NATO Money

[Ben]

After other NATO leaders snickering at Trump today for calling them out as cheapskates, can someone tell me of any reason why we shouldn't just cut our payments to NATO and tell the lagging countries to make up the shortfall if they want NATO to get the dough?

It kinda boggles my mind that we continue to contribute what we do while very wealthy nations in the EU shrug off what they owe. What am I missing?

[RevDisk]

After other NATO leaders snickering at Trump today for calling them out as cheapskates, can someone tell me of any reason why we shouldn't just cut our payments to NATO and tell the lagging countries to make up the shortfall if they want NATO to get the dough?

It kinda boggles my mind that we continue to contribute what we do while very wealthy nations in the EU shrug off what they owe. What am I missing?

We historically have been willing to pay for the majority of NATO because it gave us additional troops, bases and weapon facilities to fight the Soviet Union. And denied them to our enemies. Much like the Soviets underwrote Cuba for decades.

I concur that we should reduce NATO funding to appropriate levels. Maybe keep basing the bills for some special cases like Iceland, Poland ABM or Incirlik. I know it's popular to handwave Turkey airbases away. No one I know with strategic analysis background does or ever would. It'll be unfortunately decades or centuries until Turkey doesn't get preferential treatment based on geography. It's just a thing, like gravity or taxes.

[Scout26]

Other than Poland ABM (and we don't have Iceland anymore) and perhaps if we got our heads out of our 4th point and partnered with Assad, then we could give up Incirlik.  (and maybe even get a SOFA with Iraq and put an Airbase in recently captured Mosul).  Better geography close to the Bosporus, in Bulgaria or Romaina (both of whom we have better relations with)

Any way, Germany (Especially Southern Germany) is a shitty location.  You can't consider anything there to be "forwarded deployed"  Look at what it took to gets troops to Kosovo.  I know the guy that had to go negotiate with every country between Germany and Kosovo to get permission for trains carrying US troops and equipment there. 

And to get to anywhere other than the Balkens, everything has to be railed up to Northern German ports (or Rotterdam, which is where I spent a goodly portion of Desert Shield, moving 1AD and 3AD to the sandbox) and loaded onto ships and that adds a great deal of time to wherever they are needed.   

Germany as a place to station US forces is a joke.  Poland and the Baltic states make some sense.  If your goal is to restart Cold War part II.  Maybe put a "real" Division (a brigade in each Baltic State) and another "real" Division (or at least another brigade) in Poland (or just up and move USAREUR there since we only have 30k troops there.)  But you'd have to add them to the US OrBat and not strip units from the US to do it.

But their sole mission would be to face down the Russian bear.  Which is a stupid idea.

Just rotate a Brigade from the US for a couple (~6) months at a time to Poland, and another one to Baltics.  I wouldn't tie up anymore troops then that, because we should be playing nice with Putin, yes he's an evil SOB.  But we (Obama and Clinton and the CIA) started it by mucking around with the Ukrainian election.  How do you think we'd react if the Russians started mucking around with Mexican or Canadian elections.

[RevDisk]

Other than Poland ABM (and we don't have Iceland anymore) and perhaps if we got our heads out of our 4th point and partnered with Assad, then we could give up Incirlik.  (and maybe even get a SOFA with Iraq and put an Airbase in recently captured Mosul).  Better geography close to the Bosporus, in Bulgaria or Romaina (both of whom we have better relations with)

Any way, Germany (Especially Southern Germany) is a shitty location.  You can't consider anything there to be "forwarded deployed"  Look at what it took to gets troops to Kosovo.  I know the guy that had to go negotiate with every country between Germany and Kosovo to get permission for trains carrying US troops and equipment there.  

And to get to anywhere other than the Balkens, everything has to be railed up to Northern German ports (or Rotterdam, which is where I spent a goodly portion of Desert Shield, moving 1AD and 3AD to the sandbox) and loaded onto ships and that adds a great deal of time to wherever they are needed.  

Germany as a place to station US forces is a joke.  Poland and the Baltic states make some sense.  If your goal is to restart Cold War part II.  Maybe put a "real" Division (a brigade in each Baltic State) and another "real" Division (or at least another brigade) in Poland (or just up and move USAREUR there since we only have 30k troops there.)  But you'd have to add them to the US OrBat and not strip units from the US to do it.

But their sole mission would be to face down the Russian bear.  Which is a stupid idea.

Just rotate a Brigade from the US for a couple (~6) months at a time to Poland, and another one to Baltics.  I wouldn't tie up anymore troops then that, because we should be playing nice with Putin, yes he's an evil SOB.  But we (Obama and Clinton and the CIA) started it by mucking around with the Ukrainian election.  How do you think we'd react if the Russians started mucking around with Mexican or Canadian elections.

Concur that Germany is only a political place to put bases. Well, and advanced infrastructure for hospitals. That's not a bad point for transporting wounded back from our Middle East adventures. Still parring down to that level wouldn't be a bad idea. Putting 'permanent' bases in very unstable Islamic countries is not a great idea. Turkey has been more or less stable historically. As Islamic countries go. The only other ones are very small rich countries where US protection outweighs mob risk. Qatar and such.

As for Ukraine, the Ukrainian people did not want to be ruled by a Russian puppet government. *WE* did not muck with their elections. The Ukrainian people stupidly put their faith in the EU, and the EU abandoned them. Russia occupies a significant part of their country, and the EU is not willing to potentially start a war with the EU to liberate those occupied areas. Which says all you need to know about EU priorities. If Canada or Mexico overwhelming voted to form friendly terms with Russia, and we sent militia types to kill Canadians/Mexicans for a while. Then regular US Army forces. Yeah, we would be the bad guys.

And no, we should not form an alliance with Assad. Best thing we can do is stay the hell out Syria.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War#/media/File:Main_factions_-_Syrian_Civil_War.png

That's why.

[Scout26]

Concur that Germany is only a political place to put bases. Well, and advanced infrastructure for hospitals. That's not a bad point for transporting wounded back from our Middle East adventures. Still parring down to that level wouldn't be a bad idea. Putting 'permanent' bases in very unstable Islamic countries is not a great idea. Turkey has been more or less stable historically. As Islamic countries go. The only other ones are very small rich countries where US protection outweighs mob risk. Qatar and such.

As for Ukraine, the Ukrainian people did not want to be ruled by a Russian puppet government. *WE* did not muck with their elections. The Ukrainian people stupidly put their faith in the EU, and the EU abandoned them. Russia occupies a significant part of their country, and the EU is not willing to potentially start a war with the EU to liberate those occupied areas. Which says all you need to know about EU priorities. If Canada or Mexico overwhelming voted to form friendly terms with Russia, and we sent militia types to kill Canadians/Mexicans for a while. Then regular US Army forces. Yeah, we would be the bad guys.

And no, we should not form an alliance with Assad. Best thing we can do is stay the hell out Syria.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War#/media/File:Main_factions_-_Syrian_Civil_War.png

That's why.

We are already in Syria, like it or not, and on the wrong side(s)

[Hawkmoon]

We are already in Syria, like it or not, and on the wrong side(s)

You say that like you think there's a right side ...

[MechAg94]

What would actually happen if we dissolved NATO and replaced it with a handful of agreements with the few countries we want to support?  It seems to me that NATO's original purpose is past.  I don't like the idea of having mutual defense agreements with a bunch of countries that don't like us. 

[RevDisk]

We are already in Syria, like it or not, and on the wrong side(s)

That's the fun part. All the sides are the wrong sides.

[Frank Castle]

We also have Oklahoma guard in the Ukraine.

[Scout26]

You say that like you think there's a right side ...

Nope, but there is a "least worst" side.

I will point out again, that prior to Hillary mucking around in the ME, was that Syria was a secular, pluralistic society.  Muslims, Druze, Christian, Alawites, and other (but not Jews) were free to practice their religion.  The country has been mostly peaceful (for given values of peace in the ME), and at last report fought on our side in DS/DS helping free Kuwait.

Enemy of Israel - You betcha.
Funder of Terrorist groups - Bingo.
Poision Gas and potentially other WMD's - Probably got them from Iraq.  And he's used them.  Also got rid of all of them.  (I'd bet money that the last use was either faked or done by "the rebels"

My point is that "the rebels" are radical Islamist Nazi-esc f*expletive deleted*tards.  If our option is to only back "The Good Guys", then we need to nuke the entire ME, and repopulate it.  But since that would make us the Ultimate Bad Guys, we need need someone to ride herd over there.  The Assads managed to keep those f*expletive deleted*tards in check for 40+ years, while allowing everyone else to do their own thing.

If we team up with Russia (another country run by someone with lots of blood on his hands), and Assad then we can beat ISIS (and other sub-groups of Islamist f*expletive deleted*tards), then we can put the screws (or before) to get Assad to stop funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups  
 

[Scout26]

Oh, I did forget to mention the other reason Germany sucks as "Forward Deployment" location.  You can't get M1's and M2/3's through the Alps to possibly be loaded in Italy to get to the ME quicker. 

They won't fit through any of the rail tunnels. 

[RevDisk]

Nope, but there is a "least worst" side.

I will point out again, that prior to Hillary mucking around in the ME, was that Syria was a secular, pluralistic society.  Muslims, Druze, Christian, Alawites, and other (but not Jews) were free to practice their religion.  The country has been mostly peaceful (for given values of peace in the ME), and at last report fought on our side in DS/DS helping free Kuwait.

Enemy of Israel - You betcha.
Funder of Terrorist groups - Bingo.
Poision Gas and potentially other WMD's - Probably got them from Iraq.  And he's used them.  Also got rid of all of them.  (I'd bet money that the last use was either faked or done by "the rebels"

My point is that "the rebels" are radical Islamist Nazi-esc *expletive deleted*tards.  If our option is to only back "The Good Guys", then we need to nuke the entire ME, and repopulate it.  But since that would make us the Ultimate Bad Guys, we need need someone to ride herd over there.  The Assads managed to keep those *expletive deleted*tards in check for 40+ years, while allowing everyone else to do their own thing.

If we team up with Russia (another country run by someone with lots of blood on his hands), and Assad then we can beat ISIS (and other sub-groups of Islamist *expletive deleted*tards), then we can put the screws (or before) to get Assad to stop funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups  
 

I'm actually impressed. The thought process to come to those conclusions is... Mind boggling. I think I counted 4 statements that were factual/correct. The poison gas line. Everything else was mildly wrong to very wrong, except for the subjective stuff obviously.

 

 

[Scout26]

Did I mention the part of once the dust settles, to GTFO of the Mid-East ??

[RevDisk]

Did I mention the part of once the dust settles, to GTFO of the Mid-East ??

That I think we can both agree on. Basically, everyone in the ME is crazy to varying levels and staying the hell out is our best approach. Kinda akin to "Don't get into a land war in Asia" thing that Douglas MacArthur said.

[Andiron]

We also have Oklahoma guard in the Ukraine.

And [redacted]  USMCR in Georgia  (not the one next to South Carolina).