3 ms·

"If Germany would spend 2% of its GPP on military, then it would approach Russia in absolute numbers, That would be crazy." It is her contractual obligation. C

by bloodm 7y ago

"If Germany would spend 2% of its GPP on military, then it would approach Russia in absolute numbers, That would be crazy." It is her contractual obligation. Currently Germany does not have an Army anymore but a museum. How many tanks are operational? 100? Russia has 10.000...

lispm 7y ago
There is no contract about it. Tanks? Not sure that this is our biggest concern right now.
- bloodm 7y ago
  Nato Membership is a contract. Yes, Indeed. tanks are not the biggest problem. https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/21/pepe-escobar-you-say-you-want-a-russian-revolution/ https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/21/pepe-escobar-you-say-y... PS: "Germany is only one of 19 NATO members that have not met the 2% GDP spending goal set at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales."
  - lispm 7y ago
    and the contract says nothing about what you claim. PS. : the spending goal is in the future: 2025. It‘s also a political goal, not a contract. And the current data can be seen here: https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_11/20191129_pr-2019-123-en.pdf https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_... Look at the numbers, they are vastly different from what you claim.
    - bloodm 7y ago
      "Look at the numbers, they are vastly different from what you claim. " They are "vastly different" because most countries don't share their fair burden. Trump may be wrong in many things, here he is right. In the PDF you provided "NATO guideline 2%" But hey, why spent it on the military? Let the US spent/fight for us.
      - lispm 7y ago
        Well, you claim that there is a contract which binds NATO countries to spend 2% of their budget on military and that only Germany is not spending 2%. Everything of that is wrong, There is no contract. The goal of 2% is set for 2025, not now. Currently a bunch of countries spend less than 2%. And: large parts of the US military spending is completely unrelated to NATO. Next you need to ask yourself if these approximate numbers make sense: Europe minus Russia, without the US: defense spending of 350 billion USD. NATO has defense spending of 950 billion dollar. Russia: defense spending: 65 billion USD. Europe is already outspending Russia five times. NATO is outspending Russia by 15 times. This looks like lack of money is not the actual problem NATO has.
        rayiner 7y ago
        Your comparison is fatally flawed. If someone declared that the US/Europe doesn’t need to spend so much on social welfare or transit, because Russia and China spend much less in nominal dollars/euro, one would quite rightly point out that a dollar buys much more food or miles of subway tunnel in Russia than the United States. The same is true for Military spending. The military is labor heavy, and production is mostly domestic. If you don’t adjust for purchasing power, you’re comparing apples and oranges: https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expenditure-is-much-higher-than-commonly-understood-as-is-chinas/ https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expen... > Perhaps most importantly, the more methodologically sound approach to comparing defense spending based on PPP illustrates that the gap between U.S. expenditure on the one hand and that of Russia and China on the other has closed dramatically over the past 15 years. Today, when taken together, spending by Russia and China is roughly equal to U.S. defense expenditure, with Russia representing a much larger share than previously recognized. Moreover, even PPP probably doesn’t accurately depict the difference. Beijing spends about a billion dollars a year to operate a subway serving a city of 20 million people. New York spends ten times as much for a system half the length and half the ridership. Moscow spends 1/7 as much as New York to operate a larger system with more ridership. Military expenditures probably scale much closer to something like a subway system than the overall PPP basket of goods. In that case, we are probably looking at less than a factor of two advantage in what that spending actually buys.
- jariel 7y ago
  "There is no contract about it." You are disingenuously arguing against the wind. Yes, there is, a kind of contract. When nations agree to targets, and they did a long time ago, its material. That it's not technically part of the treaty is relevant, but not so important. The 2% target was established long ago, there's a renewed 'agreement' since Trump took office, but it's along the same lines: European states will wait for Trump to be out of office and then ignore it. The fact remains America provides defence for Europe, and Europe is willing to let that happen because, well, it's very expensive, among other things.
  - lispm 7y ago
    > When nations agree to targets Which are in the future. The target is for 2025. > remains America provides defence for Europe The fact remains that NATO is not an US security organization where other Nations buy protection. Trump may think that, since he knows the Mafia from his real-estate business. Nobody has asked German citizens yet, if we want to invest 2% of the GDP into defense and where it should be invested. Basically a military & governments have decided that for us, which is entirely undemocratic and a fully un-controlled process. It's great that the military-industrial complex can on its own decide how much to spend, without any outside interference. This leads to a situation, like in the US where roughly a trillion USD is spend on military, which is an insane amount of money.

by bloodm 7y ago

lispm 7y ago

There is no contract about it. Tanks? Not sure that this is our biggest concern right now.

bloodm 7y ago
Nato Membership is a contract. Yes, Indeed. tanks are not the biggest problem. https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/21/pepe-escobar-you-say-you-want-a-russian-revolution/ https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/21/pepe-escobar-you-say-y... PS: "Germany is only one of 19 NATO members that have not met the 2% GDP spending goal set at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales."
- lispm 7y ago
  and the contract says nothing about what you claim. PS. : the spending goal is in the future: 2025. It‘s also a political goal, not a contract. And the current data can be seen here: https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_11/20191129_pr-2019-123-en.pdf https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_... Look at the numbers, they are vastly different from what you claim.
  - bloodm 7y ago
    "Look at the numbers, they are vastly different from what you claim. " They are "vastly different" because most countries don't share their fair burden. Trump may be wrong in many things, here he is right. In the PDF you provided "NATO guideline 2%" But hey, why spent it on the military? Let the US spent/fight for us.
    - lispm 7y ago
      Well, you claim that there is a contract which binds NATO countries to spend 2% of their budget on military and that only Germany is not spending 2%. Everything of that is wrong, There is no contract. The goal of 2% is set for 2025, not now. Currently a bunch of countries spend less than 2%. And: large parts of the US military spending is completely unrelated to NATO. Next you need to ask yourself if these approximate numbers make sense: Europe minus Russia, without the US: defense spending of 350 billion USD. NATO has defense spending of 950 billion dollar. Russia: defense spending: 65 billion USD. Europe is already outspending Russia five times. NATO is outspending Russia by 15 times. This looks like lack of money is not the actual problem NATO has.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        Your comparison is fatally flawed. If someone declared that the US/Europe doesn’t need to spend so much on social welfare or transit, because Russia and China spend much less in nominal dollars/euro, one would quite rightly point out that a dollar buys much more food or miles of subway tunnel in Russia than the United States. The same is true for Military spending. The military is labor heavy, and production is mostly domestic. If you don’t adjust for purchasing power, you’re comparing apples and oranges: https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expenditure-is-much-higher-than-commonly-understood-as-is-chinas/ https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expen... > Perhaps most importantly, the more methodologically sound approach to comparing defense spending based on PPP illustrates that the gap between U.S. expenditure on the one hand and that of Russia and China on the other has closed dramatically over the past 15 years. Today, when taken together, spending by Russia and China is roughly equal to U.S. defense expenditure, with Russia representing a much larger share than previously recognized. Moreover, even PPP probably doesn’t accurately depict the difference. Beijing spends about a billion dollars a year to operate a subway serving a city of 20 million people. New York spends ten times as much for a system half the length and half the ridership. Moscow spends 1/7 as much as New York to operate a larger system with more ridership. Military expenditures probably scale much closer to something like a subway system than the overall PPP basket of goods. In that case, we are probably looking at less than a factor of two advantage in what that spending actually buys.
jariel 7y ago
"There is no contract about it." You are disingenuously arguing against the wind. Yes, there is, a kind of contract. When nations agree to targets, and they did a long time ago, its material. That it's not technically part of the treaty is relevant, but not so important. The 2% target was established long ago, there's a renewed 'agreement' since Trump took office, but it's along the same lines: European states will wait for Trump to be out of office and then ignore it. The fact remains America provides defence for Europe, and Europe is willing to let that happen because, well, it's very expensive, among other things.
- lispm 7y ago
  > When nations agree to targets Which are in the future. The target is for 2025. > remains America provides defence for Europe The fact remains that NATO is not an US security organization where other Nations buy protection. Trump may think that, since he knows the Mafia from his real-estate business. Nobody has asked German citizens yet, if we want to invest 2% of the GDP into defense and where it should be invested. Basically a military & governments have decided that for us, which is entirely undemocratic and a fully un-controlled process. It's great that the military-industrial complex can on its own decide how much to spend, without any outside interference. This leads to a situation, like in the US where roughly a trillion USD is spend on military, which is an insane amount of money.