2016 Election Thread Part Deux

#902
#902
carlos86 said:
You think the U.S. Participationin NATO is expensive? Compare it to costs of World Wars I and II. Deterrence is bargain compared to major wars.
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I never said we need to leave NATO. I support reducing our monetary obligation to it's existence. The world and technology isn't the same as it was in the early 1900s and 1930s. It's not unreasonable to expect the European members of NATO to foot the majority of the expense.
 
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#903
#903
carlos86 said:
Putin and Russia conducting a practice invasion of Norway (which just happened) is flexing its muscle. Invading a sovereign country with 65,000 troops and conducting a paramilitary insurgency in the rest of the country for 2 years and counting is an act of war and a warning to the rest of us.
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This I agree and think the European powers need to get off their asses and be a deterrent.
 
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#904
#904
Grand Vol said:
Are you confusing the UN with NATO?

Two different animals entirely.
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Nope the UN has that big worthless building in NY - dedicated to new world order and global whoring - ostensibly to get people working together to reduce conflict. NATO tends to run things out of Belgium and the Netherlands - originally intended as a joint military effort to defend Europe against the Warsaw Pact nations - of course, France being France... I've got no problem with NATO except disproportionate portions of national budgets going to defense. The UN has outlived it's usefulness; time to end the party.
 
#905
#905
hog88 said:
I never said we need to leave NATO. I support reducing our monetary obligation to it's existence. The world and technology isn't the same as it was in the early 1900s and 1930s. It's not unreasonable to expect the European members of NATO to foot the majority of the expense.
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The European members do foot the majority of the expense. The U.S. only has 2 BCTs (+1 rotational) in Europe. How much do you want to reduce it too a damn platoon???
 
#906
#906
carlos86 said:
The European members do foot the majority of the expense. The U.S. only has 2 BCTs (+1 rotational) in Europe. How much do you want to reduce it too a damn platoon???
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We could have a 3 or 4 divisions based over there for all I care if the European members wanted to foot the bill. You know, some sweat equity.

I don't mind our guys being based oversees, I just think it's time for those nations benefiting from them to be paying for them to be there. Maybe the member nations should beef up their own military capability to where we could just be a QRF for them. But that might require serious cuts in their social programs.
 
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#910
#910
hog88 said:
We could have a 3 or 4 divisions based over there for all I care if the European members wanted to foot the bill. You know, some sweat equity.

I don't mind our guys being based oversees, I just think it's time for those nations benefiting from them to be paying for them to be there. Maybe the member nations should beef up their own military capability to where we could just be a QRF for them. But that might require serious cuts in their social programs.
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America pays no fee for the deployment of U.S. Forces to Europe. Our allies are not client states. They do not and should not pay tribute to the U.S.
 
#911
#911
carlos86 said:
America pays no fee for the deployment of U.S. Forces to Europe. Our allies are not client states. They do not and should not pay tribute to the U.S.
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We pay to feed, house and oh yeah pay our troops that are stationed there. So it ****ing costs money! Those countries benefiting from our military might could pay those bills or do it themselves!
 
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#912
#912
carlos86 said:
Trump just told the Washington Post that U.S. involvement in NATO may need to be significantly diminished in the coming years,

“We certainly can’t afford to do this anymore," Trump said, adding later, "NATO is costing us a fortune and yes, we’re protecting Europe with NATO, but we’re spending a lot of money." He also went on to question America's Asiatic defense treaties.

This mans ignorance has no bounds.
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He is quickly becoming Putin's and Xi's favorite foreign politician.
 
#913
#913
hog88 said:
We pay to feed, house and oh yeah pay our troops that are stationed there. So it ****ing costs money! Those countries benefiting from our military might could pay those bills or do it themselves!
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I agree with what you are saying in principal hog. I do think that because we "provide this service" it gives us huge influence on big decisions they make. I don't know if we would have that without those bases.
 
#914
#914
volfanhill said:
I agree with what you are saying in principal hog. I do think that because we "provide this service" it gives us huge influence on big decisions they make. I don't know if we would have that without those bases.
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I think our influence has reduced dramatically so in turn our payment for that influence should also.
 
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#915
#915
AM64 said:
Why should we protect Europe? The USSR is gone, and Europe produces, in fact, competes with us for the sale of aircraft - military and commercial and in other large scale manufacturing. They can self-protect at this point. Besides I'm tired of supporting their security needs so they can divert money to socialist causes - particularly when the lefties here then complain that we are so far behind in social programs. I'd also prefer to wave goodbye to the UN and their attempt at new world order.
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Rule 1 of geopolitics: never assume your adversary has good intentions, even if currently "peaceful."

Even in an era of nuclear deterrence, phenomena like "hybrid war" (what we've seen in Ukraine) can occur with impunity. Besides, is the US really willing to risk a nuclear war with Russia, a continental-sized power with a peer arsenal, for the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, hell, even Germany, Italy, or France? The UK is the only country in Europe for which I am confident any American leader would be willing to cross the nuclear threshold with Russia. The rest of them, even the NATO members, would probably not warrant crossing that point and would, instead, require a conventional response.

Conventional deterrence (NATO, US stationing in Europe, etc.) is like infrastructure spending, to give an analogy. You can either go ahead and spend a lot of money on it now, money which is admittedly hard to come by, and ensure that your economy will still be growing and expanding in the future, or you can forestall that spending, admittedly save some money in the process, but wait until the problem is then so bad that the bill will be exponentially larger than it would have been before. The US can either keep its foot in the door now at a high cost, or it can risk having to get its foot back in the door at a much greater cost later. It's a gamble. The keen great power strategist would go with the former option ideally, but sometimes political context takes that decision out of his hands.

What the US should be doing instead is finding ways to punish stragglers in NATO and/or incentivize more European defense spending by European defense partners. Europe admittedly has a problem, and it needs to be fixed, but it should not be by abandoning Europe. People that think we should abandon our largest trading bloc (by a huge margin) to the devices of a land-based potential regional hegemon just right across the border in Russia don't understand how great power struggle works. You either pay now for favorable status, or you pay much more later for regaining that status.
 
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#916
#916
volfanhill said:
I agree with what you are saying in principal hog. I do think that because we "provide this service" it gives us huge influence on big decisions they make. I don't know if we would have that without those bases.
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Indeed, and it also has a little something to do with the dollar being the world reserve currency, one of the few things that keeps our fiat actually worth a damn.
 
#919
#919
Pacer92 said:
Because he speaks the truth? Lol!

As many European countries that are "dressed" American, why do we have to be physically involved in every conflict?
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No, because they want to run the show, and the only thing standing in their way is US influence.

But, who knows, perhaps Putin and Xi do really want things like respect for national sovereignty and world peace like RT and The Global Times claim. It would fly in the face of any previous Russian and Chinese ruler. It would fly in the face of a thousand years of Russian history, where the national sovereignty of other nations was always a potential threat for a country that has no natural defensive boundaries, but maybe they're truly exceptional leaders and no longer need to do the things their predecessors did to keep their respective nations secure.
 
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#920
#920
hog88 said:
We pay to feed, house and oh yeah pay our troops that are stationed there. So it ****ing costs money! Those countries benefiting from our military might could pay those bills or do it themselves!
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Lol we pay that in the mainland U.S.
 
#922
#922
Pacer92 said:
Because he speaks the truth? Lol!

As many European countries that are "dressed" American, why do we have to be physically involved in every conflict?
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You should ask the the British, Germans, French, Dutch, and Poles why they fulfilled their treaty obligations then.
 
#925
#925
No one is claiming it is a perfect situation for us; I'm certainly not. I think Europe has become a largely pathetic continent, and if we're going to be an empire regardless, there are times, quite frankly, when I wish we received tribute and other payment like the honest-to-god empires of the past.

That being said, this isn't about them. It's about us. It is a national security matter. Instead of worrying about wasting money in Europe and Asia, we need to be more worried about pulling back and cutting waste in stupid Middle East warring, using money to fight a war against jihad Johnnies that should largely be merely a matter of good intelligence tracking in the first place.

If we pull back in Europe, all that is going to happen is that the Europeans will gravitate towards Russia. Russia will then forge its own alliances with our old partners, and from there, who knows what they do. Perhaps they retain the status quo, or perhaps they won't something more. The point is that we just don't know, and that uncertainty is enough to warrant us keeping our foot in the door.

The important thing to understand is that the natural hegemon of Europe is not the United States; it is the Russian Federation. Russia is right across the border, making it much easier for it to operate within Europe, should it so choose. The US, on the other hand, is across 4,000 miles of ocean. The only thing keeping us the actual hegemon at the moment is that network of alliances currently in question. Once that strategic advantage is lost, for one reason or another, getting it back again, at whatever costs, will be far more difficult. You don't just sail a military across 4,000 miles of ocean in a time of war and forge sustainable beach heads and bases on the cheap, especially when all your great adversary has to do is just start rolling armored columns across a porous land border.
 
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