Thursday, June 14, 2018

NATO

This is a copy of an email I sent to a friend who is a graduate of the US Naval Academy, a retired F-18 pilot who spent the last two years of his career working with NATO.

My email will be last. His, the significant part, is first.


Subject: Re: NATO
Date: 2018-06-13 09:06
From: Monty
To: Bob Peterson <rpeterson@nbbcompany.com>

Bob,

The only real metric the NATO nations have agreed to is to spend a
minimum of 2% of their GDP on defense with 20% of that spent on
equipment. As of Mid 2017, 6 of the 29 NATO member nations meet or
exceed the 2% threshold. They are US, Greece, the UK, Estonia, Poland
and just recently Romania. Greece probably only makes it because they
essentially have no GDP.  All the other NATO nations have been under the
2% number for .... well, pretty much as far back as I know. As of 2016,
the U.S. Spends 3.3% of our GDP on defense (which is down from 8.4% in
1960) but since our GDP is so much bigger than other countries, we carry
the lions share of the effort.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS

 I can understand how those nations would say there's been no real
threat. But now that the Russians are scary again, the chickens are
coming home to roost. The effect of those nations spending below the 2%
target is also a cumulative one. There are many necessary supporting
capabilities that only the U.S. can provide in any significant numbers.
Some examples include Aerial refueling, airborne electronic attack,
heavy sea lift, heavy air lift. There's also a capacity gap outside the
U.S. because the other nations simply haven't purchased enough "stuff."
The result of this is that if 28 of the 29 NATO nations decided they
wanted to get together and do an offensive (or in many cases defensive)
operation without the U.S., they would be unable to except in certain
rare circumstances because they need capabilities only the U.S. has
because they have been unwilling to pay for those capabilities
themselves. The longer the gap in spending exists, the larger the
deficits in capabilities and capacity become.

Now, to be fair, 100% of U.S. defense spending counts toward the 3.3% of
GDP and we don't use all of our capabilities in Europe. We have a large
puddle to our West to contend with, too. That being said, our
capabilities are, for the most part, mobile and can be moved to Europe
for use if necessary.

Trump does have a tendency to play fast and loose with facts. However,
the only real difference from previous presidents vis-a-vis NATO is that
he's been much more willing to take the other nations to task for under
spending on their own defense. That has allowed them some leeway in
creating their socialist paradises because they've been able to redirect
defense spending toward social programs. They would certainly either
have to spend less on something, have even higher taxes, or borrow more
money to pay for defense spending if they had to defend themselves
without the shield of U.S. military strength. That statement is up for
some debate (but not really), but Trump has been much stronger about
saying it.

Yes, I was just Monty for most of my career. I had a short stint as Data
but it didn't really stick.

 Hope this helps. 

James

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 12:08 PM <rpeterson@nbbcompany.com> wrote:

 Hey, Monty,


 BTW, was that your call sign? Seems too clean and obvious…but…

 Not my real question. As you know, I work the elections and yesterday
 was very slow. Fewer than 10% of the registered voters in this
 precinct voted. Seems a shame.

 While shooting the bull with another guy, I mentioned that I thought
 some of the richer nations should do more to fund NATO and that maybe
 the days of the US shouldering the burden of funding the defense of
 the free world should be re-examined.

 He was pretty huffy, started off by talking about what a liar and
 cheat and blah blah Trump was, and then said that all the countries of
 NATO were currently spending their fair share. I didn’t take it any
 further since I didn’t have facts.

 Looked up Fact Check. Well, they acknowledged that the US contributed
 22% of the budget for NATO and the other 28 countries contributed
 according to a formula based on their GNP. All good. They went on to
 say that the US VOLUNTARILY spent another bunch of money on operations
 and “indirect spending” for military purposes. The figure
 mentioned was 72% and I think that was for all indirect spending.

 They did not say whether that 72% included the 22% spent on Direct
 costs? I suspect it doesn’t. As Disraeli said, “There are lies,
 damned lies, and statistics.” So I am suspicious.

 What is your thinking on this as the only person I know who has
 first-hand knowledge of NATO??

 Don’t feel obligated to “educate” me, but if you have a few
moments, would appreciate a bit of wisdom!

Bob

Certainty is one of the great privileges of youth. ~ Sheryl Sandberg
to MIT graduating class 2018

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