Posted on 02/11/2017 5:37:27 AM PST by markomalley
A Pentagon spokesman said Friday ahead of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s visit later this month with NATO defense ministers that members of the alliance should “pay their fair share.”
“We have had a long-standing policy in our government: we want everyone to pay their fair share when it comes to defense,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters at an off-camera briefing.
Mattis is scheduled to depart for the meeting next week in Brussels, Belgium — the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The 28-nation NATO security alliance was formed in the wake of World War II to provide collective defense for European countries against the threat from the then-Soviet Union.
Since then, the U.S. has provided the bulk of the funds for the alliance, as well as security for the region, despite a membership requirement that each member should spend at least two percent of their gross domestic product on their military budget. Only five nations, including the U.S., meet that benchmark.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
They should also have a minimum they have to spend on their own defense.
Does anyone know if that is in place?
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said NATO was obsolete because it had not defended against terror attacks, but that the military alliance was still very important to him, The Times of London reported.
“I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete,” Trump told the newspaper in an interview. “It’s obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right.”
Trump added that many NATO members were not paying their fair share for U.S. protection.
“A lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States,” Trump said. “With that being said, NATO is very important to me. There’s five countries that are paying what they’re supposed to. Five. It’s not much.”
It’s really not the Pentagon’s business who pays for what, is it?
What kind of cockamamie crap is that?
Why, that's just crazy talk!
Interesting you chose to knee jerk and bash on the Pentagon, but are silent about the deadbeat eurotrash.
Withdraw the US Umbrella from any nation that does not achieve 2% in 2 years.
And announce it publicly in advance.
We should NOT want Germany to “pay their fair share” if it means that Germany has to begin to take serious responsibility for its own defense. We undertook to defend Europe after WWII to PREVENT Germany from having a sufficient military to threaten its neighbors. Germany attacked its neighbors three times between 187o and 1945. Two of those times wee pretty serious, don’t you think? After 1945 we undertook to relieve Germans of the burden of self-defense and the rest of the world of the burden of Germany’s military and ambitions. Without that major modern military Germany has to limit its aggression to economic means.
That giant sucking sound is the EU being pulled off the USA teat.
You’ll always have Canada
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