Free Republic

NATO members will have to bolster their defense spending by “considerably more than 3%” of their GDP, the alliance’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said Saturday. The alliance chief’s warning came just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tore into NATO allies as failing to “take primary responsibility” for Europe’s defense and called for a minimum GDP spending target of 5%. That amount is a drastic boost from the current 2% mark members pledged to meet more than a decade ago — an amount no member has ever reached, according to CNBC. “Over the next couple of months we will get...

A top globalist politician once hailed as the “Trump whisperer” who is now the Secretary General of NATO says he foresees a good relationship with whoever wins the U.S. Presidential elections next month, disarming some legacy criticism that Donald Trump is somehow a danger to the Western alliance. Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for 11 days, a position he secured to some extent on his strength as a rare internationalist-globalist who publicly made nice with President Trump while he was in office. He visited London on Thursday...

Russian warship opened fire on a Norwegian fishing boat in a sinister Arctic incident triggering alarm over the threat of a full-scale war between Russia and the West. The ugly flashpoint in the Barents Sea on September 12 has only been revealed now, almost two weeks later. It coincides with a Japanese fighter jet firing flares at a Russian plane after an alleged violation of Tokyo's airspace. Øystein Orten and his twin brother Torstein were on the 49ft MS Ragnhild Kristine during the chilling confrontation with the Russian anti submarine destroyer Admiral Levchenko, one of the largest vessels in Vladimir...

Jens Stoltenberg, the 13th secretary general of NATO, says that the alliance is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons and modernize their delivery systems. Stoltenberg told the Telegraph in the UK: “I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’re doing.” Stoltenberg emphasized that NATO is a “nuclear alliance.” He explained: “N​ATO’s aim is, of course, a world without nuclear weapons. But as long as nuclear weapons exist we will remain a nuclear alliance, because a world...

The U.S. House of Representatives has recently passed an amendment as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025. The amendment H.R. 8070 will automatically register all draft-age male U.S. residents with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft, based on information from other Federal databases. This new system of automatic draft registration would replace the existing system, in place since 1980, in which young men have the freedom to decide whether or not to sign up for the draft. According to People’s World, the automatic draft registration proposal was initiated by the Selective...

House of Representatives passed a measure on Friday automatically registering men aged 18 to 26 for selective service. It was part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which sets out the U.S. government’s military and national security priorities over the next fiscal year. This year's NDAA authorizes $895.2 billion in military spending, a $9 billion increase from fiscal 2024. While it hasn’t been invoked in over half a century, it’s mandatory for all male U.S. citizens to register for the selective service, also known as the military draft, when they turn 18. Failure to register is classified as...

NATO expansion has not improved American security.