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International News Title: Trump: NATO partners "agreed to substantially up their commitment" ABC News (@ABC) July 12, 2018 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 were 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 its unnecessary. Not only is that a foolish thing to say, its 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, its still foolish, considering how much the US relies on its NATO partners for security and military operations that go far beyond Europe. Its the equivalent of cutting off ones nose to spite ones face. And yet Reuters claims that Trump leveled that threat as a means to getting the contribution increases he demanded: 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: Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 12, 2018 Maybe not, but the private meeting featured some intense back and forth anyway, according to one of Trumps targets: 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 NATOs bills. In the end, Trump got the other NATO members to agree to his terms. Thats why he held a press conference to declare victory, but its likely only a momentary win. NATO members have been pledging increases for years, only to fall short later. Their countries arent 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 NATOs 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 Russias 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.
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#2. To: All, Vicomte13, redleghunter (#0)
AoS: Less than a third of German military assets are operational says report
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.
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