Jarnhamar said:
Ok, lets see where this goes.
Irony and hypocrisy of US politics.
You have a cartoon condemning American indifference to the deaths of foreign children, from a guy who wants to go kill japs.
Again, just because he was wrong about wanting to kill Japs, does that also make him wrong to condemn American indifference to foreign children?
Just like Americans accusing Trump of pushing the US towards war with Korea with his tough language then turning around and criticizing him for attempting to deescalate the situation and meeting the North Korea leader.
Not me, leave me out of this.
Just like people bitching and complaining that the US acts like the world police and has their hands in everyone's pot and now bitching about the US calling out NATO for funding and threatening to pull back American forces/out of NATO or whatever.
When did I complain about america acting like the worlds police?
That poster is an amazing example of American "but what about the children!" politics and how there is always more to the story IMO.
, of course, it's a political cartoon from the 1940s, not a in depth political opinion piece. It was simply bringing to light that America first has reared its head repeatedly over history
Trump is talking about giving a lot of Americans what they've been asking for for years about spending and NATO but those people are so hard wired to oppose and hate anything Trump does or says that they don't know which way they're going.
Incorrect. I think that while a lot of people want the freeloaders to invest in the defense forces, they want to maintain the health of the alliance as a whole. At this point we are talking about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
As for NATO vs Russia it was already pointed out you can't just cut and paste troop numbers from Wikipedia and who ever has more wins. Lots of countries have paper armies (as pointed out). Wiki says Canada has 100 tanks and 79'000 active troops- I wouldn't exactly count on those numbers in a fight. I'm not sure how much experience you have working with fellow NATO countries but some of them are just ridiculous.
Some are, some aren't. Regardless, my doubts lie more on the Russians ability to sustain any campaign in a war versus Europe, that country has so many issues, demographically, economically, and socially.
Russia seems very serious about modernizing their military,
And they have just implemented huge budget cuts, 20 percent this year(YEAR!). How serious is that? Why is nobody talking about that. People seem to believe what they are preconditioned to believe about Russia, and people can have as many opinions as they want, but it is my opinion that while Russia has taken great strides, it is not the fearsome force that many believe it to be. Beyond saber rattling and playing games with Ukraine, I don't see them doing much more than that, US in NATO or not. But again, just my opinion.
I think a lot of NATO countries think the US will always be there to save them. Trump wants better returns for the US.
And there are better, more diplomatic ways to do so. Publicly blasting the alliance and raising doubts about US commitment to it will simply lead to others looking elsewhere for their collective security. Trump, I believe, started this off perfectly, raising just enough doubt to kick European nations and Canada into gear and defense spending was rising accordingly. But what does trump expect? Everyone to hit 2 percent overnight? At this point, it's becoming counterproductive. Now leaders are going to need to sell raising defense spending in a way that doesn't look like they are bending over for Trump. Or, as alluded to before, simply starting to look beyond NATO. When Europe gets their EII organization up and running and it can provide security for Europe without NATO and the USA, what has the USA gained? EII will be a priority for Europe, not NATO, meaning NATO and the USA by extension lose influence, and allies.
Aren't you embarrassed about the state of our own military? Can you imagine facing off against Russian armor with an 84mm Carl Gutsav and no air defense?
Sure, but do I expect Canada to find 20-25 billion dollars overnight to spend on defense? As it stands, we were at 1.01 not too long ago, and will be at 1.2 before too long, I call that improvement. Or I guess we could just give then entire army very generous pensions and merge the RCMP into it and make it to 2 percent with not a lick more capabilities, a la France or Greece.
