Posted on 07/18/2026 5:59:40 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
As Estonia's Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur prepared to fly to the NATO summit in Ankara this month, he revealed to local journalists that several hundred U.S. troops deployed to his Baltic nation in the winter had quietly been withdrawn – with no clear sign of when or whether they might return.
At the Ankara gathering itself, delegates from the Baltic states and Poland proudly wore badges proclaiming themselves members of the "five percent club", the only nations in the NATO alliance to have already reached the spending target set at last year's meeting in The Hague – a status they had believed until recently would secure them lasting U.S. military backing.
Despite some of the most outspoken behaviour yet by U.S. President Donald Trump at a major international gathering, NATO officials including Secretary General Mark Rutte claimed it as a victory, pointing to a string of new defence deals, increases in European spending and an "ironclad" commitment to mutual assistance.
However, many of those commitments – including a nine-nation defence bank led by Canada and a long-range strike missile consortium worth $50 billion and involving a dozen countries - will take years to deliver.
In public, even Trump-sceptic leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney praised the U.S. president for putting pressure on NATO members to increase their spending.
Meanwhile, what is actually happening on the ground this summer is that the U.S. has now pulled back its forces from some of the most vulnerable areas in Eastern Europe just as worries grow that a Kremlin increasingly publicly humiliated by Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile strikes deep into Russian territory might be tempted to lash out.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
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The plan is simple the US pulls out of Europe so Europe takes the lead against Russia.
Euros building up to 5 percent GDP defense spending by 2035 as demanded by POTUS.
US shifts to opposing China takes lead in “Indo Pacific” nothing to sweat here.
Good luck...
Mark Rutte NATO Chief says that’s the plan so I’ll take his word given to “Big Daddy” President Trump
We should support the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary etc etc. Germany, France, the UK, and Spain… IDGAS.
Not to worry.
Europe is always there for us, when they need us.
The Kremlin isn’t going to do nothing. They can’t even take out Ukraine.
Should I even bother to read Rooters or AP at this point? They have completely demonstrated themselves to be partisan at this point and I no longer care.
It’s not their ambition.
Moscow really doesn’t mind Europe bankrupting itself building up its defenses while accusing Europeans of “warmongering”, especially for doing it at the same time as backing Ukraine.
President Trump’s not helping. He’s telling Europe to hit the 5% knowing that Russian propaganda would go gangbusters on European “warmongering” and “Russophobia!” in response.
While pulling out, which suits Putin even more than it suits the USA.
Putin doesn’t fear EU NATO (he knows they’re deeply reluctant to attack Russia themselves and are far more focused on defensive assurance; that’s why the membership of Finland and Sweden doesn’t anger him).
But Moscow still fears the US in NATO. Because Putin still has peak Cold War paranoia.
He thinks that if he can’t hit EU NATO without hitting the USA, he cannot afford the consequences of the USA nuking back. Yes, it’s irrational. But. Putin’s been resistant to fifty years of political change on that front; he’s like the nutters who nearly triggered a nuclear exchange in 1983 over Able Archer despite the Soviet military already knowing it was just an exercise.
The song 99 Luftballons was a satire on the Politburo and Soviet paranoia of that time. Putin’s entire philosophy is party-like-its-1983. It’s why his pre invasion ultimatum to NATO demanded no NATO exercises on NATO soil without the prior permission of the Kremlin.
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