9/23/2025, 3:03:05 PM · by ransomnote · 45 replies
truthsocial.com ^ | September 23, 2025 | President Donald J Trump
Posted on 09/23/2025 2:44:51 PM PDT by ransomnote
For more than a decade, many NATO countries have prioritized welfare expansion over defense procurement, a miscalculation that directly contributed to Europe’s current security crisis. Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea should have been a wake-up call; instead, it was met with half-measures and delayed commitments from key allies. Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine shattered any remaining illusions about European security. NATO’s collective security is only as strong as each member’s willingness to invest in it. The issue is not whether key Allied spending should rise; it must rise, not as a future aspiration, but as a correction for years of strategic neglect.Key Takeaways
Despite Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, many of NATO’s wealthiest members ignored the 2 percent of GDP spending target for nearly a decade.
European NATO members have collectively underfunded their own defense by $827.91 billion since 2014—nearly equal to the entire annual U.S. defense budget.
It is time to reframe the debate on NATO defense spending from an aspirational goal to a long-overdue course correction of a decade of underinvestment.
President Trump has noted that the US gave $350 billion to Ukraine.
NATO nations were struggling to pay 2% of GDP into NATO, and then Trump pointed out fairness requires them to raise their spending to 5%.Trump says US doesn’t have to meet NATO spending goal
By Paul McLeary06/20/2025 06:10 PM EDT"President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. shouldn’t have to abide by the same defense spending standards as the rest of NATO — potentially antagonizing leaders from the rest of the alliance days before he’s to meet with them in The Netherlands.
Trump has long demanded that NATO states spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense but has never said if the U.S. should be included in that or not. The U.S. is currently at 3.4 percent.
“I don’t think we should, but I think they should,” he said, responding to a question about his 5 percent defense spending goal.
“We’ve been supporting NATO so long. … So I don’t think we should, but I think that the NATO countries should, absolutely,” he added.
NATO nations have let their militaries atrophy and they are not prepared to deploy to support Article 5 of the NATO agreement (mutual defense).
President Trump has compared US spending on defense to NATO member nations' spending and asked for them to put in 5%. This came at a time when Macron was bragging he thought he could raise French support to 3%.
NATO is afraid President Trump will take the US out of the alliance - that's why they rushed to accompany Zelensky to that first meeting after Trump met with Putin in Alaska.
They have give some money to Ukraine, and they tend to give old equipment (F-16 or other aircraft) when they by new. But they don't have the money to, in many cases, provide 2% let alone 5% of GDP to NATO defense.This is just one 'tell' which indicates Trump's Truth Social post is written dryly, using NATO/Zelensky fals assertions to tell the NATO/Ukraine proxy warriors they are on their own:
NATO doesn't have the money to defend itself and the US is unwilling to support Article 5 or fund the Ukraine war any more. NATO won't be supporting Ukraine on to victory against Putin, but will continue to try to start WWIII in order to achieve their objective in their proxy war. Sadly, Vance was correct when he pointed out Ukraine was running short of soldiers.
The root of the problem with NATO spending is that you can only spend so much money you don’t have.
I’m thinking Trump wants to end our NATO membership.
In the past 5 years, Europe’s #1 problem is not NATO. It is NATO countries financing Putin’s war thru buying Russian oil and gas, rather than US and Saudi oil and gas.
NATO Military spending is an irrelevant distraction.
Thw US should leave Nato.
"Oh, don't mind the elephant. We find that it's best not to acknowledge him."
In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled NATO’s Underspending Problem: America’s Allies Must Embrace Fair Burden Sharing, spintreebob wrote: In the past 5 years, Europe’s #1 problem is not NATO. It is NATO countries financing Putin’s war thru buying Russian oil and gas, rather than US and Saudi oil and gas.
NATO Military spending is an irrelevant distraction.
It's not 'irrelevant' to NATO. They are terrified Trump will exit leaving them to deal with Putin after they waged a proxy war against him for years.
Yes, Europe's reliance on Russian oil has funded the war. President Trump tried to warn them about that and they laughed.
NATO members allowed their militaries to atrophy, failed to fund NATO, purchased oil from Russia, and blithely set up their proxy war against in the Ukraine because they had (foreign control) of Biden and expected to get the US involved by calling on article 5, and then the US was to fight Putin for them. With Biden or other puppet in control, the 'victor' would then control the military arsenals of the US and Russia. NATO/WEF/UN/Bilderberg elites would finally have the New World Order George Bush described. They would control US military might and RUssian military might - so who needs to tend their military in the interim? Not NATO>
Why ?
We spend multi trillions we don’t have.
Agreed. And decades of low defense spending is a gross violation of the NATO agreement. Make Turkey be the ones to defend the increasingly Muslim NATO nations.
There is a total mismatch between Nato countries military spending and military power vs. their willingness to talk tough and make commitments regarding Ukraine and Russia. You can’t talk tough if you can’t back it up.
“ I’m thinking Trump wants to end our NATO membership.”
He probably wants the UN in Brussels. Turn the UN into condos.
In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled NATO’s Underspending Problem: America’s Allies Must Embrace Fair Burden Sharing, Opinionated Blowhard wrote: There is a total mismatch between Nato countries military spending and military power vs. their willingness to talk tough and make commitments regarding Ukraine and Russia. You can’t talk tough if you can’t back it up.
Yes. Alexander Mercouris called out the UK for posing as one of the two, power 'bookends' in NATO when in fact UK doesn't have half the power it pretends to have. He said UK's elites were extrememly anxious to preserve the image of UK as peer to US military power and political power. Then some UK person posted a meme spelling out the state of the UK military - they had only a handful of operational tanks and had no means of deploying soldiers it promised to serve as peace keepers in Ukraine. All posturing and posing, no military might or power. Trump humored their game to get a peace deal and when they wouldn't cooperate many times, he withdrew funding. Now lets see how long they continue to fight a war they lost a long time ago.
America has kept NATO members afloat since it began. Time to break away from the leeches, and get the frick out of NATO.
Fair Brandon sharing? Can it start in the morning?
“”””I’m thinking Trump wants to end our NATO membership.”””””
I think it is just what it looks like, he wants more out of the other NATO countries, he wants them better armed and more ready, more distant from Russian pressure, and more ready to help us.
Sep 15, 2025
Japan Sends Air Force to NATO Bases As Threats Emerge on Multiple Fronts
“The deployment of the Japanese air force—its first mission to Europe and Canada—follows the conclusion of a British aircraft carrier’s operations in Northeast Asia.
Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang, part of an authoritarian bloc known as the “Axis of Upheaval,” strongly oppose NATO’s reach into Asia, accusing the U.S.-led military alliance of inciting a new Cold War that undermines regional security and stability.”
https://www.newsweek.com/japan-sends-air-force-nato-bases-2129901
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