You gotta pay
Ya gotta pay your bills (unless you’re Trump of course):
Donald Trump has said he would “encourage” Russia to attack any Nato member that fails to pay its bills as part of the Western military alliance.
At a rally on Saturday, he said he had once told a leader he would not protect a nation behind on its payments, and would “encourage” the aggressors to “do whatever the hell they want”.
This is money we’re talking about. Money is all that matters. Not alliances, not resistance, not peace; just money.
Addressing crowds during the rally in South Carolina, Mr Trump said he had made his comments about Russia during a meeting of leaders of Nato countries. He recalled that the leader of a “big country” had presented a hypothetical situation in which he was not meeting his financial obligations within Nato and had come under attack from Moscow.
Mr Trump said the leader had asked if the US would come to his country’s aid in that scenario, which prompted him to issue a rebuke. “I said: ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’… ‘No I would not protect you, in fact I would encourage them to do whatever they want. You gotta pay.'”
It’s the landlord school of strategy. You gotta pay or you gotta get out…unless you’re Trump, in which case you can refuse to pay your workers and contractors.
Do pay, but don’t expect any protection from Volodya even if you do.
It’s a naked play to destroy NATO, isn’t it? It’s based on a treaty, not a dues-paying club charter.
If the United States doesn’t honor its obligations to the Treaty, as with so many other treaties we’ve dictated, and then signed (most of them by the Great White Father.) then our international respect will tank and people who hate America will have more justification. Heather Cox RIchardson, in today’s Substack article, has analyzed the situation:
I don’t know what dues he’s taking about. Members spend money on their own defense and agree to join forces if one of their members is attacked.
He may mean that many nations, such as Iceland, do not devote 2% of their GDP to their Defense.
https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-trump/index.html
Trust Trump to turn NATO into a mob protection racket.
Oh and also trust Trump to misunderstand the monetary matters at play here. No one is paying or not paying, rather, several (many?) NATO members are spending less than the mandated 2% GDP on their militaries.
The Second World War is over, people.
The Cold War is also over.
It is time this archaic treaty, along with all the other Post WW2 treaties, were put in a Museum. They are past their use by date. The sole beneficiaries of these treaties are the arms makers. It was a surfeit of interlocking treaties among European nations that made WW1 inevitable, whether the Archduke lived or died. It was the lack of such treaties that kept the USA out of WW1 until almost the end until they had the UK’s “Gulf of Tonkin Incident”.
The USA has over 800 military bases around the world. It is not a friend to most nations, but a bully that demands its way on threat of military action.
And, in case anyone gets the wrong idea, Trump is an A Grade threat to world peace, and in that, he is no different to all your Presidents since WW2, possibly except Carter.
If it helps maintain peace, I’m alright with it.