@BansheeOne,

I forgive you as many illiterate Americans seem to be committing the same error, so it may be a language comprehension issue.

Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, isn’t cutting 8% from the defense budget, or a cumulative 40%. He is redistributing 8%, as the budget was created under Biden, and a different secretary.

The defense budget is untouched, and will likely expand as per congressional funding. He is reallocating the amount, not cutting.

https://www.defense.gov/News/N...focusing-dod-budget/

https://www.defenseone.com/pol...get-proposal/403128/

BansheeOne,
Thank you for your response. You make some good points and raise several issues which are worth consideration. I will try to address some of them...

quote:

What he did in Munich was basically like future Chancellor Olaf Scholz, then vice-chancellor under Angela Merkel, criticizing American government response to the BLM movement at a security conference in the US a month ahead of the 2016 election, telling Americans that next time they called an Article 5 over a 9/11-style event, Europe wouldn't deploy several hundred thousand troops to some sandbox over the next 20 years because, racism;

Well, I would agree with Olaf Scholz, then. The American government response to the BLM movement was horrible. It was fueled by the left and used to undermine, and defeat Trump in the 2020 elections. The people who looted and burned our cities were never prosecuted.
As for NOT invoking Article 5 over 9/11... he's right about that too. We never should have done that. Ultimately, what we did in the sandbox over the next 20 years was fruitless, and self-destructive. Sadam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but he did keep Iran at bay and provided some stability in the region. Our involvement in Afghanistan was truly a nightmare from beginning to end.

But perhaps the larger point in all of this is the nature and history of empires throughout the ages. It always begins with economic and cultural success and then the economic success provides the means for a huge military expansion. That eventually evolves into inappropriate uses of the military, and corruption of all involved.

The US may not have intended to become and empire, in fact our founding fathers warned us against "foreign entanglements" yet here we are: late stage empire.

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world."
- George Washington Farewell Address to the People of the United States | Monday, September 19, 1796

Empires almost always end badly, first economically and then militarily. Our only way of keeping it going is through the expansion of debt, which eventually leads to hyper-inflation and destruction of the economy and complete devaluation of the currency. Our economy is hollowed out; our military will follow unless we change course drastically.

President Trump understands this which is the nature of the "America First", MAGA movement.

The US involvement in Ukraine is symptomatic of this corruption. Zelensky is just a pawn of the US (Obama/Biden) and the EU. The current war was entirely engineered by the US with EU support and this is why Zelensky and the EU are snubbing Trump… because he was not in on it. In fact, he was impeached for calling Ukraine and trying to figure out/expose what was going on. Zelensky and the EU are trying to continue the old plan and bypass Trump or coerce Trump into continuing to fund it, yet these are the same people that led the Russian collusion hoax and the impeachment. Zelensky has continued to take advice from Victoria Nuland and Susan Rice, but it's not good advice. That's why he failed so badly when he came to Washington recently.

quote:

You would hope that in the real world, both European and American commitment to joint defense will remain guided by respective national interest, not some wish to transplant the respective legal and political traditions onto allies with a different history. The last US president who made American support dependent upon American values was Jimmy Carter, and he is generally not regarded a success; the neo-conservative ideology which tried to remake the Middle East in the US image within the frame of the War on Terror also kinda went that way, with similar results.

Indeed.

quote:

Of course as I said two years ago or so on the Zelenskyy thread (somewhere around here), the US needs to become clear what its interests actually are. Does it want to continue to use European bases for power projection to Africa, the Middle East and West Asia, also to support Israel? Does it still want to control the shipping routes from the Atlantic through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean? Does it still want to rely on sites in Greenland, the UK, Poland, Romania, Spain and Turkey for missile defense?

Good questions. My best guess is that all of this must and will be scaled back.

quote:

If it wants another framework, it can be done, but won't be cheap or easy. It would not be the first time that German-American differences of opinion, for example, have had practical consequences.

I agree with that too. Many of these bases should be completely turned back over to Germany.

quote:

Without NATO, the US could alternately pay for continued use of such bases, or try to strike better deals with individual allies which have the most need for American protection, like Poland and Romania. Which wouldn't be bad for nations West of there, either. Germany, for its part, could not only sit back relatively relaxed behind that wall towards Russia, but would also be free of the obligations for host nation support and to secure supplies for NATO's eastern flank - or could charge for them. Though the currently expanding German armed forces are also in dire need of more basing, so taking over previously American-operated sites at the cost of improvements to them since being provided to the US, as regulated in NATO agreements, would be convenient.

Ultimately, something like this will happen.
The US will remain and continue to maintain it's nuclear arsenal for the foreseeable future but likely will scale back everything else.

quote:

As I noted at the same time, seriously cutting its own defense expenditures is really the only way to make its current allies take over a substantial share of providing for international security. Incidentally, the recent suggestions from the Pentagon to cut eight percent in each of the next five years pretty much conform to the total of 40 percent I calculated then. Though I'm not really seeing this yet, much like Trump's proposal to Russia that both sides should even cut their defense spending by 50 percent.

I agree with this. The US must cut back, everywhere, to avoid the previously mentioned debt fueled hyper-inflation and destruction of the economy and complete devaluation of the currency. But, as reloader-1 points out, it's not happening yet.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chellim1,

Our European bases are in territory of former enemies.

They are not about power projection abroad.

They are, mostly, a knife at the throat of a downed opponent.

I doubt they will ever go anywhere, and Europe lacks the ability and the right to make us leave.

European culture is the predatory beast our ancestors fled.

It is not us. It has never been us. It is the antithesis of us.

Furthermore...

Since the Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States has spent or appropriated to be spent $183 Billion plus another $20 Billion in loans for a total of $203 Billion, an amount that exceeds the annual GDP of seventy percent of the nations in the world. Further, only America and its chief adversary China ($267 Billion) spend more per year on their military budgets.

Through the end of December 2024 the European Union plus Great Britain have spent or committed to spend $100 Billion in Ukraine or half of what the taxpayers in the United States have been compelled to contribute.

Meanwhile the U.S. national debt is now $36.5 Trillion and is equivalent to 133% of the annual GDP ($27.7 Trillion) as America’s national debt exceeds its annual economic output.

By comparison, the national debt of the 27 countries in the European Union plus Great Britain is currently $18 Trillion, and their debt is equivalent to 90% of their annual GDP ($20.4 Trillion).

Zelenskyy and the Future of NATO
https://www.americanthinker.co..._future_of_nato.html

As usual, everyone's dragging in vaguely related issues turning every discussion into a diffuse grievance competition. But to wrap that up, in reverse order:

The 183 billion dollar in the American aid packages for Ukraine include considerable allocations to strengthen the US military, and other collateral domestic measures. The guys at IfW Kiel running the Ukraine Support Tracker regularly go through the weeds of everyone's budgetary language. The US took a sprint in the last quarter of 2024 as the outgoing Biden admininistration tried to get as much of the pledged aid out of the door before Trump took over, and by the end of the year had closed in on Europe with 114.15 bn Euros (123.28 US$) vs. 132.26 bn Euros (142.84 bn US$). Another 5.24 bn US$ pledged by the US for a total of 128.43 remained unallocated vs. another 124.32 bn US$ pledged by Europe, for a total of 267.16.

The 100 bn US$ mentioned above for Europe look straight made up. It can't even be the share of financial aid out the total 140-plus allocated, because its military assistance amounts to about 65 bn, too. In comparison, the US provided the latter kind of assistance for a nominal value of 64.13 bn Euros (69.26 bn US$). Though note again that a large part of that went to American defense manufacturers, and an even larger one was the book value of weapons from long-time storage which had been long paid for, and weren't going to be replaced in kind (ammunition being a notable exception). So actual cost for those was in overhaul and shipping, minus disposal - saw a claim that the US in fact saved up to 40 bn on the latter. Europe of course just didn't have that kind of stocks, so couldn't match this; though obviously a lot of its expenses went to its own defense industry, too.

People will just need to decide between US bases in Europe being "a knife to the throat" of former enemies, or a disproportionate burden to defend the continent. That ground maneuver formations permanently assigned to US Army Europe dropped by a factor of 7.5 from five division equivalents at the end of the Cold War to one brigade each in Germany and Italy under Obama, and have since been bolstered by just three more rotating through Eastern Europe, indicates to me it's neither. To be sure, including air and naval assets this makes the US the seventh-strongest military power in NATO Europe, ahead of many smaller national forces including the Netherlands, providing about 100,000 out of 1.6 million troops.

But for those five ground maneuver brigades, there are 13 theater-level support brigades for logistics, signals, intelligence, medical, military police, etc. Incidentally I talked to the deputy commanding general of US 21st Theater Sustainment Command at a function this week, and she specifically mentioned support for Israel as one of their missions. Obviously that doesn't mean those European bases serve only American interests; the extensive logistics capabilities in place would also enable rapid US reinforcements and their sustainment in case of an attack on NATO. But above all, the crucial American contribution to joint defense is not in number of troops, but cohesive leadership, nuclear deterrence, C4ISR and deep strike capabilities.

My understanding also is that the eight-percent "cuts" in US defence spending are really re-allocations to mission-critical capabilities, which is why I don't see the 40 percent over five years some people are talking of. But I specifically checked, and a lot of the reports are vague enough in their language to support either notion. I guess that's a function of the competing claims that the US is spending both too much and not enough on defense, frequently from the same people. I still maintain myself that it cannot escape the paradox that if it makes the world safer for itself, it will inevitably make it safer for others, too, which will profit from Anmerican expenses no matter whether formal allies or not; securing international shipping lanes is a prime example. Unless it restricts itself and trusts that others will step up by necessity, that will remain so. Of course if those others aren't allies, they will be strategic competitors.

Meanwhile, to get back on the actual topic of the thread, CDU/CSU and SPD finished probing talks after just a week yesterday and presented a common base for the more detailed negotiations on an actual coalition agreement, still to be achieved until Easter. However, as expected the outgoing Bundestag is supposed to vote on a change in debt policy due to the changes for a necessary two-thirds majority in the next. Original thought was for another special defense fund of not just 200, but 400 billion Euro to be added to the current 100 billion, and a matching 500 billion one to address the dilapidated public infrastructure after the last 20 years of austerity politics. In the end, the defense issue was adressed by a plan to exempt all spending for this purpose in excess of one percent of the GDP from the constitutional debt cap.

Those plans remain fraught with doubt though, chief among which still is whether the outgoing Bundestag even has the authority for this; at least one AfD deputy has already announced to complain to the Constitutional Court. A two-thirds majority will also need the Greens, which are trying to extract a price on the infrastructure fund in particular - like not using it on autobahns, and some of it rather on environmental issues. CDU/CSU for their part are having to explain what became of their campaign promise of no additional debt; they're ranging from "the situation has changed" to "well, we're not the government yet". But even among them some want additional pieces of cake, like one saying "if we're doing extra money for defense and infrastructure, why not health?" Since the whole undertaking is the base for an eventual CDU/CSU-SPD coalition agreement, suspense is guaranteed until the planned decision date of 21 March.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BansheeOne,

Back on topic - I was watching some German news Sunday. I watch this partially as part of German language studying, but also to get some news at the source. Some anchors speak slow enough for me to understand more than others.

Anyway, as we already know, the CDU / CSU (Die Union) is bypassing the AfD entirely, and trying to build a coalition with the recently defeated SPD.

Now, even Die Linke and Die Grunen (no umlauts on my keyboard) parties are starting to cry "foul" over this snub of the AfD. I didn'y get whether they were going to try and get a smaller coalition, but I don't think that would work, since they are very different politically.

As others have said in multiple places, this can be seen as a power struggle between the elites and the commoners. Hopefully things will work out for the native Germans and those immigrants who have assimilated properly into German Society.

JMHO, YMMV.