LaxPower Back-Up Stick

seacoaster wrote:Trump discussing withdrawing from NATO?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/p ... trump.html

"The president has repeatedly and publicly challenged or withdrawn from a number of military and economic partnerships, from the Paris climate accord to an Asia-Pacific trade pact. He has questioned the United States’ military alliance with South Korea and Japan, and he has announced a withdrawal of American troops from Syria without first consulting allies in the American-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State.

NATO had planned to hold a leaders meeting in Washington to mark its 70th anniversary in April, akin to the 50-year celebration that was hosted by President Bill Clinton in 1999. But this year’s meeting has been downgraded to a foreign ministers gathering, as some diplomats feared that Mr. Trump could use a Washington summit meeting to renew his attacks on the alliance.

Leaders are now scheduled to meet at the end of 2019, but not in Washington.

Mr. Trump’s threats to withdraw had sent officials scrambling to prevent the annual gathering of NATO leaders in Brussels last July from turning into a disaster.

Senior national security officials had already pushed the military alliance’s ambassadors to complete a formal agreement on several NATO goals — including shared defenses against Russia — before the summit meeting even began, to shield it from Mr. Trump.

But Mr. Trump upended the proceedings anyway. One meeting, on July 12, was ostensibly supposed to be about Ukraine and Georgia — two non-NATO members with aspirations to join the alliance.

Accepted protocol dictates that alliance members do not discuss internal business in front of nonmembers. But as is frequently the case, Mr. Trump did not adhere to the established norms, according to several American and European officials who were in the room.

He complained that European governments were not spending enough on the shared costs of defense, leaving the United States to carry an outsize burden. He expressed frustration that European leaders would not, on the spot, pledge to spend more. And he appeared not to grasp the details when several tried to explain to him that spending levels were set by parliaments in individual countries, the American and European officials said.

Then, at another leaders gathering at the same summit meeting, Mr. Trump appeared to be taken by surprise by Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general.

Backing Mr. Trump’s position, Mr. Stoltenberg pushed allies to increase their spending and praised the United States for leading by example — including by increasing its military spending in Europe. At that, according to one official who was in the room, Mr. Trump whipped his head around and glared at American officials behind him, surprised by Mr. Stoltenberg’s remarks and betraying ignorance of his administration’s own spending plans.

Mr. Trump appeared especially annoyed, officials in the meeting said, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and her country’s military spending of 1 percent of its gross domestic product."

So we could save a few bucks.

Donald J. Trump
‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

Great being with the National Champion Clemson Tigers last night at the White House. Because of the Shutdown I served them massive amounts of Fast Food (I paid), over 1000 hamburgers etc. Within one hour, it was all gone. Great guys and big eaters!
8:11 AM - 15 Jan 2019

old salt wrote: The latest track in the NYT/WP Greatest Hit's album. Every specific in that article was from the 2018 NATO summit & before.

What came out of that summit & what NATO operations has the US lead since ?

No mention of --
-- the US sending a carrier strike group through the GIUK gap above the Arctic Circle into the North Sea
-- the US sending an expeditionary strike group to put a Marine Battalion ashore in Iceland, then Norway, as part of a large scale NATO war game.
-- joint carrier/airwing integrated crossdeck deployments involving US/UK/France
-- USN ops in the Black Sea, under USAF air cover from Romanian air base.
-- Mattis's 30x30x30 strategy.
-- site surveys in Poland for "Ft Trump" to host a permanently based US heavy Armored Division (w/ families).
-- Rather than DC, Berlin is the logical location to celebrate NATO's 70th Anniversary, ...or Warsaw, if it would be too militaristic for the Germans.

The NYT-WP-MSNBC-WP resistance propaganda machine is pulling out all stops & rehashing old stories, in anticipation of Mueller's report.

a fan wrote:

old salt wrote: The latest track in the NYT/WP Greatest Hit's album. Every specific in that article was from the 2018 NATO summit & before.

What came out of that summit & what NATO operations has the US lead since ?

No mention of --
-- the US sending a carrier strike group through the GIUK gap above the Arctic Circle into the North Sea
-- the US sending an expeditionary strike group to put a Marine Battalion ashore in Iceland, then Norway, as part of a large scale NATO war game.
-- joint carrier/airwing integrated crossdeck deployments involving US/UK/France
-- USN ops in the Black Sea, under USAF air cover from Romanian air base.
-- Mattis's 30x30x30 strategy.
-- site surveys in Poland for "Ft Trump" to host a permanently based US heavy Armored Division (w/ families).
-- Rather than DC, Berlin is the logical location to celebrate NATO's 70th Anniversary, ...or Warsaw, if it would be too militaristic for the Germans.

The NYT-WP-MSNBC-WP resistance propaganda machine is pulling out all stops & rehashing old stories, in anticipation of Mueller's report.

Isn't it far more likely that there is a complete disconnect between what Trump is saying/threatening to NATO and the press, and what our forces are doing at sea/land?

In other words, look at Trump's reaction at that meeting cited above---isn't it likely that he has no idea that our actual diplomats and forces are ignoring his rhetoric, and simply implementing their own tactics on the ground?

This isn't the first team we've heard this----American NATO officials striking deals before Trump's plane lands at summits/meeting. There's a disconnect.

seacoaster wrote:Old Salt, a question: Assuming Trump is occasionally floating this notion with aides that he'd like to withdraw us from NATO, do you think that might not be a great idea? Or are we in a constant transactional bargaining position with allies to whom we have pledged, via Article 5, a collective response? For my money, this seems like a bad way to treat with one's allies.

old salt wrote:Meanwhile, he's selling F-35's to the Dutch, Danes, UK & Turkey (with Patriot missiles thrown in) & new F-35A's are rolling off the assembly line in Italy.
This is a tactic to browbeat the EUroburghers (primarily Germany) on trade deficits.
He made the same threats to S Korea & Japan, before extracting trade concessions from them.
Real estate man Trump understands the value of subsidized US bases on allied soil. The Poles are playing to that with their "Ft Trump" offer.

old salt wrote: It resonate's with a significant % of the US public. It's critical that our allies realize that, not take us for granted, invest more in the shared defense & deploy more.
...with the exception of Germany, they seem to be getting the message & doing more.

a fan wrote:The adults are running things, is what I'm saying here.....

seacoaster wrote:Thanks. I hope you're right about thick-skinned "EUroburgers." I worry that Trump's public pronouncements will damage the political will in Europe to stay committed to the North Atlantic Treaty, and to economic interdependence generally.

a fan wrote:

old salt wrote: It resonate's with a significant % of the US public. It's critical that our allies realize that, not take us for granted, invest more in the shared defense & deploy more.
...with the exception of Germany, they seem to be getting the message & doing more.

If I thought for one second that we'd cut defense spending because allies are sharing the burden, or not go into countries because our allies said "you sit this one out, we got it", I'd stand on my desk and cheer these moves.

That's not going to happen. So this is window dressing and populism.

HooDat wrote:

a fan wrote:The adults are running things, is what I'm saying here.....

from your lips to God's ears.....let's hope it is so

seacoaster wrote:Thanks. I hope you're right about thick-skinned "EUroburgers." I worry that Trump's public pronouncements will damage the political will in Europe to stay committed to the North Atlantic Treaty, and to economic interdependence generally.

Trinity wrote:Barr won’t listen to DoJ ethics recommendations on recusal or commit to sharing the Mueller report. He told us, on the record. He’s doing us a favor. Mark this day down.

old salt wrote:

seacoaster wrote:Thanks. I hope you're right about thick-skinned "EUroburgers." I worry that Trump's public pronouncements will damage the political will in Europe to stay committed to the North Atlantic Treaty, and to economic interdependence generally.

Here's a good (free) breakdown on NATO burden sharing & what it would take for the US to withdraw.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/u ... heres-how/
If they fear a US withdrawl, they'd likely move to contribute more to NATO -- they'd need it even more.
France & the UK would be their remaining nuclear deterrent.

I'll never predict that Trump won't do something, but it would ignite a political firestorm if he announces his intention to withdraw.
Congress will act to thwart him at every turn & it will become the central issue in the 2020 election.
All other Pres contenders will encourage our allies to hang in there & expect the US to rejoin after Trump leaves office.
If Trump vows to withdraw, he loses all bargaining power.

MDlaxfan76 wrote:

seacoaster wrote:Thanks. I hope you're right about thick-skinned "EUroburgers." I worry that Trump's public pronouncements will damage the political will in Europe to stay committed to the North Atlantic Treaty, and to economic interdependence generally.

Well, all of my American friends living in Europe and European friends are far from sanguine. Quite the opposite of Salty's notion.

The only hope is the Trump era is very short and normal allied relations return swiftly thereafter.

But in the meantime, the business and gov't community are scrambling to increase relations with the Chinese. But it's not as if that's what they want to do.

As they see it, his Brexit mess was Russia's first success. Trumpism and America's withdrawal from world leadership their second.