""Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should," Trump told heads of NATO states assembled Thursday in Brussels. "Many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years." It's not the first time Trump has suggested other NATO members have a debt to pay.
But NATO does not keep a running tab of what its members spend on defense. Treaty members target spending 2% of economic output on defense — but that is merely a guideline. NATO members spend money on their own defense. The funds they send to NATO directly account for less than 1% of overall defense spending by members of the alliance. CNN.com
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Less than 1% of the funds committed for overall defense by the member states are paid to NATO as an organization. These are used for running headquarters, a communications spine, etc. The other 99% are spent by the member states on their own defense. Can it really be that DJT does not know that? That seems impossible but …
And then there is the grander question of NATO's purpose in the post-USSR world. The alliance was founded for the purpose of holding Western Europe together in a bloc to resist Soviet hegemonism. That was its only purpose. Well, the Soviet Union no longer exists. The Borg strives mightily every day to make people believe that today's Russia = the USSR but that is a mighty hard sell if the pitch is not made to people who know no history, geography, economics, and who cannot think for themselves.
Russia is nothing like the USSR. There is no good reason for NATO to exist other than as a plaything for Borgist meddlers. Let the Europeans defend themselves. Is that not what the existence of the EU implies? Are these countries not capable of managing their own affairs? pl
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-trump/index.html
Col. – I think he actually does not understand NATO or the EU. Either their purpose or how they actually work…hence, the “Germany is bad and I will renegotiate on their cars” diatribe. He thinks he can negotiate with separate EU countries on these trade issues. apparently, he also does not understand that German cars are made in the US by German companies…but that may be a briefing he has not yet attended.
This “initiative” on Trump’s part is at strategic cross purposes with the Borg intent to deploy NATO in Syria: to what extent will our NATO allies sign up to fund and fight the war against Putin and the Ayatollahs?
As military / defense alliances go, NATO has had a pretty good run. Maybe it’s just good luck. I wonder, have there been scholarly comparative studies of defense alliances over the centuries? How long they last / do they achieve stated goals / did they expand beyond their initial purposes? NATO might even be a record-holder… longevity, peace w/ the Warsaw Pact, minimal internal flare-ups, low losses of member troops. I bet it might even be judged cost-effective (compared w/ the Korean, VN, & our ME Wars).
Shut it down? EU doesn’t want that.
Do what Trump demands? Always a questionable course.
Exit by the USA? Sounds like the Admin would be ok w/ that. Shift attention to “kinetic behaviors” elsewhere.
After Donny’s charm offensive this week, if I were the other NATO members, I might want to change the charter to evolve it into an EU-centric (ok, Canada too – they play well w/ others) defense, peace-keeping, intel & counter-terrorism org. Offer a nice thanks for the memories! to the US… & maybe observer status.
Nato is the Rothschild army. It will not be disbanded until it has been replaced by a new one. It hasn’t changed since Maria Rothschild wrote:
“If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.”
Heros
Very funny. Real “Protocols” stuff. The creation of NATO had nothing to do with the Rothschilds. pl
To be fair, does anyone really “understand” the point of NATO or EU? The original purpose of NATO was indeed a defensive alliance against USSR. There is no military threat today, and now, it seems to be just some tool to do whatever its putative leaders want to do. Somewhat even murkier for EU. The original original purpose was to facilitate economic cooperation across borders along the Rhein. Since then, it became bigger and bigger for increasingly nebulous reasons that seem more related to prestige of the various leaders and facility of economic activities that disproportionately (and often only) benefit big international players of various kinds. The citizens, in all nations participating in these organizations, need and deserve some serious explanation of what exactly these things are doing for the regular folks.
Bacevich:
To see just how brain dead the Blob has become, Building “Situations of Strength”—hereinafter referred to Building Situations, or simply BS—is an essential text.
As depicted in BS, problem number one takes priority over all the rest, as Russia and China seek to carve out spheres of influence and thereby challenge the “principle that all states get to decide their foreign relations free from military pressure or coercion.” The authors of Building Situations do not admit to the possibility that the United States presides over several spheres of influence. Nor do they reflect on whether and how the United States has relied on military pressure and coercion to police regions it seeks to dominate. Put simply, Russian and Chinese coercion is reprehensible. Coercion undertaken by the United States is leadership.
To sum up: The United States should stick to a game plan that shows no signs of producing success. Moreover, it should do so despite the fact that, as the BSers note, in “the United States is no longer dependent on Middle Eastern oil,” and despite their claim that present-day Arab leaders “all view Israel as a highly capable partner in the common cause of combatting terrorism, Islamist extremism, and Iranian hegemonic ambitions.” By extension, with Arab leaders no longer interested in promoting Palestinian statehood, “the old bromide of distancing the United States from Israel to curry favor with the Arabs is no longer relevant”—a conclusion that, in effect, greenlights the further expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-beltway-foreign-policy-blob-strikes-back/
I don’t know if a sophisticated, nuclear armed military alliance with most modern equipment, Air Force etc. is necessary or even capable of fighting gorilla style war with terrorist. The past record in Afghanistan is not promising. They will waste money and lives for another 10,20 years till they get tired one by one and go home.
Sir
I’ve always agreed with Ron Paul’s suggestion that we bring our soldiers home and close the military bases in Europe, Asia and South America. We can focus on defense of CONUS and Hawaii and other US territories and the shipping lanes for our trade with nations. As you have noted we don’t know foreign cultures or history. Best we stay away from imperial games we are not adept at. If the Europeans and the Muslims and the Asians want to fight each other we should let them do it.
Unfortunately all the “serious” people who populate our political, media and governmental establishment love meddling in the internal affairs of others.
Europe is in a tough position. It can’t defend itself. Period. It does not have anywhere near the raw materials it must have to survive. It has to ship/pipeline them in. And it can no longer defend the sealanes that bring in the supplies. With birthrate that is suicidal for the white race. And a propensity to brand anyone a criminal or racist, or both, who points that out.
AND they like to look down their noses at us barbarians in the US, while giving lectures to the us. Some well deserved. Nonetheless….it no longer goes over very big here in the States. And, to top that off, the zeitgeist of the Nation, of DC, has moved West, to a people oriented towards Asia. Not looking longley back to Europe like the WASP’s of Henry James time. Or FDR’s time. Ike’s time. Those days are all over. This ‘alliance’ is surviving, for the moment, on inertia.
Agree with P.L.!
Great alliances have their own dynamics. If NATO continues to exist, I would not be surprised if, sooner that you think, a competing alliance between Russian and China springs into existence as a “counter-balance”. Then both alliances will try to bring India onto their side and everyone gets to play all the familiar Great Power games.
It is the US that asks for NATO support in Afghanistan and now Syria because we want international cover and it saves us money and manpower.
I knew a Dutchman, a cynic from the WWII generation, who said that NATO existed because the US preferred to fight the Soviets over there and not here (CONUS).
Ked and the Committee:
It always seemed to me that from the U.S. point of view, the primary benefit of NATO for the U.S. is to keep American military dominance and to deter the recreation of powerful European armies followed by the economic benefit of creating a subservient market for military goods.
Either Trump does not understand this, or he just rejects the idea.
From the perspective of the “others” in the relationship, it seems to me to be a time of great opportunity for our competitors to begin to supplant U.S. dominance, both in military influence, finance, and trade.
Recent news suggests that the TPP is not dead after the U.S. pullout and that the other partners are quite interested in avoiding the Chinese alternative. Likewise, NAFTA seem to be at deep risk. Climate change management is rejected by those in power in the U.S. Combining the Trump Administration’s departure from those arrangements that are deeply beneficial to many the participating countries creates unique opportunities simply to bypass the U.S. and to reduce its meddling in their affairs.
Imagine, if Mexico and Canada embarked on a program to harness their industrial capacity to act as a bridge between Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa as nearly duty-free manufacturing locations and, combined with their national partners in South America, Africa, and Europe to established a partnerships that intentionally disadvantaged the U.S. by a system of finance, tariffs, and rules bypassing the U.S. to keep the U.S. out of world markets as a bad actor.
Colonel,
I won’t try to debate what the real agenda of those who formed Nato in 1949 was, although I will say that McCarthy was on the right track.
You said yourself that: “There is no good reason for NATO to exist other than as a plaything for Borgist meddlers”. When I look at what Nato has accomplished since the defeat of the Soviet Union, what I see is mostly what was at that time in Rothschild interest. I cannot say if the Borg are more Rothschild or the Rothschild are more borg, but here is a very quick review of the Rothschild Army’s accomplishments since 1991:
– Destruction of the USSR and the CIS
– Destruction of Afghanistan
– Destruction of Yugoslavia
– Destruction of Iraq
– Destruction of Libya
– Destruction of Syria
– Destruction of Ukraine
– Expansion into ex-Warsaw pact countries
– Continuous saber rattling and provocations against Russia
– Never ending fealty and R2P to Israel
Now it is true that not every member of Nato partakes in every Nato action. This roster changes depending on circumstances, but Nato members are all chained together by article 5 anyway. To me it seems clear that all these Nato countries have sworn fealty to the Rothschilds and their nuclear weapons and central banking based empire.
Origin
“a subservient market?” The British, French and Germans all make their own r]equipment and market it in competition with ours. Now, the Turks are building tanks. pl
james
Yes. IMO NATO has been nothing but a tool of the Borg since the fall of the USSR. pl
Col.
That is exactly the point: EU, Canada, and Mexico are not subservient. They do not really need the U.S.
They might well do better excluding the U.S, and building their own developing dominance by bridging to the Americas and over Asia’s New Silk Road, leaving the increasingly dysfunctional U.S. out of their equation and trade routes. Intentionally disadvantaging the U.S. would strengthen their positions.
Mexico has a particular opportunity if it embraces the wall and its dividing line to reduce its relations with the U.S. and to expand its vision to Africa, Asia, and Europe to unfetter it from U.S. restraint and domination. Like the U.S., Mexico has good harbors on both coasts and it is a physical barrier between the parts of the Americas south of it and the U.S.
The Trumpists simply cannot perceive that the U.S. can alienate its best customers so much that they expand their markets. elsewhere away from the craziness. Were I a Mexican manufacturing entrepreneur, I would be leveraging my TPP contacts in S.E. Asia to market to Africa where growth is exploding and I would get my financing from the EU.
Col:
Mattis has become a very powerful figure in Trump administration.
Do you have an insight to share about Mattis and Iran?
I have read that his hatred/distrust of Iran is based on his belief that Iran supplied ied’s to Iraqis who fought USA.
But that seems like small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.
Paul Pillar writes:
Donald Trump probably does not want a new war, and during the presidential campaign he said things that suggested to some ears that he would be less likely than his opponent to get into one. But there are people who would welcome war with Iran and will seize on events to try to spark one. And there are people who evidently have the president’s ear—Secretary Mattis, for one—who favor the sort of confrontational approach toward Iran that increases the chance of events spinning out of control.
I am a little surprised that so much is being made of it. The money is a drop in the ocean. NATO has no say on U.S. overtures to Russia. I mean who really cares? It’s a little like people blaming Trump’s problems on the Democrats & the media, when the Republicans have control of both houses of Congress too, and they still can’t get anything done.
Now some knucklehead from Montana clocks a reporter for asking about the loony healthcare repeal. HEALTHCARE. This new Congressman also thinks the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. And recently told a crowd on the topic of Social Security, “There’s nothing in the Bible that talks about retirement. And yet it’s been an accepted concept in our culture today. Nowhere does it say, ‘Well, he was a good and faithful servant, so he went to the beach…’ The example I think of is Noah. How old was Noah when he built the ark? 600. He wasn’t like, cashing Social Security checks, he wasn’t hanging out, he was working. So, I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change over time, but the concept of retirement is not biblical.”
He’s a disgrace, he’ll fit right in.
Your simplistic conspiracy theory of the Rothschild banking business, not much different than the petrodollar conspiracy theory, will not hold much water at SST, where the host and the correspondents are far more sophisticated.
There are plenty of sites where such conspiracy minded ilk congregate. You’ll find a more receptive audience there.
mauisurfer
IMO Mattis is a small minded and rigid man. pl
Origin
Good! Let the EU and the rest make their own way and we can withdraw out forces from overseas. pl
I cannot speak for industrialists of Mexico.
But the avocado farmers of Michoacan would be dismayed by your analysis.
Col.
Since the initiation of the new Trump doctrine of non-interference in foreign domestic affairs announced in the KSA, the whole purpose of R2P has now been rejected and there is much less justification for foreign intervention for the purpose of saving the world. The prior general chaos doctrine doesn’t seem to have been very effective anyway except for its unintended consequences of near total destruction of civil society in the MENA and the creation of a cancerous growth of domestic terrorism in the western nations.
The question is whether the U.S. can abandon its overarching policy in the Middle East of instituting chaos throughout to prevent any single group from gaining hegemony.
I vote for removing almost all foreign forces and establishing a mostly defensive military, but one with a real bite.
Mexico: “A trade deficit of $60 billion/yr. An economy with 80% export dependency to the U.S.; and $25 billion in transactional U.S. to Mexico remittances subsidizing it’s citizenry.” – CTH
In addition to that, America’s specialty is waging economic warfare against countries south of the border. Put Mexico’s fragility and America’s market and political strength together and you could make life very difficult for an intransigent Mexican political elite who seem to think they have a God given right to export hombres (‘not their best’ either) north.
Canada’s economy is massively entwined with that of the US.
It’s just ridiculous to assert America isn’t hyper-dominant in North America. What prevents America from applying her enormous bilateral strength is NAFTA, which is why Mexico and Canada love it.
Look how Ukraine is doing economically after detaching from the regional hegemon…
origin
“the new Trump doctrine of non-interference in foreign domestic affairs announced in the KSA.” I didn’t hear any of that. What I heard was the mukhtar signing up to do SA’s bidding. pl
Origin,
It sounds like 11,000,000 Mexicans have better opportunities in Mexico and thus no need to be in the US – other than a higher standard of living, safer cities, less political corruption and better schools. But other than that it looks like President Enrique Peña Nieto will make Mexico Great Again.
Western Europe spent around 2,5 percent of their GDPs on defence during the cold war. After the fall of the Soviet Union, most countries kept their budgets in nominal terms. With growth, defence spending as share of GDP have sunk below 2 percent. Which makes sense, since the enemy is largely gone. The defence budget of Russia is one third of the budget of the Soviet Union. Europe spends more on defence today relative to Russia/Soviet Union than it did during the cold war. The problem is not that Europe spends to little: the problem is that the US spends too much. Good news for the American tax payer: there is a peace dividend waiting for you.
The end of the cold war marked the end of SACLANT (took a while to sink in) and a major purpose for the US 2d Fleet. But now I see talk about the “arctic pivot”. I wouldn’t be surprised to see NATO suggested as a needed force for it. I suppose it greatly depends on how Canada views its NATO role.
AFSOUTH was the vehicle for US 6th Fleet dominance of the Med, and I suspect the Borg, if not US navalists in general, view continued role of the fleet under cover of NATO as an imperative.
I’m not a big fan of the “if they want to rearm and fight each other, let them do it” school of strategy, as I’m not sure why the 20th C experience of US getting dragged in regardless of intentions wouldn’t be repeated.
I’d contest that the Illuminati’s interests also correlate with these events.
“’the new Trump doctrine of non-interference in foreign domestic affairs announced in the KSA.” I didn’t hear any of that. What I heard was the mukhtar signing up to do SA’s bidding.”
The obsequence is only one side of the emerging Trump Doctrine policy statement. Essentially, Trump’s total silence on KSA repression gave an implied promise to stay out of the human rights affairs of the KSA in return for the military contracts to be distributed as spoils by his son-in-law and for the Arab League’s “help” against terrorism and Iran by whatever means necessary. The policy is broader than merely being the mukhtar. The other side, the Trump non-interference doctrine, was quite clearly expressed by surrogates such as when Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praised the lack of protesters in the KSA. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/05/22/the-commerce-secretary-praises-the-lack-of-protest-in-a-country-where-its-punishable-by-death/ and when Trump praised Duterte, the Philippine dictator for tackling drug problem “the right way” by forgoing any semblance of western jurisprudence involving the drug dealers http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/03/politics/trump-duterte-phone-call/ and in his praise of Erdoğan’s actions against his opposition. The U.S. domestic side of this policy is the growing incitement against the press and protestors.
Trump’s silence on human rights is outside of all previous presidential precedent. Sounds of silence are being heard and acted upon around the world.
ked,
If they did that, and it were indeed Europe Only, they could call it NEATO. The North East Atlantic Treaty Organization. NEATO.
Origin,
One of the most key and important goal of TPP was to place all the signatory and ratifying countries under transnational rule by a set of secret Korporate Kangaroo Kourts to oversee the do-called Investor State Dispute System.
If the other targeted TPP member-victims decide to create their TPP minus America; their colonial subservience to the ISDS Korporate Kangaroo Kourts will be made manifest. The TPP-victim states will be sorry they joined it, and the US will be desperately relieved and grateful we avoided it.
kaon…I really wasn’t addressing “the point of NAT),” just how it is structured, how the EU is structured, and how trade deals are negotiated. You know, the basics that any international businessman of basic business acumen learns so he can do business better? To be fair, SOMEONE in the Trump organization might understand this — time for that briefing!
As is often the case, Trump has the details all wrong, but the big picture is pretty accurate.
Germany *is* freeloading. It spends a fraction of the USA’s per capita defence expenditure, and as a result has nice things like universal healthcare, almost free tertiary education and healthy public finances.
At the same time, Merkel has been quite gung-ho about pursuing confrontations with Russia. Article 5 gives her the confidence that, if things turn nasty, she just needs to whistle and the US cavalry will come riding to the rescue.
It seems to me that the US has the crappy end of this stick and Trump has every right to complain about it.
Colonel, If Sen.Rand Paul is not successful in stopping the gigantic weapons
sale to the Saudis how will the Saudis know how to use all those weapons unless we send instructors. I don’t want a repeat of Khobar Towers.
I didn’t hear any of that either. As well, it seems like that doctrine is pretty selective as Trump harangues Europeans to enhance their defense spending or Face the Consequences.
And, frankly, I’d wait awhile to celebrate this doctrinal new direction until we see if Trump a) has the discipline or ability to maintain a policy course for longer than a couple months and b) can convince the rest of his administration to follow along.
Call me skeptical.
Colonel,
“IMO NATO has been nothing but a tool of the Borg since the fall of the USSR. pl”
This is what I have been saying, except you call them Borg. I think the term Borg falls short. You yourself called them “demonic forces” in a recent post.
Its has been at least a decade since I watched the Star Trek Borg episodes with my then teen age children, but as I recall they were emotionless pure logical. Spock-esque robot killing machines. There was no need for propaganda, no need for lies, no need for secret treaties and alliances, the Borg simply crushed any opposition.
The forces currently pulling Nato’s strings I prefer to call “Rothschild”. There are plenty of labels we could use, but we have to recognize that these forces are
– Malicious (bombing infrastructure like sewage and water, double tapping, hitting hospitals)
– Sadistic (Phosphorus, false flag chemical weapons attacks, terrorism, droning)
– Anti Christian (Copts, Syrian Christian communities destroyed and not allowed asylum)
– Drug pushers (opium, heroin, coke, MDMA, mkultra, etc)
I could present loads of evidence linking these demonic forces back through the world wars, back through the civil war and revolutions of 1848, the opium wars, to the French and American revolutions. Of course few contributors here would be willing to read what I wrote let alone rationally discuss it.
So I will end with one common thread that I think ties these century old malignant forces together and helps to define their true form: The war propaganda. It is always the same lying, smearing and demonizing. From the Spaniards raping white women in Cuba to the Kaiser’s army bayonetting Belgian babies to Assad gassing and cremating his own peoples. The worlds media, which long has been under the reins of one group with the Rothschilds at its head, always foments these wars on both sides, despite it clearly not being in the interest of any of the countries or their citizens.
Once again, the quote from Maria Rothschild:
“If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.”
“Russia is nothing like the USSR. There is no good reason for NATO to exist…”
The flip side of that coin is that Saudi Arabia should be a pariah state like South Africa was under apartheid.
Instead, Russia is a pariah state and Saudi Arabia is the first foreign country visited and fawned on by the President of the United States. I might add that I wonder what percentage of the American population could pick out Saudi Arabia on an unlabeled map containing only country borders. I would guess 20%.
How is it possible that things have gotten this topsy turvy? It has to be on account of the continuing, since the entry of the U.S. into WW I, power of propaganda directed by the United States government against its own people. And the essence of that propaganda is that we are a great democracy trying to spread democracy throughout the world. Utter nonsense.
Which brings us to Donald Trump. I suspect that he will not be impeached. Because that is not his purpose.
If he is not an agent of Russia, he is identical to what an agent of Russia elected to the Presidency would look like. Such an agent would have two purposes:
One, redirect American foreign policy into a non-interventionist channel. Time will tell.
Two, destroy the Republican party. About half accomplished. He certainly decapitated the party during the primaries. Who will stand against him for the next nomination? Ryan? Pence? Good luck with that.
You reply that Clinton created the Kosovo narco-state. Granted. But Donald destroyed them too. Do you think the next Democratic Presidential nominee will be a crypto-war monger/profiteer like the Hillary? She certainly is trying to run for President again. I will enjoy as much as anything on the public scene her agony of defeat. Go for it, Hillary. Give it all you’ve got. You elected Donald once, maybe you can do it again. Vladimir is rooting for you.
Heros
You are a classic Anti-Semite. Do you have a well thumb worn copy of the “Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion? I am probably going to ban you from SST. I will think about that. BTW my reference to “demonic forces” refers to forces within the bosoms of mankind, not to shadowy presumably Jewish groups. Also BTW, I will use whatever language I choose. pl
“Europe is in a tough position. It can’t defend itself. Period.”
Nonsense. Check the only potential opponent, Russia. Then we can dicuss.
“It does not have anywhere near the raw materials it must have to survive. It has to ship/pipeline them in. And it can no longer defend the sealanes that bring in the supplies.”
Which country (save the USA) has the potentail to block European imports? Do I smell BS agian?
“With birthrate that is suicidal for the white race.”
OMG. Not the colour of your skin, aka lack of pigments, makes you a good citizen. Even if this may be a surprise for you, intellectual input does.
“And a propensity to brand anyone a criminal or racist, or both, who points that out.”
You gave a good argument why you can indeed be labled “racist”, but this irony is obviously lost on you. However “criminal” is not correct in your case when stupid is more than sufficient.
EU = (much) Bigger internal market and it didn’t become much bigger. Eastern Europe has a population smaller than Germany, Britain about the size of France and Iberia is smaller than Italy. EU allows us to make the rules at least with input from ourself. If the countries would be independent the rules would be imposed from the Outside
EU doesn’t want that?
It doesn’t really matter what the EU wants. The US is a very nasty tilted lover (see Cuba, Iran etc.) so even if the EU wants the US to leave it should be done in such a way that the Americans think (or at least can act like) they initiated it.
Some white nations are the only nations that have a modern society with near replacement birthrate. China, Japan, Iran etc have birthrates that are almost suicidal.
I don’t think Europe can, or would, fight Russia alone. Period. You’d find a way to accommodate them, once again, the Poles aside. If you smell BS you should look down to your hands. I don’t think Europe could have handled the peacekeeping mission, never mind a war fighting one, in the Balkans, never mind up against Russia and any allies it can muster. Mind you, I think no attack likely from Russia, but alone, in a crisis, they could not handle it.
Which country has the potential to block imports? Potentially, a combination of Russia and China. And either one, alone, could dramatically increase the cost of insurance as ships begin to go the bottom of the ocean like it is 1940-41, and modern day pipelines are cut off. Hell, in fact, I am dubious Europe could keep the Gulf open alone.
I hold no apologies, and am, indeed, proud for advocating the propagation of the white race. Or the black race. Or the Oriental Race. All contribute! By your charge of ‘racism’, and stupidity’ (I was waiting for the Deplorable charge) you become a walking caricature, spewing discredited ideological, naive, nonsense of a Europe that is dying, by its own hands, as you and your type stand on the sidelines and cheer the end of Western Civilization and Culture as if this is not only a good thing, but a necessary thing. Have at it. I hope you and your ilk are stopped. Brexit was a shot across your bow. But right now, sadly, I put my money on a long term suicide.
Ulenspeigel,
http://www.unz.com/isteve/the-graph-that-explains-the-2015-migrant-crisis/
Origin,
We all weep that St. Barack Obama was unable to speak out on the KSA repression that occurred over the 8 years he was in office. We weep that Secretary of State Clinton made no statements condemning KSA violations of human rights during her tenure in the Executive Branch. We weep that the US embassy in Riyadh never once flew a rainbow flag in solidarity with LGBT Saudis. Thank goodness they at least flew that flag in Moscow. By that act alone the other things are all forgiven and we can get on with it being Trump’s fault.
We ought to file away your post Charly, as a first. The first expressed concern over the birth rate of the Chinese. Anyway…China, Japan, Iran, et al, for that matter, do not allow much (any) immigration (although I understand Iran is relatively generous to displaced peoples from the Afghan region). Certainly none remotely resembling Western European and American levels. So, cultural suicide, to the extent it is an issue anywhere is not really an issue in those places.
Just because she said it does not make it true. It sounds more the bragging of a mother. You are lumping a lot of atrocities together and putting the blame on one family, or is in one race you are blaming?
That is the point isn’t it? Countries like Portugal, Greece, Latvia, and Estonia sought EU membership to no small degree because their leaders sought prestige of being in “the” exclusive European club–thus my point about “prestige” and vanity driving much of its expansion. With the membership came the opportunity for the elites in these countries to partake in the international partying, so to speak, for their own benefit, even if, for the rest of their populations, benefits were limited at best of the times and negative (compared to the burden of the membership) at the worst of the times.
Heros is probably a fan and avid follower of the conspiracy theorist David Ickes from the UK. I always found some of Ickes stuff amusing in that he proposes an alien race of lizards appearing in human form among whom are the Rothschild and the British royal family among many others. Alien lizards are an excellent and amusing analog for the borg. But Ickes is just another deranged grifter who is antisemitic too. I guess the photo of Trump and the orb in KSA must really give the wackos chills. “It all started with a lizard boy and his red shield in a galaxy far away….”
NATO with large U.S. presence in Europe makes it harder for NATO memberss to go to war with each other.
Italy and Sweden will be extinguished long before Japan, China or Iran.
Boronx
Are the Europeans wayward children that they cannot manage their own mutual relations? pl
Russian Federation is not a pariah state except among the Borg and the Borgistas.
The Western Fortress does not have strategic options against the Russia Federation – and likely not against the People’s Republic of China either.
A future war among the 3 may last decades, perhaps centuries, as they slug it out in a non-nuclear way across the globe.
NATO has passed its sell by date. That should be obvious to anyone who is not a Borgist tool.
The Europeans who are always condescending towards us “boorish” Americans claim they can take care of themselves. Why aren’t they demanding that the US military leave their lands?
excellent! a proper acronym is far more than half the institution these days.
charly,
China had such a high population and birthrate that China’s population itself was going to be suicidal. So they corrected course fast and hard.
China still has so many people that if they slowly and carefully permit more chidlbirth again, they could end up with still 5-6 hundred million people and maintaining that number. Many enough that they would still have the population component of mighty power, few enough that they would not destroy their own physical habitat out from under that power.
well, he’s opened the window wide… EU just needs to choose the door & thank him profusely for his leadeship.
Trump is an easy mark for that style of manipulation… forever seeking recognition that he’s a Real Player.
Prem,
Perhaps we should deconflict with Russia and then renormalize with Russia. We could then cancel seeking all the recreational military/diplomatic conflicts which the DC FedBorg Regime currently seeks.
That would allow us to reduce our military spending by reducing our military challenges and still support all the military forces we need to support for genuine national safety and defense.
We could then lower our defense spending to European levels per capital and spend that money on domestic improvement and social uplift and paying down some debt all at the same time.
It would require forcing the Establishment to give up its view that the entire world is America’s “near abroad”. We could accept the basic fact of “spheres of influence” and we could stop spending people, money, and effort on attempts to freedomize and democrafy the world.
Yes! along w/ the Rothschilds and the Lizard-people (not the Alien ones, the ones from our Hollow Earth, obviously).
Sweden? The only Western country with an almost positive birthrate under “natives” It is that there are so many low birthrate Iranians otherwise Sweden would have a larger population in 2100 than Japan
I don’t mean elite prestige, having a say in regulation creation is very important. It let you steer the regulations so the rules are good for you. Paradoxically small countries are better in steering regulations favorably because they are only interested in a few regulations
I’m not the first who say that about China. If you look at birthrate at a regional level than it is or way above replacement or significant below replacement and all the East Asian countries are all really significant below replacement so China will probably be like them after one-child has ended. The only way birthrate wouldn’t be a problem is if Red China could get the birthrate up again to 2 kids per women. Problem is the other Chinese countries all have very low birthrates and their states can’t get it up, not even Singapore which isn’t exactly known as a state that stays out of the private lives of its citizens.
If you exclude Japan than all the richer countries in the world have migration number akin to Europe and if you exclude inner EU migrants than migration is often lower in Western Europe than in say Korea. Seoul is for a reason the second city of Mongolia
Block imports? You mean block exports. Europe runs on Russian gas so no need to blow up ships
Brexit was because England had to many Polish immigrants and unlike normal immigrants they also took the Not-a-dream-job-but-i’m-content-with-it jobs.
Arctic pivot is because the Arctic sea has been opened for shipping because of CO2. There was no Europe to China transport through the Arctic Sea. Not because of the USSR but because it was impossible
Sorry list, I forgot, I should have put an ‘irony alert’ before my quip re China, above. My bad..
I doubt they ever will be able to on their own.
That’s what *they* want you to think. 😉
Doesn’t make sense unless Mattis is unaware of any US or coalition forces who died at the hands of Sunni insurgents.