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Mattis to NATO Allies: Pay Your Fair Share
Defense Secretary James Mattis met in Brussels Wednesday with the defense ministers of our NATO allies. His message was characteristically honest and blunt:
“I owe it to you all to give you clarity on the political reality in the United States and to state the fair demand from my country’s people in concrete terms,” Mattis said. “America will meet its responsibilities, but if your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to the alliance, each of your capitals needs to show its support for our common defense.”
…Mattis, a retired Marine general, recalled Wednesday that when he was NATO’s supreme allied commander of transformation from November 2007 to September 2009, he watched as then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned NATO nations that Congress and the American people “would lose their patience for carrying a disproportionate burden” of the defense of allies.
That impatience, Mattis said, is now a “governmental reality.”
“No longer can the American taxpayer carry a disproportionate share of the defense of western values,” Mattis said. “Americans cannot care more for your children’s security than you do. Disregard for military readiness demonstrates a lack of respect for ourselves, for the alliance and for the freedoms we inherited, which are now clearly threatened.”
Way to go, Mad Dog.
NATO countries have pledged to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. Of the 28 member nations, only five have accomplished this modest goal: Estonia, Greece, Poland, the UK, and the US. That leaves 23 nations leaning on American largesse for their preservation.
Source: Defense One.
Canada only spends 0.99 percent of it’s GDP on defense; Belgium, Hungary, Spain, and tiny Luxembourg are also in the less-than-1-percent club. If even cash-strapped Greece can exceed the goal, is there any reason these first-world countries can’t take care of their own defense? But instead of raising their spending closer to the target, nine nations actually reduced their military budgets between 2014 and 2015.
President Trump has received a lot of flak for criticizing this lopsided financial arrangement, perhaps more for his style than the substance behind it. But I can’t see how anyone can criticize Mattis’s clear-eyed assessment of the situation. It’s the same point Trump has been making, but delivered in the general’s laconic style.
The majority of NATO members are falling down on the job and have been for years. With Russia, China, Iran, and ISIS on the prowl, they have no excuse not to pay their promised share.
Published in Economics, Military
Seems damn fair to me. And I know if General Mattis reprimanded my actions, I would follow up by bringing my own set of hoops to jump through.
The raw dollar numbers are even more appalling.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/15/news/nato-spending-countries/
The French have always been one war behind. Their culture will be just a memory by the end of the century. Egalatae, Fraternitie, Stupiditae.
Something should be considered with the calls for paying a fair share. Spending does not equal readiness or capability. Consider the possibility that nations raise their military spending and it all goes to a glorified jobs program? Will that really make NATO better? The goal is to make sure NATO countries have military forces that are ready, and that will easily integrate and operate with each other more so than that they meet an arbitrary number that can be reached with accounting gimmicks.
Clearly given Trump’s rhetoric this will be the bench mark of progress the administration uses. I just hope that there will be more to it than just that.
“If we make an EU Army, what would we need NATO for?”;
To bail out the EU Army for one thing. Any creation by that organization will be about as militarily effective as the marching band the Soviets send into Finland in 1940. No wait. The band was an effective band.
Trump I suspect is about to charge the money for that defense. Either you pay your 2 percent or you pay us (the US) the difference. If you don’t. Your out.
Considering that this is the first explicit shot over the bow of the EU, his statement will get some attention. If not, he has a plan to kill them all. So, there’s that.
I assume I’m in the minority, but I think NATO should have been scuttled when the Eastern Bloc collapsed. Too many generals sitting around in armchairs deploying massive budgets to validate their existence.
I would completely agree — but my Eastern European ancestry and familial disdain and distrust of Russia makes me fervently embrace NATO — especially odious allies like Turkey, only for the placement of the Bosphorous Strait into NATO’s sphere of influence designation.
The original reason for NATO was to oppose the Soviet bloc in the form of the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact have been gone for over a quarter of a century. Furthermore, Europe is in a very different position now than it was when NATO was founded. In 1949 the war had recently ended, leaving Europe economically and physically devastated. What a difference 68 years makes!
But like most bureaucracies, NATO lives on because it’s hard to kill bureaucracies. NATO found some new missions unrelated to its original raison d’etre. If continental Europe needs a common defense force, they can well afford to have one. They can even invite a bunch of former Warsaw Pact members to join. In the meantime, the US should strengthen ties with the Anglosphere, where there is a true commonality of interests and values. It’s time for the institutions to catch up to reality.
Yes, this line of comment gets to something I’ve been thinking about: why is it the nations in the EU seem only in it to BE defended?
And from what? Do they, and we, think Russia will invade the Continent?
For instance, France: she’s now in bed with her most dangerous historical aggressor, Germany –most dangerous as a nation ,that is; the Islamic hordes her leaders are funneling in will of course destroy her– which obviates the need to ask if the Continentals are afraid of a Russia-Iran military alliance and takeover. If that’s what they fear, better stop importing Islamic soldiers.
If the EU got an army, under the control of the unelected bureaucrats in the European Commission, what would they do with it? I mean, would it only be fighting back, just in case? Would they try to forcibly bring more countries in? Would they use it to make sure NO countries could resist their agenda?
So, whoever wrote that Mattis shoulda said what will happen if the Continentals don’t wanna pay up is right.
Exactly what will the US do? And what do we anticipate will be the consequences?
I would really like to know…..
To me, Genral Mattis’ admonishment intonated an underlining pitch that he long predicted the erosion of US support for NATO due to allies welshing on their financial obligations. Still, its all a matter of investment in my eyes (granted no one ain’t listenin’ to me any how). Right now our frenzied voices are talking about a robust Iranian presence to arrest nuclear weaponry and possibly more; for me, I will always maintain that stopping Russia from getting warm water access will be America’s Sisyphean task for the World — and I don’t think those two ideas are mutually exclusive.
Friends don’t put ultimatums to each other, so Mattis didn’t. After all, how could we punish country A who is free-riding without punishing country B who is paying their fair share? I think we’ve learned a little something about unenforceable red lines in recent years.
NATO has already withered. we have been propping it up for years. No they need to decide to revitalize it or let it die.
I agree, NATO is the answer to a problem that may not exist. But there are some values to the relationships. It just needs its purpose redefined and its financial commitments met.
Why isn’t this a win for us? The whole purpose of NATO was to keep the SU out of Europe. If Europe can do that on its own, why should we care?
The only problem I see with a EU army is that we will end up fighting it once the Muslims have control. Till then it is all good.
Because RU’s robust fuel and arms-dealing trades frankly make some facets of that alliance extremely suspect.
To be fair to the French, their military collapse in WWII had much to do with outdated command-and-control that couldn’t adapt fast enough to the rapid movement of the German blitzkrieg. It had little to do with a lack of bravery on the part of soldiers, or commanders.
A lot of the “surrender monkey” baggage comes from the British, bitter over the debacle at Dunkirk.
The issue here is that an EU Army would be mostly paid for by Germany and France. If their current contributions to NATO are any indication, such an army would be merely a paper tiger and unlikely to dissuade aggressors, or keep members in line.
Yes, I couldn’t agree more.
Nah. A lot of it comes from the miserable military record France has racked up historically. About the only major wars they win are those in which they are allied with Britain or the United States.
Wars of Austrian Succession (1739-1748)? Lost.
Seven Years War (1756-1763)? Lost.
Wars of American Independence (1775-1784)? Lost territory even though they succeeded is prying the US away from Britain. Worse still, bankrupted France, leading to the French Revolution.
French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1815)? Lost.
Crimean War (1853-1856) Won, sort of – allied with Great Britain.
Franco-Prussian War (1870-71)? Lost, big time.
WWI (1914-1918)? Won – allied with GB and USA
WWII (1939-1945)? Surrendered, allied with the Axis, lost again, re-allied with GB and USA, finally won.
France has proved perfectly capable of defeating various indigenous populations around the world, so long as France had a crushing technological superiority, but even there victory is dicey – look at Maximilian in Mexico, and the French Indochina War.
French armies can win victories when led by women (Jeanne d’Arc) and foreigners (Napoleon – Corsica was then independent), but their pretensions at military prowess are Gallic.
Seawriter
Oh now, to be fair, what about 1792 et seq.? When you read about it, you wonder how France could possibly have done what it did in those years–after all, we do read that one of the main causes of 1789 was the bankruptcy of the country (caused in part by their support of our colonial rebellion). The answer: every man, woman and child was put to work for the war effort. Tout le monde was manufacturing supplies,weapons, clothing, boots for the troops, or making bandages, securing provisions–people too old for physical work were charged with giving patriotic pro-revolutionary pep talks to the rest of the populace . You can’t say the world-transforming success of the Grande Armee was ALL Napoleon! You don’t go round toppling thrones and desecrating altars all over the Old World without some real esprit de corps in the troops.
But, uh, what did France have then that it doesn’t have now? Same as Germany: both aspired, quite competently, to empire, to world conquest.
And who among the nations does so now? Aha! Russia, which until 1989 had empire, and would like it back…and, uh..the US? I guess we don’t look to conquer territory, but we’re not just sitting in our pod like France and Germany do nowadays.
Kinda incongruous when you think about it, that France and Germany, cradles during the last two centuries of the most dreaded warrior forces ever to terrorize this benighted planet, are now looking to Olde England’s raggedy, upstart colony to protect ’em. Funny old world!
Ah yes! Every Tsar’s dream, the warm-water port! I don’t know, though–is that really such a big deal any more? Remember when Omega snarked at Romney during the 2012 debates for suggesting that our Navy should have functional ? ships?
Jon,
Eisenhower completely agreed when he warned about the Military-Industrial Complex. However, Eisenhower also knew what it was to face a Panzer Division smashing across open terrain. He knew what he could cut and live without and what was absolutely essential to defend against an attack. It is the modern civilian leadership (Obama & Company) that really frightens me. I don’t think they have a clue about what is essentially necessary.
Regards,
Jim
That’s the moment I soured on Obama. Granted, as I’ve admitted, my pedigree as the son of Communist Romanian dissidents makes me overly paranoid on the subject — but RU has managed to keep its economic head (barely) above water through its weapons-dealing. And its innovations in AAW are frankly frightening. Lacking our consumer manufacturing history going back to the start of the Industrial Rev. — I dread not only what but who in that export game.
In fairness, Greece’s military spending should really be counted as Germany’s, right?
Yes!! I agree completely with this. As a cherry on top, I would say at least half of our old Cold War relics should have been dismantled too, both within the DoD and the Intelligence Community.
Yeah, I haven’t looked it up, but I was also thinking Greece’s GDP has to be pretty low. 2% of a hundred is, what? Two drachmas? Er, Euros? Wouldn’t seem too tough to scrape together.
I used to think this too, now that we are at the start of a new Cold War with Russia I’m not so sure.
The questions that the anti-NATO among us should ask themselves: Are you okay with Putin’s Russia having more influence over Europe than America? What will the costs of that be?