> And then came Trump, telling us that we don't spend enough on Nato
Trump said it loudly and in plain terms, but this is a popular bipartisan view in the US. It is a fact that many wealthy NATO members do not meet the defense spending commitments that membership entails. Obama pressured NATO members to meet their obligations, and Biden will likely do so as well.
True, but on a deeper level NATO most of all serves US interests, and Joe Biden will grumble but happily continue to subsidize the defense of member nations.
These days NATO is most clearly recognized as a list of countries that the USA as global military hegemon is ready to go to war to defend, and this is hugely beneficial to a country that wants to be a global military hegemon. Wars are expensive and ideally you don’t want to fight any. The existence of an organization like NATO means that (a) none of the member nations are going to fight each other, (b) none of the member nations are going to try to rival the military hegemon, (c) nobody outside of the organization is going to start a war with any of the members. For a military hegemon whose main interest is ensuring global peace so that it can continue to reap the rewards of a global economic system that it is also hegemon over, getting to mark off a large chunk of the developed world as “no wars here” is well worth paying for. In a very, very loose sense it’s sorta like an olden-days imperial power with tributaries, but the “tribute” is realized in the form of the fact that the US government’s position as military and economic hegemon means that it can manufacture dollars for free and other countries will trade goods and services for them.
On top of that, concentrating the defense spending of the alliance within the US is good for the US economy and critically important for maintaining the R&D efforts that the US military relies on to maintain a technological edge over potential rivals outside of the alliance.
I think one factor in this election is that the parties splits are misaligned with issues that people actually care about.
So for example: Trump and Sanders (and Tulsi and a number of more fringey candidates) are generally opposed to international intervention.
Immigration considerations are another one (in particular, dem immigration platform is at odds with trade union preferences but aligned with large corporate interests).
There are big, relevant, issues that voters care a lot about that don't conform to the party lines.
1. The 2% target is a non-binding guideline.
2. Germany has (for some time) a plan in place to increase the defense budget to meet the 2% target. It will increase on a year-by-year basis.
3. Germany spends quite a lot on foreign aid, which 'could' be understood as a risk preventing defense spending.
> 3. Germany spends quite a lot on foreign aid, which 'could' be understood as a risk preventing defense spending.
I was skeptical, so I looked it up. You are correct—Germany does spend a large percentage of its GNI on foreign aid [0]. However, as you put it 'could.' Ultimately you are comparing apples and oranges. Defense spending is different from foreign aid spending, although they may be related. So, this is not a strong argument IMHO.
> 1. The 2% target is a non-binding guideline.
Not fulfilling a non-binding obligation is also not a strong argument. It's a non-binding obligation for me to to wash my hands at home after touching raw chicken. It would still be irresponsible of me not to.
> 2. Germany has (for some time) a plan in place to increase the defense budget to meet the 2% target. It will increase on a year-by-year basis.
IMHO this is your strongest argument, but the fact that the level is not there yet after so many years of NATO, leaves the policy rightly open to criticism.
> Not fulfilling a non-binding obligation is also not a strong argument. It's a non-binding obligation for me to to wash my hands at home after touching raw chicken. It would still be irresponsible of me not to.
Well, if Trump thought it's such a good idea he should have pushed to make it an actual obligation with punishment when its not met.
Instead, he complained with the same misleading statements for 4 years straight.
He also claimed that other countries take advantage of the USA while not understanding that in exchange for not contributing as much, the USA has had (traditionally) more privileges when it comes to setting the direction of foreign policy.
> Well, if Trump thought it's such a good idea he should have pushed to make it an actual obligation with punishment when its not met.
I wasn’t saying anything about Trump. I was just responding to your arguments about Germany’s spending on NATO. Not sure where you read anything about Trump from my comment.
The UK classifies some of it's foreign aid budget as defence spending to meet it's NATO commitments. It may be a weak arguement to us, but there is a precedent for it.
There is a silent understanding (silent, because it isn't raised) that the US takes a larger part of NATO spending because it's politically feasible to do so there, and because protecting Europe is to protect US interests as well.
In some places, spending 2% GDP on defense (meaning cutting back on something else) would be political suicide. So that government is kicked out and it remains 1.2% or something. What happens then? Nato kicks out the member state? That hardly helps any more than a member paying 1.2% and promising to help with Article V!
While I don‘t disagree about the split between countries being off, I always questioned the notion of other countries needing to spend more. Why shouldn‘t we all spend less instead?
Compared to almost any non-superpower status nation, the US Defense budget is strictly insane.
If they had just shifted a third of that budget towards education under early Obama, I doubt Trump could ever have come this far.
One could view the US defense budget as a sort of subsidy to Europe and Democratic Asia. If the US decreases its defense budget (by a lot), Europe will likely have to increase theirs.
Yes, and in return us Europeans agree to spend the vast majority of that budget on US arms. I'm thinking of multi-billion dollar nuclear subs and $100m aircraft. Then we allow tax free access to our markets and allow the US to skim a charge off all of our payments. To me that is the naivety of the Trumpist policy on Europe, it is only looking at the costs.
Trump said it loudly and in plain terms, but this is a popular bipartisan view in the US. It is a fact that many wealthy NATO members do not meet the defense spending commitments that membership entails. Obama pressured NATO members to meet their obligations, and Biden will likely do so as well.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/obama-nato-pay-fair-s...