fall apart. Airing notions of unilateral withdrawal in public over $33 billion in pledges is pennywise and pound-foolish in a world where Russia is actively rebuilding its empire by force in places like Georgia and Ukraine. And when those pledges fall short, you can bet your bottom dollar that Vladimir Putin will have Russia’s propaganda machine making the most of it, hoping to break the last threads of the alliance that broke the Soviet Union and kept Russia out of eastern Europe since then. Poster Comment: Okay, now NATO is a fine-tuned machine after a two-day summit. Too bad our other presidents never thought of that. Maybe we should wait to see if our alleged allies actually do increase their spending by Trump's January deadline. I like how he went after Merkel. "You, Angela." After he threw those pieces of penny candy on the table in front of Merkel in Canada last month and said, "Don't ever say I never gave you anything, Angela." Anyway, it was a very fun little junket for Trump to go tell off those uppity EUro deadbeats. This also plays into Trump's sanctions against Iran and his demand for fairer trade with the EU. Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread   Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 2. #2. To: All, Vicomte13, redleghunter (#0) AoS: Speaking of “Warriors” Less than a third of German military assets are operational says report Number of weapon systems ready for action: Typhoon jets: 39 of 128 Tornado jets: 26 of 93 CH-53 transport helicopters: 16 of 72 NH-90 transport helicopters: 13 of 58 Tigre attack helicopters: 12 of 62 A400M transport aircraft: 3 of 15 Leopard 2 tanks: 105 of 224 Frigates: 5 of 13 Submarines: 0 out of 6 That's the entire Bundeswehr. Nobody else in (western) Europe is doing much better. Compare that to the TOE for a single US Mechanized Infantry Division. Throw in a little air cover from the zoomies, and the US Division would mop the floor with the entire Bundeswehr. And the US Army has 20 divisions, give or take, about half of them active. No wonder NATO is squealing like a stuck pig at Trump's demands that they pull their weight. I get that we're going to be the 800lb elephant in the war room, but I don't think it's asking too much for NATO to be a pack of wolves at our side, do you? Tooconservative  posted on  2018-07-13   15:03:18 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   Replies to Comment # 2. #3. To: Tooconservative (#2) (Edited) The other Western countries aren't doing much better... I can't quite agree with that. The major powers there face different problems. Rand corporation did a study entitled: "The Abilities of the British, French, and German Armies to Generate and Sustain Armored Brigades in the Baltics" Here is their synopsis: "We found that the three countries each could muster and sustain a heavy brigade, albeit at different rates; sustaining these forces would also require significant strain. More specifically, Britain and France would be able to marshal and sustain at least one battalion-size combined arms battle group within a few weeks, with Germany perhaps taking longer. The French probably would get there first, possibly within the first week. Surging more forces to get the deployments up to brigade strength would take more time: a few weeks in the French case and possibly more than a month in the British or German case. For all three armies, the effort would be a major endeavor that probably would leave the forces with little spare capacity for any other contingencies, and there are questions to be asked regarding the capabilities that those forces might have at their disposal or their aptitude for the kind of warfare that fighting the Russians might involve. For the French, the essential problem is that their army already is badly overstretched; for the British and Germans, the problem is the size of their deployable force, although both now are working to expand that size." Vicomte13  posted on  2018-07-13 15:14:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   #23. To: Tooconservative (#2) Leopard 2 tanks: 105 of 224 So sad to see a large industrial nation like Germany with a deep history of being Panzer legends only has 224 tanks in their entire Army. Not to mention more than half inoperable. That's the entire Bundeswehr. Nobody else in (western) Europe is doing much better. Compare that to the TOE for a single US Mechanized Infantry Division. Throw in a little air cover from the zoomies, and the US Division would mop the floor with the entire Bundeswehr. And the US Army has 20 divisions, give or take, about half of them active. No wonder NATO is squealing like a stuck pig at Trump's demands that they pull their weight. I get that we're going to be the 800lb elephant in the war room, but I don't think it's asking too much for NATO to be a pack of wolves at our side, do you? I would say a reinforced (with AH-64s) Brigade combat team (BCT) with an MLRS BN could easily take them. Where Germany would 'beat us' would be after the destruction of their military. They have enough MENA in their population now to conduct an effective insurgency. redleghunter  posted on  2018-07-17 12:10:44 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply   End Trace Mode for Comment # 2. Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest

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