NATO

[windwalker]

What are we cowboys? We just form alliances and cut and run when the going gets tough?

By the way, with or without impeachment the next administration will have to deal with North Korea and probably without the PRC's help since Trump has pissed all over the one China policy.

Lets hope the "Trump" does well, and it works for everyone....time will tell.
The guy has a lot push back from both sides.


If you look at the US’s past history yes indeed sadly, it has cut and run.

Russia and China, are very different from the past. I feel sometimes people still look at them
In terms of the past. While they on the other hand are look at the US in it's present with bases all over the world.

Was up on a small village close to the Z, while in Korea as young soldier when they still had marital law.

The ROKs are some badass soldiers.

China, will never allow any change that will bring the US to its door step. The US has some 30 thousand soldiers there,
a trip wire if you will. The Koreans that I know and knew are very hot blooded people...with a long history...I think without the US being there the peninsula would have been united yrs ago.one way or another.
They do a lot of posturing.

Without the US there it would be time to put up or shut up..

No matter how hard the North is pressed, as a people they are extremely tough, they may not like the current set up but no one from the outside,
China or the US, is going to solve their issues. They as a people need to work it out....

[grzegorz]

And what about IS? Did you forget, because I know President Twitter did, that Nato took on Al Qaeda which is the basis for IS.

As far as Russia, President Twitter is nothing more than a Kremlin traitor. Russia has been invading a neighbir every three years and just put warheads in Kaliningrad. So what? Cut and run again?

[Steve James]

Ok, this is rational.

The main issue I saw at the Pentagon was the fact that most of the NATO countries were not keeping up with the 2% of their GDP that they had agreed to spend on their military forces. This left most of them with a very limited ability to integrate with US forces in an operational environment.
[\quote]

You mean, of their military commitment to NATO. The issue raised was whether we should continue to participate at all. I.e., whether NATO was still necessary. Afa spending, the U.S. could simply provide its own 2% and no more. That wouldn't address its necessity.

It should also be remembered that NATO is a treaty that declares that if one member is attacked, the others would lend support. That was the issue in the 30s. And, just as in WW2, the US has the military and production capability that other countries don't. Well, now except China. Anyway, we did join NATO to expand, but at the time they said it was expanding the "free world" which specifically didn't include Russia (the USSR). Reagan called it the "axis of evil." Communism was the enemy, not the Russian people.

My feeling is that, as with much of his platform, Trump is merely stating an opening position to get the other sides attention.[/quote}

That's wishful thinking. Though, I sure hope he was smart enough to merely be manipulating people.

France comes close, but Germany, Italy and Canada are only meeting about half of what they need to.

Again, the argument you make assumes the "need" for NATO. If there's no need, then operational compatibility isn't necessary. If it's a matter of expenditures, then drop them to 1% or less.

If it's really about money, though, then I have no problem with arguing that military spending should be cut and put into human services in the US. The same is true for money to support any foreign government. That's not what happens, though.

To me, though, the issue is what place the US takes as the most powerful nation. If, for ex., we saw some group of people being exterminated, what would we do? At one time, the question would be "what should we do?" Personally, I'd answer that from the perspective of my perception of a martial artist. I.e., it's a duty to defend the weak from the strong. Shucks, there are even expressions of that concept in our culture.

O! it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

[grzegorz]

NATO obselete?

K im Jong Un issues threat to America, Trump - CNN Video

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2017/01/09 ... _expansion