Defense Secretary James Mattis yesterday demanded massive increases in European military spending, threatening a considerable reduction of US military support for the continent if they didn’t comply with the minimum 2% of GDP spent on military mandate.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was unimpressed with the demand, saying European nations must not cave to US pressure on spending more on the military, and that he doesn’t like the idea of narrowing down security spending simply to military budgets.
Juncker went on to say that the US message of more spending was a very old one, and that Europe should have a more modern view of “security” spending to include things like humanitarian aid and development aid packages.
The demands for larger European military spending are in no small part being done with an eye on European nations importing more weapons from the United States. This is likely to add to US hostility toward Juncker, who the incoming US Ambassador to the EU mocked as merely “an adequate mayor of some city in Luxembourg.”
Just like what I said would happen yesterday. Now please follow through on the reduction in support for this outdated alliance!
Is that supposed to be a plea to the EU or a plea to your own country.
If it’s a plea to your own country then you have to understand that Nato if far from outdated and is actually more essential now then any time before.
If it’s a plea to the EU, then you’re getting it right. Are you starting to get things right baldric?
NATO is useful just for the weapons manufacturers, the “Reps” all over the USA wanting murderous jobs in their patch and the Pentagon chiefs and other leaders who gain power.
Normal American people do not gain much for their taxes.
You’re right about the economic spin-off through Nato. But I would really urge you to think of it as a secondary benefit.
Your country’s urgent impending need to establish complete control over the ME is much more up front now. Understand that at least, even if only understanding that if the US/Nato alliance doesn’t then the Brics alliance will. Or at very least, the Brics will have a foot in the door.
This is the endgame rosemary. And I’ll even say that you can support your country in it’s goal because the future will be much brighter for you and future generations of Americans if that is accomplished by the US.
Within a very few years, the Brics will have arrived. China by itself, or China and India and Russia combined will eclipse the US economically on the world scene. With that comes a huge erosion of your country’s and you standard of living. Simply because the resources of the world are becoming so scarce that there isn’t enough to go around. Therefore, your country has to maintain the absolute power that is required to take what it requires to keep you in the style to which you are accustomed.
I don’t know what you think “my country” is.
The Empire has spoke. Apparently, its EU subjects aren’t listening.
I would suspect that most are educated enough ‘not’ to believe the
Russo boogeyman conspiracy theory concocted by their USG overlord.
[US hostility toward Juncker, who the incoming US Ambassador to the
EU mocked as merely “an adequate mayor of some city in Luxembourg.”]
I wonder if the USG Ambassador to the EU can even spell ‘Luxembourg’,
or even locate it on a map.
Good to see some spine from the usually complicit Europe. Of course we do not need US interference and making more enemies so we can kill people all over the place as the USA does. Keep your money, your military might and your Russophobic and “kill them all” ideas and stay at home.
Maybe the more modern view of security spending needs to include booting the EU out of NATO.