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Or maybe they're mad that there's no more free lunch. Asking NATO to pay their fair share was fair. Imposing tariffs on China because they were devaluing their

Or maybe they're mad that there's no more free lunch. Asking NATO to pay their fair share was fair. Imposing tariffs on China because they were devaluing their currency was fair. I didn't see anyone prominent talking about this before the America First people. The piece de resistance was when Europeans laughed when Trump asked them to spend more on defense only to be caught entirely off guard when Ukraine was invaded.

The_Colonel 2y ago
> Asking NATO to pay their fair share was fair. Imposing tariffs on China because they were devaluing their currency was fair. "fair" has little relevance in geopolitics. Spending on military used to be politically difficult in Europe and US has so far decided to be lenient on the 2% rule since pressing the issue would achieve little but burning the relationship and thus influence. Choose your battles wisely, apply your limited political capital where it has the biggest impact. This 2% rule is likely not it. In general, the international relationships will get more transactional and "multi-polar". One probably unintentional effect is that Europe will get closer to China, not bound by loyalty to US, and thus doing more fence-sitting. (China is a much bigger concern in US than in Europe)
- asdasdsddd 2y ago
  Fair is when the participating countries do not meet the spending they agreed to
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    Sure, it's not fair, but that's irrelevant. The real dilemma is - will pressing this issue hard have positive or negative effects on the future US strategic position? It's not just the GDP percentage which is on the line, you can't isolate it from the rest of the relationship. I'll use an analogy from my personal life. A friend is consistently late to meet ups. It bothers me, since I'm losing time by showing up on time. It's clearly not fair. When I bring it up, he apologizes, but ultimately his lack of punctuality never changes. Now I could go hard on him - give him ultimatums, send reminders before the meetup etc. The question is - will I be able to change him and get him punctual? Is it possible I will seriously harm or even destroy the relationship by continually pressing this apparent weakness of his?
    - thunky 2y ago
      You can show up later than him. Disrespect his time the same way he disrespects yours. That would be "fair". Or, try not to work with him anymore.
      - The_Colonel 2y ago
        > You can show up later than him. Disrespect his time the same way he disrespects yours. That would be "fair". Right, it would be "fair", but would it do something good for our relationship? Perhaps it's worth a try once, but should I just keep trying to one-up (be later than) him every time? > Or, try not to work with him anymore. I think it comes down to this in the end - is the relationship worth it for you even with some faults? To me, it is, so I choose to overlook the faults.
        thunky 2y ago
        > I choose to overlook the faults Fair enough.
  - microtonal 2y ago
    You know that the vast majority of NATO countries spend according to the 2% norm this year? https://www.politico.eu/article/defense-spending-target-nato-joe-biden-jens-stoltenberg/ https://www.politico.eu/article/defense-spending-target-nato...
bamboozled 2y ago
This argument just seems fishy to me. The only way Trump's argument makes sense is if Russia attacked NATO, and they came looking for a hand out, this hasn't happened. America has benefited massively from NATO. Intelligence, weapons sales, security... All that was going on is some countries in Europe weren't paying 2% of their GDP towards NATO, but, America has benefited enormously from paying only a small fraction more. America gets to be the controllers of the global reserve currency which basically gives unlimited ability to influence world affairs. Trump only really started to carry on about this since the invasion of Ukraine as far as I can tell, even then, it's still cost America nothing because Ukraine isn't in NATO. Any money that went to Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO specifically. In my opinion, America gained a LOT of security from The Budapest Memorandum, people argue all the time that you owe Ukraine nothing but is that really true? They're ultra vulnerable after giving up their nukes. Now what? Did you want Europe to be the global economic and military super power previously? I feel like I'm missing something ?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
yawpitch 2y ago
> The piece de resistance was when Europeans laughed when Trump asked them to spend more on defense only to be caught entirely off guard when Ukraine was invaded. So the piece de resistance was when Trump gave Putin carte blanche to invade Ukraine? Just to be clear, he’s about to give Putin carte blanche to keep pushing to (eventually) Belgium. Never mind what he’ll do in his next first 100 days to provide carte blanche into Taiwan. The man has the tactical savvy and realpolitik of a toaster.
- asdasdsddd 2y ago
  The joke is not on America, but the complacent European leaders who are actually affected by an aggressive Russia. The fact that the carte blanche is even Trumps to give is the problem in the first place.
  - yawpitch 2y ago
    Thinking America isn’t directly effected by expansionist aggression into Europe really seems to be one of those “doomed to repeat” lessons of history. Oddly enough the size of the “failed to study” crowd also seems to have a lot of overlap with the people who vote for populists, racists, and America-Uber-Alles isolationists.
    - asdasdsddd 2y ago
      We already provide security guarantees to over 20 nations in Europe. Do you think we should extend it to the rest of the world? At what point is this considered overextension, one of the leading indicators of the downfall of great empires and a source of internal misalignment, debt, and administrative burden.
      - The_Colonel 2y ago
        Note that US was one of the 3 powers signing Budapest Memorandum, actively urging Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for Ukrainian sovereignty and security assurances. While this document doesn't oblige US to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, I don't think US is completely off the hook here either.
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
The American greatness project relies on respect for democratic systems & institutions. Schedule F reverts us to a mockery of a system, to hardly better than the Andrew Jackson Spoils system; no one anywhere is going to respect the idea of governance at all if we just throw away our institutions. If we bypass Congress & have various appointed czars running the country. No one is going to respect us if we don't have any respect for ourselves. Squabbling about NATO bills seems ridiculous when the institutions and systems NATO was meant to protect are being canabalized, when the Heritage Foundation finally gets it's long held dream of plutocracy. The idea that tariffs are making anyone else pay for things is u serious in extreme. China isn't paying for anything, no more so than Mexico paid for the flimsy poorly built border wall. Those costs will be paid by the consumer, or those goods will be sold into other markets, this time around just as last time. Reducing American business's ability to source parts and materials in the process. America used to stand for somethin, used to have meaning. But there has been a persistent agitating element telling us the worst, saying our cities are overrun by violent anti fascist and other ridiculous fables, and they're using these tales of terror to undo and unmake America. In my view these are the enemy within, and their lack of respect for what we have as a nation is most telling, and will be seen far and wide, and people will think, well, why not go to China for partnerships? All sorts of world partnerships that would never have been considered when America was stable will seem to make more sense when there is such turmoil and undoing at home, when it's just illegotemate Spoils system again.
piva00 2y ago
> Or maybe they're mad that there's no more free lunch. Asking NATO to pay their fair share was fair. It was never a free lunch, this transactional mindset is ignorant, the USA benefitted tremendously from NATO both financially as through immense soft and hard power stemming from it. Repeating this platitude shows you don't understand that. > The piece de resistance was when Europeans laughed when Trump asked them to spend more on defense only to be caught entirely off guard when Ukraine was invaded. Probably you need to be reminded: who tried to blackmail Ukraine to dig dirt on a political opponent otherwise military support would be cut? Trump had all the cards to play and make the 2022 invasion impossible if Ukraine had the equipment and support against Russia in the initial Donbas invasion. The piece de resistance is right that: Trump only thinks transactionally, damned be the consequences, the consequence of throwing Ukraine under the bus for dirt on Hunter Biden was emboldening Russia to invade again in 2022.
- asdasdsddd 2y ago
  > It was never a free lunch, this transactional mindset is ignorant, the USA benefitted tremendously from NATO both financially as through immense soft and hard power stemming from it. Repeating this platitude shows you don't understand that. This world police narrative is nauseating. I don't doubt NATO has economic benefits, but this is a partnership that needs to be re-examined if our partners aren't honoring agreements, don't have skin in the game, or aren't aligning with American interests/values. This is true for Europe, this is true for our allies in the middle east, and this this true for our partners in Asia.
  - piva00 2y ago
    Why is it nauseating? The USA made its own prerogative to keep trade flowing, it was the USA who decided it was in the USA's benefit to invest in enforcing it, exactly because it helps itself! The benefit to others is secondary, as most things in geopolitics it stems from an egotistical motivation: it helps the USA. > I don't doubt NATO has economic benefits, but this is a partnership that needs to be re-examined if our partners aren't honoring agreements, don't have skin in the game, or aren't aligning with American interests/values Please, explain how the partnership wasn't beneficial to the USA even if the 2% spending wasn't reached by the partners, you are going in circles here without further developing what exactly is the damage caused by it. All partners have skin in the game, for fucks sake, the only time any country invoked Article 5 was the USA after 9/11, is that forgotten? > This is true for Europe, this is true for our allies in the middle east, and this this true for our partners in Asia. What else do you think the USA needs from all these partners? USA's hegemony only exists due to these partners, again you keep being absolutely non-descriptive on what that entails, you just want "more"? More of what? More military spending? For what reason specifically? Because if you are being egotistical the more other countries do not depend on the USA's military the less power the USA has over them. If Europe stops purchasing USA's military hardware and go completely domestic there's nothing to be gained for you. I absolutely support that, I think Europe shouldn't depend on the USA and stop purchasing military hardware from there, increase spending but on domestic platforms instead of feeding the USA's MIL. You don't seem to understand where America's power stems from... Edit: by the way, just stumbled upon this article[0] right after submitting this comment, who do you think benefits from this stupidity in the medium to long term? It's definitely not the USA or Western Europe. [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-jr-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump-cut-funding-ukraine-war/ https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-jr-volodymyr-ze...

The_Colonel 2y ago

> Asking NATO to pay their fair share was fair. Imposing tariffs on China because they were devaluing their currency was fair. "fair" has little relevance in geopolitics. Spending on military used to be politically difficult in Europe and US has so far decided to be lenient on the 2% rule since pressing the issue would achieve little but burning the relationship and thus influence. Choose your battles wisely, apply your limited political capital where it has the biggest impact. This 2% rule is likely not it. In general, the international relationships will get more transactional and "multi-polar". One probably unintentional effect is that Europe will get closer to China, not bound by loyalty to US, and thus doing more fence-sitting. (China is a much bigger concern in US than in Europe)

asdasdsddd 2y ago
Fair is when the participating countries do not meet the spending they agreed to
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  Sure, it's not fair, but that's irrelevant. The real dilemma is - will pressing this issue hard have positive or negative effects on the future US strategic position? It's not just the GDP percentage which is on the line, you can't isolate it from the rest of the relationship. I'll use an analogy from my personal life. A friend is consistently late to meet ups. It bothers me, since I'm losing time by showing up on time. It's clearly not fair. When I bring it up, he apologizes, but ultimately his lack of punctuality never changes. Now I could go hard on him - give him ultimatums, send reminders before the meetup etc. The question is - will I be able to change him and get him punctual? Is it possible I will seriously harm or even destroy the relationship by continually pressing this apparent weakness of his?
  - thunky 2y ago
    You can show up later than him. Disrespect his time the same way he disrespects yours. That would be "fair". Or, try not to work with him anymore.
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      > You can show up later than him. Disrespect his time the same way he disrespects yours. That would be "fair". Right, it would be "fair", but would it do something good for our relationship? Perhaps it's worth a try once, but should I just keep trying to one-up (be later than) him every time? > Or, try not to work with him anymore. I think it comes down to this in the end - is the relationship worth it for you even with some faults? To me, it is, so I choose to overlook the faults.
      - thunky 2y ago
        > I choose to overlook the faults Fair enough.
- microtonal 2y ago
  You know that the vast majority of NATO countries spend according to the 2% norm this year? https://www.politico.eu/article/defense-spending-target-nato-joe-biden-jens-stoltenberg/ https://www.politico.eu/article/defense-spending-target-nato...

bamboozled 2y ago

This argument just seems fishy to me. The only way Trump's argument makes sense is if Russia attacked NATO, and they came looking for a hand out, this hasn't happened. America has benefited massively from NATO. Intelligence, weapons sales, security... All that was going on is some countries in Europe weren't paying 2% of their GDP towards NATO, but, America has benefited enormously from paying only a small fraction more. America gets to be the controllers of the global reserve currency which basically gives unlimited ability to influence world affairs. Trump only really started to carry on about this since the invasion of Ukraine as far as I can tell, even then, it's still cost America nothing because Ukraine isn't in NATO. Any money that went to Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO specifically. In my opinion, America gained a LOT of security from The Budapest Memorandum, people argue all the time that you owe Ukraine nothing but is that really true? They're ultra vulnerable after giving up their nukes. Now what? Did you want Europe to be the global economic and military super power previously? I feel like I'm missing something ?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

yawpitch 2y ago

> The piece de resistance was when Europeans laughed when Trump asked them to spend more on defense only to be caught entirely off guard when Ukraine was invaded. So the piece de resistance was when Trump gave Putin carte blanche to invade Ukraine? Just to be clear, he’s about to give Putin carte blanche to keep pushing to (eventually) Belgium. Never mind what he’ll do in his next first 100 days to provide carte blanche into Taiwan. The man has the tactical savvy and realpolitik of a toaster.

asdasdsddd 2y ago
The joke is not on America, but the complacent European leaders who are actually affected by an aggressive Russia. The fact that the carte blanche is even Trumps to give is the problem in the first place.
- yawpitch 2y ago
  Thinking America isn’t directly effected by expansionist aggression into Europe really seems to be one of those “doomed to repeat” lessons of history. Oddly enough the size of the “failed to study” crowd also seems to have a lot of overlap with the people who vote for populists, racists, and America-Uber-Alles isolationists.
  - asdasdsddd 2y ago
    We already provide security guarantees to over 20 nations in Europe. Do you think we should extend it to the rest of the world? At what point is this considered overextension, one of the leading indicators of the downfall of great empires and a source of internal misalignment, debt, and administrative burden.
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      Note that US was one of the 3 powers signing Budapest Memorandum, actively urging Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for Ukrainian sovereignty and security assurances. While this document doesn't oblige US to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, I don't think US is completely off the hook here either.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

The American greatness project relies on respect for democratic systems & institutions. Schedule F reverts us to a mockery of a system, to hardly better than the Andrew Jackson Spoils system; no one anywhere is going to respect the idea of governance at all if we just throw away our institutions. If we bypass Congress & have various appointed czars running the country. No one is going to respect us if we don't have any respect for ourselves. Squabbling about NATO bills seems ridiculous when the institutions and systems NATO was meant to protect are being canabalized, when the Heritage Foundation finally gets it's long held dream of plutocracy. The idea that tariffs are making anyone else pay for things is u serious in extreme. China isn't paying for anything, no more so than Mexico paid for the flimsy poorly built border wall. Those costs will be paid by the consumer, or those goods will be sold into other markets, this time around just as last time. Reducing American business's ability to source parts and materials in the process. America used to stand for somethin, used to have meaning. But there has been a persistent agitating element telling us the worst, saying our cities are overrun by violent anti fascist and other ridiculous fables, and they're using these tales of terror to undo and unmake America. In my view these are the enemy within, and their lack of respect for what we have as a nation is most telling, and will be seen far and wide, and people will think, well, why not go to China for partnerships? All sorts of world partnerships that would never have been considered when America was stable will seem to make more sense when there is such turmoil and undoing at home, when it's just illegotemate Spoils system again.

piva00 2y ago

> Or maybe they're mad that there's no more free lunch. Asking NATO to pay their fair share was fair. It was never a free lunch, this transactional mindset is ignorant, the USA benefitted tremendously from NATO both financially as through immense soft and hard power stemming from it. Repeating this platitude shows you don't understand that. > The piece de resistance was when Europeans laughed when Trump asked them to spend more on defense only to be caught entirely off guard when Ukraine was invaded. Probably you need to be reminded: who tried to blackmail Ukraine to dig dirt on a political opponent otherwise military support would be cut? Trump had all the cards to play and make the 2022 invasion impossible if Ukraine had the equipment and support against Russia in the initial Donbas invasion. The piece de resistance is right that: Trump only thinks transactionally, damned be the consequences, the consequence of throwing Ukraine under the bus for dirt on Hunter Biden was emboldening Russia to invade again in 2022.

asdasdsddd 2y ago
> It was never a free lunch, this transactional mindset is ignorant, the USA benefitted tremendously from NATO both financially as through immense soft and hard power stemming from it. Repeating this platitude shows you don't understand that. This world police narrative is nauseating. I don't doubt NATO has economic benefits, but this is a partnership that needs to be re-examined if our partners aren't honoring agreements, don't have skin in the game, or aren't aligning with American interests/values. This is true for Europe, this is true for our allies in the middle east, and this this true for our partners in Asia.
- piva00 2y ago
  Why is it nauseating? The USA made its own prerogative to keep trade flowing, it was the USA who decided it was in the USA's benefit to invest in enforcing it, exactly because it helps itself! The benefit to others is secondary, as most things in geopolitics it stems from an egotistical motivation: it helps the USA. > I don't doubt NATO has economic benefits, but this is a partnership that needs to be re-examined if our partners aren't honoring agreements, don't have skin in the game, or aren't aligning with American interests/values Please, explain how the partnership wasn't beneficial to the USA even if the 2% spending wasn't reached by the partners, you are going in circles here without further developing what exactly is the damage caused by it. All partners have skin in the game, for fucks sake, the only time any country invoked Article 5 was the USA after 9/11, is that forgotten? > This is true for Europe, this is true for our allies in the middle east, and this this true for our partners in Asia. What else do you think the USA needs from all these partners? USA's hegemony only exists due to these partners, again you keep being absolutely non-descriptive on what that entails, you just want "more"? More of what? More military spending? For what reason specifically? Because if you are being egotistical the more other countries do not depend on the USA's military the less power the USA has over them. If Europe stops purchasing USA's military hardware and go completely domestic there's nothing to be gained for you. I absolutely support that, I think Europe shouldn't depend on the USA and stop purchasing military hardware from there, increase spending but on domestic platforms instead of feeding the USA's MIL. You don't seem to understand where America's power stems from... Edit: by the way, just stumbled upon this article[0] right after submitting this comment, who do you think benefits from this stupidity in the medium to long term? It's definitely not the USA or Western Europe. [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-jr-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump-cut-funding-ukraine-war/ https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-jr-volodymyr-ze...