134
‘Trump-proof’ European security by setting up ‘Nato bank’, thinktanks urge
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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It’s really honestly baffling to me. The EU reaction to Trump trying to fuck up NATO integrity and cohesion in his first term was… essentially nothing but conversations and hopeful thinking, as far as I can tell.
I fucking detest Trump, but there is a kernel of truth in his statements about Europe more or less just riding on the US’s coattails in terms of the balance of military power, instead of trying to be a meaningful and (taken together) a peer power to the US. Moreover, if the balance of power and capability was closer between the US and the EU, the US would probably be a lot less likely to just categorically push the EU around.
The post-Soviet peace dividend era is well and truly over - in fact, it ended at least a decade ago (really, probably closer to two). It’s time for Europe to start acting like it.
Just because the US government likes to funnel trillions to their military industrial complex instead of healthcare, doesn't mean the rest of NATO has to do the same. Even without the US, NATO already spends more on defense than Russia and China combined, even before the invasion of Ukraine.
USA already spends more on healthcare than Europe does, they just get worse results and less healthcare per dollar. The US would be able to afford to spend even more on weapons if they got their shit together and de-privitized their healthcare system.
Most of the EU has missed the target GDP spend by a significant margin for decades. The failure to penalize the annexation of Crimea and the EU's almost wholesale inability to provide material to Ukraine without compromising their own defensive postures can be traced heavily to this funding failure.
Obama's soft stance on Russia was certainly a large part of our current situation, but Merkel and the overly pacified EU were major contributors as well.
The 2 percent of GDP target is imaginary. They made it up, in no small part because of lobbying from the defense industry. There is no reason for NATO to spend so much more than all other countries combined.
Stopping Russia should have been done through economic and diplomatic means. No amount of NATO bombs or tanks would have stopped the invasion. It only would have fueled the flames and given legitimacy to Russia's claimed insecurity. Economic power is much stronger than military sabre rattling. The EU is founded on that exact principle and it's the reason why it's still together.
The target was set so that no country would be able to join NATO and then just let everyone else pay for everything. You contribute to the common defense or you GTFO.
We can bicker about 2% being too high or too low and whether the target should have been adjusted Post Cold War but any argument that some target isn't necessary is just silliness.
Oh I'm fairly certain that NATO military power would have stopped the invasion in the first 24 hours. A single flight of F-35s would have made those original Russian convoy's cease to exist à la the Highway of Death from 1991.
Even now NATO military power could substantially end the ground war in Ukraine before the end of the month.
So what? NATO didn't do it and there's STILL an ongoing war with a casualty toll well over a million and millions more displaced.
Then the EU should have flexed them in 2014. They didn't and here we are.
Up to 2022 the general vibe was that NATO was a remnant of another era, because almost no one believed Russia was stupid enough to start a large war in Europe. In this mindset having an half functional NATO wasn't a full catastrophe.
Mmmm disagree - it was WAY earlier than that.
There’s a whole Wikipedia subsection on stuff the Russian Federation has been up to. It’s not small.
You don't have to point to Trump. Literally every United States President since Bill Clinton has publicly said it. Hell Bush Senior may have said it too. I'd have to go look it up.
It's been a sore spot for decades and has nothing to do with Trumperoni.