Shot in the Dark

Pay Your Way

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Donald Trump said if he is elected President and NATO is attacked, the United States would defend the countries that are doing their share to defend themselves. 

 

Liberals and Neo-Cons are aghast.  What?  Expect European nations to pay their fair share of their own defense?  Outrageous.

 Except that was the original deal, as explained in this article from the London Telegraph, and shown in the helpful chart. 

Notice who’s NOT paying their way?  France.  Norway.  Germany.  Denmark.  Countries that could afford to pay, but choose not to pay so they have lots of money to spend on freebies for citizens.  Free riders can indulge in risky behavior knowing the United States is standing ready to bail them out of any fights they pick.

 It’s bad policy to let your “allies” stiff you and even worse to provide them with a moral hazard that all too easily ends up as: “Let’s you and him fight.”

 Trump is exactly right: a deal is a deal.  If you don’t hold up your end of the deal by paying your share, we have no obligation to hold up our end of the deal by running to your aid.  Does that mean we pull out of NATO entirely and hand the continent over to Putin?  Probably not, in the end.  But there’s no harm in reminding deadbeats they need to clean up their past due bill if they want to receive future credit.

 Joe Doakes

One notes that Trump in particular singled out the Baltic states – who have been increasing their defense spending at an emergency pace; they, along with the Poles (whose spending is near NATO’s guideline, and whose military shows it), remember Russian rule in particular.

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Mitch Berg

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6 responses to “Pay Your Way”

  1. Bento Guzman Avatar
    Bento Guzman

    An argument can made that the Baltic countries and a good part of Poland have historically been dominated by the Russians. This does not mean that they should be abandoned, but perhaps the Europeans — who consider their union to be a rival to the United States — should act like the super power that they want to be and defend their own backyard.

  2. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    We need an American Foreign Legion that Civilized Western Democracies can contract with to provide their national security.

  3. Scott Hughes Avatar
    Scott Hughes

    ”

    “Free riders can indulge in risky behavior knowing the United States is standing ready to bail them out of any fights they pick.”

    They’d be all happy to hold our coat while we fight their battles.

  4. Prince of Darkness_666 Avatar
    Prince of Darkness_666

    Maybe Germany will wake up now. Maybe.

  5. nerdbert Avatar
    nerdbert

    PoD: you mean the same Germany whose military had to leave a 2 week NATO exercise because one small unit had used up the entire Army’s overtime budget in just 72 hours? THAT Germany?

    Seriously, as the PoD I would have thought you knew you had completely vieled their mind from any semblance of serious thought! Or perhaps you’ve assigned Wormwood the task now that Screwtape is otherwise occupied with the US?

  6. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Sigh. You would think that anyone who remembered the desolation that was East Germany and the Warsaw Pact in general would think that liberty is worth defending, but apparently not. I wonder how much “corruption” has to do with this.

    And I remember this same complaint back in the 1980s, back when Soviet tanks had a much shorter approach to the Fulda gap. So the contagion in Europe is nothing new here, IMO.

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