No. of Recommendations: 2
Pretty easily. Russia is a threat to the EU and NATO. It is not an imminent threat, in the sense that Russia is not presently attacking the EU or NATO. And it is a threat that is more or less countered by the massive combined military forces defending, of which a large portion consist of American air and naval forces.Not an imminent threat? Then what's the concern with the Ukraine, then?
And wouldn't it seem prudent to ramp up armament production when you know what the consumption rate of tanks, guns, bullets and shells is over there?
So there's no need for Germany to, say, seize control of VW's factories under wartime authority and convert them from making Golfs to making armored vehicles. Russia's not attacking yet, nor is America leaving. So moving with all deliberate speed consistent with a peacetime industrial economy is just fine. And that's what they're doing.Good thing no one has suggested the Germans nationalize VW or Audi. All that's being suggested is that they recover some of the production capacity they seem to have let fall by the wayside in the last 20 years.
We're not asking the Europeans to go back to 2004 - we're asking them to go to 5% of GDP, which is vastly higher than 2004. It hasn't been that high for more than five decades - the height of the Cold War in the 1960's.And they've...agreed. Everyone but Spain, that is.
No one's saying it's "unreasonable." It just might not be a smart policy.Hold up. So continuing to fund the guy that's blowing up stuff is smart policy? Don't they want the war to end?
Having the Europeans "commit to their own defense" will certainly free up resources for the U.S....but it will also make Europe less stable and increase the risk of intra-European conflicts, and reduce our ability to project power in not only Europe but in the Middle East as well. Is that a good trade-off? It may or may not be - but it is a trade-off, not an unalloyed win.This is a devil-in-the-details comment obviously depending on the *degree* of how much Europe arms itself. Again, it's not unreasonable to ask them to have some level of deployable forces such that it doesn't take 5 years to stick a brigade in another NATO country (which is where they find themselves today).
You noted that the U.S. GDP has grown much faster than that of Europe, which allows us to be stronger and have more a military presence than they probably can afford. But note that during that time, the U.S. was the one running a trade deficit, and the EU running a trade surplus. Yet our economy has grown vastly faster than theirs.Ooooo. You're conflating a bunch of things.
Us not being able to export goods to them (like cars) is a speed brake on US economic growth. Their regulatory structure is a speed brake on theirs. There's a reason why this list:
https://www.forbes.com/lists/global2000/...doesn't feature a European country until you hit #15. Europe only sports...1...company in the top 20. (The US has 12)
And only 10 of the top 50.
Trade with the EU consists of them giving us tons of actual useful physical things, and we give them financial products that increase in value much more slowly than our economy. It's not "unreasonable" for us to ask that to stop - but it probably isn't very smart to do so.Except that...we can do both.
