Donald Trump is right about NATO, alliance burden sharing

Fox News ^ | April 15,2016 | J.D. Gordon

[Hojczyk]

As a former Pentagon spokesman who’s been stationed in both Europe and Asia over a 20-year military career, I believe Donald Trump is 100 percent correct to insist that our allies share the burden of collective defense.

While Americans should be proud of our historical role to advance global freedom -- defeating Nazism and imperialism during World War II, communism during the Cold War, and battling jihadist terror networks today, we can’t be the world’s policeman forever.

We can’t afford it.

So let’s take a look at some facts & figures:

NATO is an alliance of 28 nations with a population of more than 910 million. America makes up over 1/3 the population, yet pays nearly three quarters of the defense expenditures. Each country is supposed to pay 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Yet only America, the U.K., Greece, Estonia and Poland are currently meeting their obligations.

According to World Bank figures, during 2011-2015 America spent about 3.5 percentof GDP on military expenditures. Meanwhile, our wealthy NATO allies aren’t even coming close. Italy: 1.4%; Germany: 1.2%; Canada: 1%; Spain: 0.9%. Over in Asia, Japan has spent 1.0 percent and South Korea 2.6%.

During a Washington Post editorial board with Mr. Trump last month, the newspaper noted that Japan and South Korea pay about half of the non-personnel costs of U.S. military basing. And his response: “Why isn’t it 100 percent?”

Great question.

Even getting past the massive trade deficits with allies like Japan, we’re funding a system that makes our allies nicer places to live than here.

Take airports, for instance. Many of our NATO allies, Japan and South Korea put ours to shame. The first time I set foot in Japan, it was mind-blowing.

[Pelham]

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[Pirate Ragnar]

Whomever advised or told Trump to say this or take this position was absolutely correct.