Weird thread, weird idea. The United States is NATO. The thread title should be "Should America kick everybody out of NATO"

It's not a new or weird idea at all. Just last month two US senators authored legislation to try to limit Trump's power to withdraw from nato, and he's clearly viewed in Europe as a 'nato skeptic.'

Trump in truth just wants to use nato membership/defense spending I think as a stick to get Europe to 'treat us fairly' in his view on trade. In that respect it might even be a more practical implement vs. tariffs. They should, in reality, be paying us a tremendous amount to base troops there to protect them and provide such an outsize contribution to the organization's defense spending.

NATO had my back in Afghanistan. Where were you couch commanders?

Nato members shouls be paying more than there current comitments. They need us, we dont need them.

aalan94 said:

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NATO had my back in Afghanistan. Where were you couch commanders?

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I wouldn't have sent you to risk your life to 'fight for democracy' in Afghanistan.

Wait....do yall believe that we pay into some pool of money labeled "NATO" or something and it is then distributed out? We are going to spend what we spend on defense regardless if we are in NATO or not. We are going to base were we are going to base regardless as well. I of course agree everyone should spend what they agreed to and most are slowly getting there now, now that Uke/Russia has smacked them in the face.

We should not leave NATO, though maybe some restructuring should be examined. UN needs a HARD look at. And for those who ask what has NATO done for us, remember Article 5 has been invoked exactly once in history. After 9/11. I personally knew a British Marine Commando who is in the ground know because we got attacked and Bush et al decided to go play in the ME for it.

nortex97 said:

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aalan94 said:

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NATO had my back in Afghanistan. Where were you couch commanders?

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I wouldn't have sent you to risk your life to 'fight for democracy' in Afghanistan.

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We went to Afghanistan after they harbored and trained a terrorist group that killed several thousand Americans in one day on our own soil. We were completely justified in invading Afghanistan. Our actions after that first few years can be questioned, but the original invasion can't.

aalan94 said:

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NATO had my back in Afghanistan. Where were you couch commanders?

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Except the f'ing French. Asshoe close air support refused to drop unless THEY had positive ID on baddies. Do you know how infuriating it is to have "allied" aircraft circling with payload and NOT dropping on a grove you get the lit the hell up from and took casualties from and couldn't maneuver against?

There were 28 nations I think at the time in Kandahar when I was there. If more than 10% total ever left the wire, I'd eat my rifle.

CrackerJackAg said:

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Realistically, Russia is not a threat to the United States from a physical standpoint

We should absolutely be involved in NATO but other countries need to foot most of the bill.

That is the only answer

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Shouldn't we close 1/2 our bases in Germany / Italy etc.?

I certainly think it would save some money.

Eliminatus said:

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Wait....do yall believe that we pay into some pool of money labeled "NATO" or something and it is then distributed out? We are going to spend what we spend on defense regardless if we are in NATO or not. We are going to base were we are going to base regardless as well. I of course agree everyone should spend what they agreed to and most are slowly getting there now, now that Uke/Russia has smacked them in the face.

We should not leave NATO, though maybe some restructuring should be examined. UN needs a HARD look at. And for those who ask what has NATO done for us, remember Article 5 has been invoked exactly once in history. After 9/11. I personally knew a British Marine Commando who is in the ground know because we got attacked and Bush et al decided to go play in the ME for it.

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Disagree. We are the world's police and our defense budget reflects that. Other countries free ride and spend their money on social services instead. They need to step up.

We have one of the worst balance sheets in the world now, exceeded only by a few 3rd world countries and Japan. We are on target to spend almost $1.4 trillion in interest on the debt this year, which far exceeds our defense budget, first time in history. In 4 years, we are projected to spend more on interest than on Medicare, Medicaid and SS combined!

Defense - and other items - are going to be cut. It's simple arithmetic.

Teslag said:

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nortex97 said:

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aalan94 said:

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NATO had my back in Afghanistan. Where were you couch commanders?

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I wouldn't have sent you to risk your life to 'fight for democracy' in Afghanistan.

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We went to Afghanistan after they harbored and trained a terrorist group that killed several thousand Americans in one day on our own soil. We were completely justified in invading Afghanistan. Our actions after that first few years can be questioned, but the original invasion can't.

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Killing Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011 didn't retroactively mean the invasion of Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter), or first few years were a justified/correct policy (2001-2004).

nortex97 said:

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Teslag said:

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nortex97 said:

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aalan94 said:

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NATO had my back in Afghanistan. Where were you couch commanders?

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I wouldn't have sent you to risk your life to 'fight for democracy' in Afghanistan.

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We went to Afghanistan after they harbored and trained a terrorist group that killed several thousand Americans in one day on our own soil. We were completely justified in invading Afghanistan. Our actions after that first few years can be questioned, but the original invasion can't.

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Killing Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011 didn't retroactively mean the invasion of Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter), or first few years were a justified/correct policy (2001-2004).

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Our failure to locate Bin Laden doesn't mean the original invasion was not justified either. If someone kills 3,000 of our citizens in one day, you invade and kill them. Full stop. Our only issue was trying to nation build after doing that. If only Bush had claimed Afghanistan was full of biolabs and nazis then you'd be fully on board with it.

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Carry the water? We clearly spend a lot more.

I want NATO countries to honor their commitments, and it seems they are on their way finally.

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They've been 'on their way' forever.

Fool me once...

But until they actually do, this is a legit discussion. Should we leave?...I think that's a bit ridiculous. But discussing how much water we should be carrying, in comparison to them?...needed to be discussed a long time ago. Because it's never not been reliant upon us.

Logos Stick said:

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Eliminatus said:

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Wait....do yall believe that we pay into some pool of money labeled "NATO" or something and it is then distributed out? We are going to spend what we spend on defense regardless if we are in NATO or not. We are going to base were we are going to base regardless as well. I of course agree everyone should spend what they agreed to and most are slowly getting there now, now that Uke/Russia has smacked them in the face.

We should not leave NATO, though maybe some restructuring should be examined. UN needs a HARD look at. And for those who ask what has NATO done for us, remember Article 5 has been invoked exactly once in history. After 9/11. I personally knew a British Marine Commando who is in the ground know because we got attacked and Bush et al decided to go play in the ME for it.

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Disagree. We are the world's police and our defense budget reflects that. Other countries free ride and spend their money on social services instead. They need to step up.

We have one of the worst balance sheets in the world now, exceeded by mostly 3rd world countries and Japan. We are on target to spend almost $1.4 trillion in interest on the debt this year, which far exceeds our defense budget, first time in history. In 4 years, we are projected to spend more on interest than on Medicare, Medicaid and SS combined!

Defense - and other items - are going to be cut. It's simple arithmetic.

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I never said otherwise. I actually agree. I said we are going to spend what we are going to spend. Our military is pretty top heavy and can and should be restructured. It's a different topic but you are right. Everything is pretty much a moot point unless we get SS and health programs under control.

And other nations are stepping up. Albeit slowly but it does take time to shift and build capacity. Thanks Russia.

I sleep better at night knowing that if the US is attacked by China or Russia, that France, Estonia, and Turkey will be there to defend us.

Exactly. I'm sure Estonia would send both of their soldiers.

Burnsey said:

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I sleep better at night knowing that if the US is attacked by China or Russia, that France, Estonia, and Turkey will be there to defend us.

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Heck, Turkey might side with China or Russia.

Talked to some Estonian troops in Afghanistan. Glad they honored their commitment to us.

GAC06 said:

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Talked to some Estonian troops in Afghanistan. Glad they honored their commitment to us.

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Was about to say, we had some in Iraq too and were awesome. Same for the Poles.

RogerEnright said:

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CrackerJackAg said:

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Realistically, Russia is not a threat to the United States from a physical standpoint

We should absolutely be involved in NATO but other countries need to foot most of the bill.

That is the only answer

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Shouldn't we close 1/2 our bases in Germany / Italy etc.?

I certainly think it would save some money.

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I know we have closed some bases.

I lived in Darmstadt in the early 70s. It's no longer a base.

We've closed down some in England too. We were at Chicksands in the mid 70s and it's also closed.

Yes. NATO was created as a bufffer to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is over.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Staying with NATO is stupid recency bias. We've fought wars against

England twice
France once
Italy once
Germany twice
Spain once


We've also fought for Russia once.
Fought along side Russia once.


The entire NATO premise defend Europe from Russia is a grift to steal money from the respective citizens.

There's no reason why Europe including Russia and united states can't all be Allie's other than special interest groups make a TON of money continuing the "Cold War".

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The silliness of this hit me last night...

For one, NATO is not "stupid recency bias." Recency bias is the overweighting of new information or events. When it comes to politics and reacting to current events, the most recent are the most important. There is no overweighting. This argument might as well be, "Being afraid of bears is stupid recency because dinosaurs used to roam the earth for hundreds of millions of years." Bears are here. Dinosaurs are not. One is current. The other... Not so much.

For two, it's a complete denial of Soviet behavior in the last century. They literally tried to split Europe with the Nazis, and then they locked the Eastern Bloc into puppet police states after making pretty big annexations of many of the areas they "liberated". Yeah, absolutely no reason for NATO because Russia didn't have ANY designs on Europe or anywhere else. Let's ignore their instigation and involvement in Korea and Vietnam, and their attempts at spreading communism throughout the world. If you think that's not a bad thing, tell me you're a commie without telling me you're a commie...

But more than that, it continues with the premise that Russia, Europe, and the US would all be friends but for nameless "special interests," presumably Western and/or American, and Russia really is just a poor whipping boy that never did anything wrong. However, Europe tried normalizing relations with Russia, and that naivety, that Russia could somehow be trusted, was what lured Germany and others in Europe into becoming gas dependent on them in the first place. "Russia is no longer Soviet and can be trusted! We're all friends here, and this isn't the same strategic ploy for resource dependence that communists have been engaging in for 75 years!" Except they invaded Ukraine, and, as it turns out, it was nothing but a ploy to try to keep Europe out of the conflict by threatening their gas supplies.

Aside from that, if Russia was just wanting to make friends with the US and Europe and play nice, why give a **** about Ukraine drifting more politically towards Europe? Europe and the US "meddling" with Russia's meddling in Ukraine is the biggest excuse given by our resident Russian apologists for invading Ukraine, but why should Russia care if they're wanting to play nice? We're all supposed to be friends and allies right? If Ukraine wants to be more independent and more politically and economically aligned with Europe, that should be a good thing for Russia because they want to be too, right? Unless... Russia doesn't want to be friends with Europe. Then it makes total sense that they'd want to keep former Soviet satellites within their sphere and under their thumb, and they wouldn't want any more of them pivoting towards Europe. It makes sense why be they'd last resource traps like natural gas and fund European political parties and politicians that push pro-Russian political agendas.

So, yeah... Russia doesn't want to play nice. They don't want to be friends. The want to be masters and subjugate whatever they can, however they can. If political subversion doesn't work, economic or resource dependence doesn't work, and funding sympathetic separatists doesn't work, then they'll just do it themselves by invading. They'll take whatever they think they can get.

Teslag said:

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nortex97 said:

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Teslag said:

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nortex97 said:

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aalan94 said:

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NATO had my back in Afghanistan. Where were you couch commanders?

---

I wouldn't have sent you to risk your life to 'fight for democracy' in Afghanistan.

---

We went to Afghanistan after they harbored and trained a terrorist group that killed several thousand Americans in one day on our own soil. We were completely justified in invading Afghanistan. Our actions after that first few years can be questioned, but the original invasion can't.

---

Killing Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011 didn't retroactively mean the invasion of Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter), or first few years were a justified/correct policy (2001-2004).

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Our failure to locate Bin Laden doesn't mean the original invasion was not justified either. If someone kills 3,000 of our citizens in one day, you invade and kill them. Full stop. Our only issue was trying to nation build after doing that. If only Bush had claimed Afghanistan was full of biolabs and nazis then you'd be fully on board with it.

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On top of that, bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2001. It was the invasion and subsequent manhunt that forced him into Pakistan. The entire point was to hunt him down and kill him, doing with the rest of al qaeda.

We've broken all of our treaties with Russia. We act like Russia acting in Russia's best interest is some moral failure of Russia that can't be overlooked.

Here's the hard truth. Our media and military and politicians prop Russia up as this giant boogey man to keep the grift churning. It's all fake. It's all lies. It's all designed to steal American wealth.

Look around. Our cities and small towns are becoming dilapidated but we're so concerned with Russia.

We have been robbed and you have Stockholm syndrome. Wake up.


Final point. If defending Europe was sooooo important and this moral obligation of all parities involved. Why are they allowing millions upon millions of third worlders to take over their countries?

We're not protecting Europe by being in NATO, we're protecting our own national strategic interests. We do roughly a trillion dollars of combined trade with the EU every year and that trade also generates approximately 2.6 million US jobs.

The US military stationed in Europe not only provide a crucial tripwire helping to deter Russian aggression against our vital European markets, but they also are an invaluable forward-based logistics structure and quick response force for protecting similar national interests in 92 countries across Europe, Africa and the ME. Only a miniscule fraction of US military spending is for NATO alone, the vast preponderance of funding is for general purpose forces used to protect all of our varied interests around the globe.

Failure to deter another major war in Europe could cost us tens of thousands of lives and many trillions of dollars in war costs and lost trade and, if the conflict went nuclear, might be the death of the US as we know it. So having the US lead NATO, stationing units in Europe to train on a daily basis with our allies and remaining fully integrated into the NATO command structure is far, far cheaper than the cost of another war.

Participation in NATO is straightforward risk management. We are simply protecting our trillion-dollar market in Europe the same way a prudent businessman invests in a $5K fire alarm to protect a million-dollar structure. It's worth every penny.

Europe is also the motherland of most of our ancestry. No matter how screwed up Europe is politically, you cannot ignore that we still, with a few exceptions, have far more in common culturally with Europe than any other region in the world. If Europe was to be weakened by Russian aggression or simply become alienated from the US, the world would become a far more dangerous place for us. We are much stronger with Europe by our side than without them.

That said, it is reassuring that efforts to encourage our NATO allies to adequately fund their own militaries at 2% of GDP have paid off in recent years with 23 of 32 members now in compliance--only six allies were at that mark as recently as 2021. We, and they, are safer when we all contribute to the deterrent credibility of the North Atlantic Treaty's military arm.

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We've broken all of our treaties with Russia. We act like Russia acting in Russia's best interest is some moral failure of Russia that can't be overlooked.

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Which treaties have we broken with Russia? Have they broken any with us?

Yukon Cornelius said:

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We've broken all of our treaties with Russia. We act like Russia acting in Russia's best interest is some moral failure of Russia that can't be overlooked.

Here's the hard truth. Our media and military and politicians prop Russia up as this giant boogey man to keep the grift churning. It's all fake. It's all lies. It's all designed to steal American wealth.

Look around. Our cities and small towns are becoming dilapidated but we're so concerned with Russia.

We have been robbed and you have Stockholm syndrome. Wake up.


Final point. If defending Europe was sooooo important and this moral obligation of all parities involved. Why are they allowing millions upon millions of third worlders to take over their countries?

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Name all the treaties we've entered into with Russia and how we've broken them all.

Russia "looking out for Russia's interests" is a moral failing when they look out for their interests by murdering and trying to export their own brand of commie influenced authoritarianism.

We can do more than one thing at a time. It's called multitasking. You should try it someday.

You're the equivalent of a guy who's so worried about his lawn that he ignores the politics of his city and doesn't care that crime is on the rise. JFC, the grass is thin and needs fertilizer! How can we possibly be concerned with the spate of muggings and and robberies in the neighborhood over?

For the last 108 years, 4 generations of my family have deployed to Europe to save the Europeans from themselves. 108 years is long enough to waste American blood and treasure for a people that won't defend themselves. Get out of NATO...

Terrible analogy lol. I'm concerned with our country. It's descending into poverty. People can't afford to maintain basic buildings. Small towns have evaporated and what remains is run down shadows of times past. Cities are crime ridden toxic waste lands full of piss and crap.

America is dying and you're wanting to spend more of our money defending nations who are giving their sovereignty up to third worlders.

Hard pass.

74OA said:

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The US military stationed in Europe not only provide a crucial tripwire helping to deter Russian aggression against our vital European markets,

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Perhaps they can increase their defense budgets and station their own troops there. Those markets are vital to Europe too.

japantiger said:

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For the last 108 years, 4 generations of my family have deployed to Europe to save the Europeans from themselves. 108 years is long enough to waste American blood and treasure for a people that won't defend themselves. Get out of NATO...

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Oh stop with the semantics. There were the two World Wars, both of which we entered years after they started and the Allies had already lost hundreds of thousands of men defending. Millions in the case of WW1. Don't belittle the sacrifices your family made. They helped stop actual evil in this world and made the US the strongest nation in history. And in return, they answered when we called on them. Granted it was a dumb war, but they still came.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Terrible analogy lol. I'm concerned with our country. It's descending into poverty. People can't afford to maintain basic buildings. Small towns have evaporated and what remains is run down shadows of times past. Cities are crime ridden toxic waste lands full of piss and crap.

America is dying and you're wanting to spend more of our money defending nations who are giving their sovereignty up to third worlders.

Hard pass.

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Where is your example of our broken treaties with Russia? Have they broken any with us?

Logos Stick said:

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74OA said:

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The US military stationed in Europe not only provide a crucial tripwire helping to deter Russian aggression against our vital European markets,

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Perhaps they can increase their defense budgets and station their own troops there. Those markets are vital to Europe too.

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Romania and Poland have both built massive new bases to host a US presence, and both have substantially increased their military spending (in the case of Poland they exceed our spending per their GDP than we do).

Teslag said:

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Logos Stick said:

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74OA said:

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The US military stationed in Europe not only provide a crucial tripwire helping to deter Russian aggression against our vital European markets,

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Perhaps they can increase their defense budgets and station their own troops there. Those markets are vital to Europe too.

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Romania and Poland have both built massive new bases to host a US presence, and both have substantially increased their military spending (in the case of Poland they exceed our spending per their GDP than we do).

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IIRC, after Trump met with the NATO countries in his first term they all increased their spending, which a pretty much all he wanted from them, to put their share of skin in the game.

No Spin Ag said:

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Teslag said:

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Logos Stick said:

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74OA said:

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The US military stationed in Europe not only provide a crucial tripwire helping to deter Russian aggression against our vital European markets,

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Perhaps they can increase their defense budgets and station their own troops there. Those markets are vital to Europe too.

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Romania and Poland have both built massive new bases to host a US presence, and both have substantially increased their military spending (in the case of Poland they exceed our spending per their GDP than we do).

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IIRC, after Trump met with the NATO countries in his first term they all increased their spending, which a pretty much all he wanted from them, to put their share of skin in the game.

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It was the start of Putin's war in 2022 that galvanized European defense spending. In 2021 only 6 allies were at the 2% level, by this year the number in compliance had jumped to 23 of 32 NATO members.