Category Archives: foreign policy

Non-NATO Defense Spending

Posted on by
Reply

President Donald Trump often decries Europe’s NATO nations for their lack of seriousness about their defense, and he zealously insists that they honor their commitment to spend 2% of their national GDP on defense.  It’s arguable that Trump could ease off (a little bit) and acknowledge the progress he’s made in getting Europe’s NATO members to boost their spending.

But only a little bit because those nations don’t appear to be stepping up in any serious way, as these numbers from a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed demonstrate.

Overall inflation-adjusted military spending by every NATO member excluding America grew 1.8% in 2015, 3.1% in 2016, and 4.8% last year.

These are tokens, not real increases. A nation committing 1% of its GDP to defense that then increases its defense spending by these per centages will end up committing 1.11% of its GDP. There’s nothing serious about that.

Germany’s defense spending increase? The WSJ says that nation currently is spending 1.2% of its GDP on its defense, and it has plans for a 6% increase in next year’s budget.  Increasing that 1.2% by 6% would take it all the way up to 1.27%.

Be still, my heart.

Norway Gets It

Posted on by
Reply

Norway is asking us to double the number of troops we have stationed there and to move them closer to its border with Russia.  It’s a pittance—700 Marines vs the 330 we have there now—but we need to work with Norway very seriously to figure out how to do this.

Norway said the invitation was about NATO training and improving winter fighting capability.

“Allies get better at training together,” Defense Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen told reporters.

Yewbetcha.  And joint training is especially important in the face of demonstrated Russian aggression and its stationing of nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad.

Gauntlet Thrown Down

Posted on by
Reply

The members of the Group of Seven, just met in Canada last week, were invited to form a tariff-free trade zone by President Donald Trump.

no tariffs, no barriers…and no subsidies.

International trade doesn’t get much freer than that.

Will anyone in the G-7 have the courage to take Trump up on his offer—or to call his bluff, if that’s what they think it is?

Anyone?  Beuller?

What Hurts

Posted on by
Reply

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas thinks President Donald Trump is “consciously accepting” that things like our withdrawal from Iran’s nuclear weapons deal is hurting our allies in Europe and the Middle East.  Deutsche Welle cited him as saying that

We cannot look away.  He knows that what he is doing is of direct detriment to Europe.

No, what is acting to the direct detriment of Europe (and to our Middle East allies and friends) is Europe’s insistence on preserving a nuclear weapons deal that allows Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.  The extent to which European nations are consciously accepting of this destructive deal is the extent to which we have to act unilaterally.

A Thought on Nationhood

Posted on by
1

Germany has one, and it centers on immigrants assimilating into German culture rather than holding themselves apart while taking advantage of the German benefits that drew the immigrants in the first place.  It’s articulated by Joachim Gauck, President of Germany from 2012-2017.  He told Bild

“I find it unacceptable that people who have been living in Germany for decades cannot hold a conversation in German, do not attend parent-teacher conferences or keep their children from going to classes or sports.”

He said people should not shy away from standing up for German values out of fear of being seen as a racist or xenophobe and that there should be “something like binding rules for living together and not several societies alongside one another.”

Absolutely.  A nation’s culture, its ability to rule itself, its very existence are at risk when immigrants as large groups don’t assimilate, and the receiving nation allows that to occur.  The nation ceases to be; it devolves into a collection of disparate groupings who happen to occupy a geographic area.