That's a completely different thread - all the more reason to expand NATO before this happens. Europe needs to learn to swim on its own.

no, other counteies also bought planes, and produce them too

but not in thousands

Actually yes, NATO without the US still has several thousand planes.

since original topic was about attack aircrafts, my estimate is that NATO without US has several hundreds ready to use attack aircrafts. Specifically largest contributors: Germany, GB, France have 150-200 aircrafts each according to wiki(many of them old and outdated), with half of them likely not ready for combat.

If you put various trainer, transportation, support role aircrafts, maybe it will be few thousands.

Wasn't Trump just upset NATO members weren't paying their dues? What am I missing here?

NATO isn't a pay-to-play organisation. NATO takes no money from countries. NATO has no forces of it's own to pay for.

There is a non-binding convention that member should spend 2% of their GDP on *their* armed forces. That way when other nations call for help they can respond. It's a guideline figure though and some countries do it and some don't.

Thanks for responding, I meant this when I said "pay their dues" btw: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/pay-d...

I didn't feel that strongly about this a few years ago but with the Ukraine war demonstrating how unprepared certain NATO members were (ex: Germany), despite their pledges at the 2014 Whales Summit[1], which was essentially preparing for this possibility. I can't help but view Trump's anger about this as fortelling, even if obnoxious. Still, I'm confused why this is getting re-interpreted as an attempt at disbanding NATO, from my perspective the allies who refuse to follow through with their promises are fundamentally what challenges the alliance's integrity, not the allies who call them out on it...

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Wales_summit#Wales_Pled...

Its valid critics, but the point is that vast majority of NATO strength depends on current ruler in US who may not necessary decide to protect NATO coutries.