NATO Allies, Ungrateful Freeloaders?

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NATO allies are ungrateful freeloaders, Big Red Car? Not all of them, just some.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, having spent a few days with President Donald J Trump in Washington, DC and now having spent a NATO Summit and G7 meeting utters:

“The times when we could fully rely upon others are to some extent over. I experienced that in the last few days. We Europeans must take our own destiny into our own hands.”

Read those words a second time and see if you have any basic disagreement with them. The Big Red Car sayeth, “Duh?”

This bit of wisdom comes on the heels of President Trump repeating what he has said for a long period of time — NATO members are not living up to their contractual obligations to spend 2% of their GDP on defense.

This is as essential element of the NATO (the Atlantic Charter) as Article V which states an attack on one is an attack on all. It is difficult to see why the Europeans think the United States should honor Article V and come to their rescue if they don’t honor their part of the deal.

The NATO Muscle, Big Red Car?

Let’s be honest here — the United States is the muscle which makes NATO NATO. It is not the  German army or Iceland. It is not Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. It is the United States of America and its military might.

President Trump is reminding folks of the bargain that NATO is — one for all and all for one and spend 2% of GDP on defense. The Europeans and other NATO members want to send the bill to the the United States and look the other way.

As President Donald J Trump sayeth, “That shit is over. The American taxpayer is not going to pull the load for you. Pony up. It’s about fairness.”

This is a mutual defense treaty and it benefits the Europeans against one dominant and obvious threat, the Russians.

Germany pisses me off, Big Red Car

Let’s stretch that honesty a big further, shall we?

NATO was born at the end of the Second World War. The second world war started by Germany in the 20th century.  Hey, Angela, babe, you occupy the same elected office that Hitler did before he became a dictator.

Germany could be counted upon to start a war every 25-30 years. It’s something in the German DNA.

So, Angela, maybe a little humility would behoove you and some responsibility for plunging Europe into war would be appreciated.

If the Americans, English, French, Russians hadn’t occupied your warmongering country after whipping its ass in World War II, maybe the Russians would not have erected the Iron Curtain.

Taking responsibility for yourself is a damn good first step.

Economic competition

The United States and the European NATO nations are fierce economic competitors.

The US ran a $144B trade deficit with the European Union in 2016; up from a $61B trade deficit in the first year of the Obama administration.

In part, this trade deficit is underwritten by the safety and security provided by the United States. We are footing the bill for the defense of this deficit.

This pisses the Big Red Car off, also.

So, there you have it. Chancellor Angela Merkel agrees with the Big Red Car: “You Europeans need to take your own damn destiny into your own damn hands. Stop sending the bill for your defense to the citizens of the United States of America. Amen.”

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Angela, tell the Germans to stop starting wars, y’all.

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4 thoughts on “NATO Allies, Ungrateful Freeloaders?”

  1. As always, good to hear the BRC take on matters. I really do like your take. It’s rare to read such comprehensive wisdom these days.

    It is rather nice to see our President know his edge and to really push it. This has not happened in quite some time. For how many decades now have we all had to witness America being given away like a rented mule?

    There you go showing off your pressure washer again. That is a very cool unit and the bond between a man and his very masculine pressure washer is something not to be underestimated. A pair of aluminum mags on it would be a nice upgrade. I would love to take that thing for a extended spin at my place.

    Enjoy the new roof and thanks again for the analysis!

  2. I have what appears to be a novel view of the real purpose of NATO:

    The purpose of NATO is not to have Europe have a strong military so that Russia won’t attack Europe. Instead, the purpose of NATO is to keep the military forces of Europe under the control of NATO and the US so that no other European country or coalition of European countries will attack other European countries or Russia.

    So, with NATO — again, we’re defending against the attacker in the last war — we can’t have Germany with a Hitler unify with the other German speaking areas, come up with a faked up reason to attack Poland, and try to go for all the land on a line from Stalingrad to Moscow to Leningrad (or whatever the names are now), the oil along and under the Caspian Sea, and the farm land in Ukraine.

    For this role of NATO to be successful, NATO has to be reasonably strong. Or, a shell, paper tiger, weak, or empty NATO might tempt Germany again to build up their military and grab power in whatever ways.

    And for Russia, the broad, coffee table style strategic theory is that Russia wants good warm water ports for good access to the Atlantic Ocean. So, for now, Russia can use and look for more access in the Baltic Sea. For more, Russia would want land routes to ports on the coasts of the North Sea, English Channel, or the Atlantic itself. For access via the Mediterranean, even with a good land route to the Med., Russia would be less excited due to the bottleneck of the Straits of Gibraltar. But I don’t take this theory seriously; that is, I doubt that Russia takes this theory seriously.

    Of course, Angela is unhappy about something or other! Maybe she’s unhappy because she and Germany signed on to all that divinity school dropout Gore’s CO2 is sin earth worship religion and spent a lot of money on it while now Trump says about fossil fuels “drill, baby, drill; mine, baby, mine; burn, baby, burn,” clean out the earth-worship fanatics in the EPA, and get on with business! Good for Trump!

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