POLITICO’s Post

Not-so-collective defense.  https://lnkd.in/eGiW386Q FP's Alexandra Sharp: Former U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that he would “encourage” Russia to attack any NATO member that fails to meet its 2 percent defense spending commitment, adding that he would not defend a nation behind on its payments. Only 11 NATO members met the 2 percent spending threshold in 2023. “Trump has a long history of making incendiary remarks about the military alliance,” FP’s Amy Mackinnon and Jack Detsch report. “As president, he routinely railed against member states that failed to meet the 2 percent minimum defense spending goal and told aides on a number of occasions that he wanted the United States to withdraw from NATO altogether.” The White House called Trump’s remarks “appalling and unhinged,” and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg added that even the suggestion “undermines all of our security.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate cleared the last remaining procedural hurdle on a bipartisan foreign aid bill on Sunday despite far-right opposition. The roughly $95 billion package includes around $61 billion for Ukraine; $14 billion for Israel; and nearly $5 billion for U.S. partners in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan; among other areas. The Senate will vote on the package in the coming days. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives must then vote on whether to approve the deal after failing to pass its own emergency spending bill. #nato #eu #europeanunion #russia #russiaisaterroriststate #trump2024 #elections2024 #news #worldwar #worldwar3 #nuclearweapons #bidenadministration #biden #war #elections #electionintegrity #electionimpact

Head of the #Estonian Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA) Raimond Kaljulaid, said that a strong message was heard at this week's Transatlantic Forum in #Washington, particularly from U.S. representatives. With U.S. presidential elections coming up in the next year, the non-fulfilment of prior defense spending agreements, especially by some #European allies, could be a very serious problem. According to #Kaljulaid, several U.S. representatives at the forum had referred to the long-standing position of expected Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and, in particular, his criticism of the European allies. "The fact that up to now, not all NATO countries have been able to ensure defense spending levels are two percent of GDP is a serious challenge. All the more so since NATO countries have provided Ukraine with a significant amount of military equipment and ammunition – and replacing that is a difficult task. Russia has been more successful than the West in launching its military industry. #Europe, including #Estonia, must take these warnings about the future of NATO with deadly seriousness," Kaljulaid said. #Kaljulaid said that the failure to fulfil previous funding agreements had allowed some to call into question the commitments made by the U.S. to the other allies, including those under #NATO's Article Five. "It is very easy for the U.S, politicians, who are more skeptical about the commitments taken by the Alliance in the past, to point to the low defense spending of the European allies and ask why the U.S. should defend those allies who do not honor agreements and promises," Kaljulaid explained. Member of the Estonian delegation to the NATO PA Jüri Ratas (Center) emphasized the importance of contributing at least two percent of GDP to defense spending. Ratas also admitted that a lot of countries are still not doing this. Ratas went on to highlight the need to act together and even more firmly, so that Russia does not even consider attacking any NATO Member in the future. He additionally noted that support for Ukraine has to continue without allowing potential war fatigue to take hold. The NATO PA Transatlantic Forum took place from Monday to Wednesday in the U.S. Policymakers and foreign and defense policy experts discussed transatlantic relations and the strengthening of mutual cooperation, both in the aftermath of the Vilnius Summit and in preparation for the Washington Summit to be held next year. Russia's war in Ukraine, including the impact of sanctions against Russia on the country's economy, and the wider effect of the war on Russia, were also on the agenda at the forum. https://lnkd.in/dPU84_TB

European diplomats urge to boost defense spending due to possible Trump’s election victory Europe will have to reconsider its excessive dependence on the US in the defense sphere, The Daily Telegraph reports LONDON/ European countries need to scale up defense expenditures in view of the possible return of ex-US President Donald Trump to the White House, The Daily Telegraph said, citing diplomats of NATO member-countries. Europe should be ready to lower involvement of Washington in activities of NATO institutions in case Trump wins the presidential election in the US this November. European diplomats even urged to develop plans for the case of the US withdrawal from the North Atlantic alliance, the newspaper said. According to officials, Europe will have to reconsider its excessive dependence on the US in the defense sphere. #business #finance #financialservices

Donald Trump proposed to increase the expected NATO defense spending benchmark for member countries from 2% to 3% of GDP. Edward Lucas explains that while some frontline states like Poland and Estonia already meet or are close to the 3% target, other European countries would struggle with such a large increase. This could potentially lead to a two-tier NATO system with closer defense ties between the US and countries that meet the 3% threshold, unless efforts are also made to account for non-budgetary defense contributions and policies that support broader US geopolitical goals, such as countering China.

As NATO celebrates its 75th anniversary with a summit in Washington this week, the alliance is facing some familiar foes and challenges: Russia’s war on Ukraine is ongoing, Moscow’s alliances with China, North Korea and Iran are strong, and the military coalition’s defense spending remains a perennial bugbear among members. Another familiar, yet unpredictable, challenge lies ahead: the possibility of another U.S. administration led by former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump. Trump had a tense and combative relationship with the military alliance during his last term in office over 2017-2021, lambasting various member states for not honoring their 2014 commitment to spend 2% of their national gross domestic profit on defense spending. While campaigning to return to office in the forthcoming presidential election, Trump rattled NATO members again in February, when he said he would not provide military protection to any member state that had not met its financial obligations to the bloc and would even “encourage” adversaries “to do whatever the hell they want” to that nation. The comments provoked outrage in the White House, which at the time described them as “appalling and unhinged.” Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “any suggestion that we are not there to protect and defend all Allies will undermine the security of all of us and put at risk our soldiers, our personnel who are on the front lines to protect the whole Alliance.” “One for all, all for one applies for all Allies and is the heart of NATO,” Stoltenberg told reporters in February, referencing NATO’s Article 5 clause that member states must come to each other’s mutual defense. As the NATO summit takes place in Washington this week, member states are presenting a united front on the 75th anniversary of the defense pact, with leaders keen to emphasize their ongoing support for nonmember Ukraine by unveiling new military aid and a pledge to strengthen the country’s beleaguered air defenses. Leaders are also seen as wanting to “Trump-proof” military aid for Ukraine ahead of Trump’s possible reelection, given that the Republican front-runner has been ambivalent on the subject of ongoing aid for Ukraine. While incumbent President Joe Biden’s support for Ukraine is solid — with the president reiterating his commitment to Kyiv’s fight as he addressed delegates Tuesday — his reelection is looking shaky, amid concerns over his fitness for office. Analysts at Eurasia Group said they expected NATO leaders to take steps to ring-fence the coordination of the coalition’s aid spending for Ukraine, in a bid to protect it from a possible future Trump administration.

The former US President Donald Trump said 'he would encourage Russia to do whatever the hell it wants if NATO's partners don't pay their fair share'. If Nikky Haley denounced this declaration by promising NATO and its members the continuing involvement of the USA within the organization, like it's been the case since 1949, Donald Trump underlined a two-way statement. Her husband, Michael Haley, an Afghanistan war's veteran sharing views with Donald Trump about ending external military operations or supplies to Ukraine, seems to be preoccupied firstly by China: "Former President Donald Trump said Saturday he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” if it attacked a NATO country that didn’t pay enough for defense. His comments drew fierce backlash from some Republicans, the White House and leading Western officials, with the head of the trans-Atlantic alliance suggesting they could put the lives of American and European soldiers at greater risk. [...] Biden signed an $886 billion defense bill that bars a president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO, which could thwart Trump’s 2024 campaign pledge to “fundamentally” re-evaluate “NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission. A report released last year showed only 11 of the then-30 member nations were spending 2% of their GDP or more on defense." #FairShare #DonaldTrump #DesignatedUnhingedAndAppaling #IssuedMemory #NikkyHaley #UrsullaVonDerLeyen #ThierryBreton #EU #NATO #JensStoltenberg s #Ukraine #Russia

ICYMI: The US alliance network is fighting against two tendencies: for alliances to be relatively short lived, and for allies to be as reliable as a coin-flip. I explain in my latest for World Politics Review.

For years, the concept of a joint European army has been discussed with surprising regularity, especially when Europe is once more painfully reminded that it cannot guarantee its own security without the United States. Both French President Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel prominently advocated the concept after clashes with Donald Trump on security policy in 2018. Read more of this article by Phillip Fuss below:

This was a bipartisan effort to add this to the Pentagon Funding bill. It should be celebrated. The US should not back away from NATO and no US President should be allowed to singlehandedly do this. This addendum is not just to prevent Trump from doing this (although it is because Trump did do this), this addendum prevents all US Presidents from backing away from NATO. The US backing away from NATO only serves to benefit Putin. https://lnkd.in/eYRHFM6T

This is an outstanding essay rather long but so well worth your time to read about the quagmire in NATO/Ukraine with the rising CCP. This is why Trump is desperately needed to mediate an end to this….as the articles mentions before we are lead into WW3. Do take your time and pass onto others to read because the Main Stream Media is not telling us the truth. NATO is fractured. below some excerpts- Washington is caught in a bind of its own making.But faced with a high intensity continental war in the Donbas, there are increasing reasons to doubt American willingness to actually risk it all for these remote and strategically tenuous positions, particular as China’s swelling power promises to suck in ever more of America’s constrained military power to the East Asian theater, and the keystone European partners drag their feet on military preparedness. West Germany was brought into the alliance not due to lofty rhetoric about democracy and friendship, but due to the need to mobilize West German manpower and industrial capacity, and the desire to defend forward of the Rhine - a far cry from the induction of the Baltics, which brought no strategic advantage whatsoever. What NATO needs now is not another member, another noncontributing security commitment deep in the Russian strategic space, but a hearty dose of realism. https://lnkd.in/gX7BQVC5