U.S. Defense Department Robert Gates Questions NATO's Future

reply to post by stumason

So if the UN doesn't work, some of the blame must lay at the USA's feet.

There should be no shame in saying, "it served it purpose", or "we tried and it didn't turn out so well". What the heck is going on with this world wide pride issue? Just say "it didn't work". Then we could try somethig else. Or put the money somewhere else. We need new politics for a new time. The same old game is not doing the trick anymore.

My own little opinion there.

reply to post by Paulioetc15


Well there's no USSR or Warsaw Pact anymore, NATO seems to be just an extension of the oil companies security departments so I'd be very glad to see all the US bases in Europe closed down and I'm sure most US cits agree, there really is no need for NATO now.

The savings from closing all the Euro bases will probably pay off the US deficit in no time.

I don't even see why we need a "NATO" anymore. Isn't that what one of the things the whole E.U. concept was supposed to solve? It's the "North Atlantic" Treaty Organization right? So, that means most of the charter members are European countries. Well, now that the E.U. has taken hold, seems like they Europeans countries have learned how to play nice with each other and get on with a more productive European governance model. Good for the Europeans! Now, since that is all taken care of, why even keep NATO in existence? The US should just say,"Hey, looks like you folks have gotten this ironed out, so we'll just bow out quietly, and it's been great working with you!. The ultimate goal here is to let the US take care of it's own security concerns at home with the growing threats from South and Central America. I'm pretty sure that Great Britian and France have they're own nuclear strike forces, and they do have sufficient military capabilities (if not quantities), so they really don't need or as has been my experience, want support (read: interference) from the US military anyway, so why is the US still hanging around in NATO? It would sure save the US military a huge amount of money because we wouldn't have to worry about the inter-operabliity issue anymore. We could close all our European bases and bring our trooops home, or even better, just turn the facilities we have built over to the European militaries! With the money we save on that plus the fact that we'd be building our militray to suit US needs and joint-forces inter-operability requirements, we'd get more bang for our defense dollar and could afford to grow our military into a force that is tailored to protecting the United States first and foremost! I'm quite sure that the Europeans would be greatful to have all those pesky and offensive US assets out of they're countries and out of they're hair! The whole issue of building a ballistic missile defence system in Europe could be put to rest. It would be win-win for everyone involved! and they could even keep calling it NATO if they want to maybe something like EURO-COM or EURO-FOR and erase the US military legacy from Europe once and for all. I think the vast majority of Europeans would applaude that approach. If our political leadership at all levels weren't so completely brain dead, this obvious conclusion would already have been reached and acted upon. Oh well, one can only dream!

if they want to defense themselves ????? lol No one attacked us we attacked another sovereign nation which we should not of done, defence is what it means defence not atack another country because we don't like a leader or want oil .

I heard on the news last night that the NATO forces are running out of bombs and missiles. Thats not very good, Im sure Cameron will find a few million down the side of the sofa to pay for a few more tomahawks and laser guided bombs.

NATO planes flying combat missions over Libya are starting to run out of bombs, officials said Friday.

Read more: www.upi.com...

reply to post by woodwardjnr


One would think that if they are going to be doing these kinds of strike missions that they would at least be responsible and use all the old and worn out munitions (Dumb Bombs) first before they start using the High Tech weapons that should be reserved for ones own countries national defense! I'm pretty sure that the majority of aircraft being used on these strikes can deliver good enough accuracy with plain old iron bombs or else we need to start building better strike aircraft!

We've probably got some old World war 2 bombs somewhere, maybe we can dust of an old Lancaster bomber to deliver them.

Originally posted by digby888
if the us would stop invading country's and starting wars willy nilly

and tried to get on with people instead of blowing them up

the us would not have to spend so much on arms and defense

and also this just sound like a sales pitch from the biggest arms dealer

in the word

Gates is saying that other countries should build up their own defense rather than leeching off our defense budget. I don't know why our military bases are there. The US should not be paying for it and European leaders should pay for our bases if they want to keep it there. This may going to be a rant and express my frustration here but that is what i'm talking about about your post. That's we US should pull out and let the world do what the want. Please remind us exactly how much debt the U.S. forgave for your absurd WW2? How much debt did we forgive in the rebuilding of Europe under the Marshall Plan? We should immediately recall that forgiveness and demand payment today with interest. Ever since, we get bashed nonstop for years because of our foreign policy yet when other countries is in trouble, who asked us to do it? You know the answer.

If Europe stop relying in our defense and spend on their own military budget, then we won't happen to invade countries and happy to invest in our country instead. To last time i checked in the Vietnam war, ARVN invited the US government to step in because they know the US have plenty of resources when other countries cannot do. Same with Gulf War and Korea - They asked us to foot the bill on most of the military defenses when other countries at that time don't have enough resources to do so.

For me, i have no health care insurance and i'm was almost barely to this point of dying. And Europe had good health care because they have been leeching off our defense budget and not spend on their military on much so we taxpayers had to pay for defense instead. Instead they don't want listen to our problems, engaged in their twisted views, and slag us off rather than listening and engaging in a mature discussion. I starting to think that Europeans are somewhat worse or should i say a bit hypocritical than a typical arrogant american i seen so far. But too bad our government was force to listen to them anyways.

I know this is a rant but my points still stands. We need to work out instead of having to engaging in a nation vs nation.

woodwardjnr wrote: I heard on the news last night that NATO forces are running out of bombs and missiles. Thats not very good, Im sure Cameron will find a few million down the side of the sofa to pay for a few more tomahawks and laser guided bombs. NATO planes flying combat missions over Libya are starting to run out of bombs, officials said Friday.

The link you posted was pretty much from April 2011. I heard somewhat that NATO is running out of bombs so they chose to dispatch helicopters instead. Sound like the air-power alone in Libya is not going to help out. Only NATO ground troops are necessary to fight. It's a mistake being there in the 1st place.

He is correct and there is a couple of different strands to it.

1. Lack of will : Many of the continental European nations lack the national will to commit properly to combat operations. They have been accommodated with face saving 'safe' contributions, this needs to end. Fight when needed or leave the alliance. The only point of an alliance is that when the alliance fights everybody fights.

2. Lack of spending: Many of the EU Nations fail to meet their minimum spending commitments. Again, they should get a warning and then an expulsion.

3. Despite point 2 Europe is large. If you total up all the EU defence spending its still huge and should allow near parity with the USA. Unfortunately defence spending is highly politicized in all the nations leading to most of the money being wasted on duplication of capabilities. Thats the biggest problem. The USA spends its money on a fighter and gets F-22 the europeans spend thier smaller collective pot on multiple different fighters for largely political/industrial reasons. Neither ends up as good as F22. This repeats across every type of capability. To improve things there needs to be real NATO procurement co-ordination and politics in both the US/Europe make that unlikely.

To be honest it would be more cost effective for the USA to create a smaller alliance with the reliable allies and ply them with heavily subsidized US weapons like the Israelis. Close all bases in the lame duck members and let them look after themselves.

Sorry to burst some anti-European bubbles here, but at the height of the Cold War 95% of the divisions, 85% of the tanks, 80% of the combat aircraft, and 70% of the fighting ships were provided, manned and paid for by the European Allies.

Even today, the offensive capability of the European allies is quite awesome & I can't think of any other "superpower" capable of mounting a successful assault on continental Europe.

What Europe lacks is the political will to use that capability outside it's territorial borders. That's because a majority of it's citizens see NATO as a defensive alliance, it's treaty obligations only to be invoked when a NATO member is under direct attack. And the only time those obligations were invoked was on September 11th 2001 when it was the United States itself which was attacked.

So spare us the claptrap about Europe not pulling it's weight.

Originally posted by tooo many pills
I knew it was going to come to this. We are going to start charging other countries for protecting them from terrorists.

Like the C******* and the B**** P**** do to pubs, clubs and shops in my town, man this could be sweet the US could control the coke, E and speed trade in all of old Europe town, they'll have to fight the Muslim gangs to get the smack market though, oh they already are.

reply to post by Niall197


Totally true, we have a long and proven history as the best and most effective armies in the world and in terms of defending Europe we are unassailable.

reply to post by Niall197


We are not anti-European. It's not the European military we are talking about, it's the EU leaders we are bashing. We Americans for years are complaining that European leaders always takes the step back and criticized us for not doing something about it(AKA: Serbia, Yugoslavia). They brainwash their crowd into believing we are evil, then blame us and starting abusing us 100% for every conflict we first step when in fact they cannot handle their own. When we step into another conflict all the sudden we are the bad guy. And yes i agree the most European military are capable of defending themselves as well but unfortunately EU leaders get stingy and rather used our defense budget to spend on their own welfare to save it's people then blame us whether we don't step in or not. That also apply to Canada as well. They also have the same benefits as well. Canadian military is able defend themselves but their politicians are also stingy so they used on defense budget also. this resulted of us having to borrow money from China to pay for our defense, etc and so on.

Hopefully the US would bring all troops home in order for keep eyes check on China. China is rising and i don't think anyone would happy to see that.

reply to post by Paulioetc15


So if Europe's capable of defending itself, as is Canada ... with money left over to pay for social programmes ... quite what is the problem ? I see that as European leaders making carefully crafted decisions on their own expenditure.

I can't see any virtue in spending more on your own defence than you absolutely have to.

As to the future of NATO, if the US wishes to leave then so be it. Far be it for me to point out that with China becoming more assertive in the Pacific region, it's actually the USA which needs Europe more than they need you.

Originally posted by Niall197
reply to post by Paulioetc15

 

So if Europe's capable of defending itself, as is Canada ... with money left over to pay for social programmes ... quite what is the problem ? I see that as European leaders making carefully crafted decisions on their own expenditure.

I can't see any virtue in spending more on your own defence than you absolutely have to. Yet who's country is going to bail them out?

As to the future of NATO, if the US wishes to leave then so be it. Far be it for me to point out that with China becoming more assertive in the Pacific region, it's actually the USA which needs Europe more than they need you.

Ya i get the point pal. In fact, that the US spends on military spending maintaining the bases in Europe are the source of that so they could enjoy their own welfare. Maybe the EU should tell us to where to stick it, we gadlyt leave and let EU do what they want.

I agree with you that the Cold War is over and we should grant Europe the wish anymore to stop our bases and we should pull out to fix our country. In the Cold war, Europe needs the US to defend from the Soviets and are still defending them because most EU leaders asked us. Too bad our government never listens. I never liked NATO anyway because we get involved and look at us, we are badly broken.

"it's actually the USA which needs Europe more than they need you".

Then let's give NATO and UN to Europe instead. I'm rather not be in NATO anyways. Why are we paying for it? NATO does it defense now it's getting a bit abusive lately. Since we are always getting involved, then European then points and blame us. What about when Bill Clinton was criticized for not doing something about Serbia? That's the problem pal. IF America need Europe then as a favor, let Europe pay for our bases so we could also enjoy our own welfare that Europe is now enjoying now.

Rather we should form a new alliances with North America and let the world do what they wants. Better place for America anyway.

reply to post by Niall197


I have to agree with you that Europe can take care of itself, the E.U. model seems to be working out well. I think the US should depart from NATO since it really has nothing more to contribute to the long term military outlook for Europe and has no more responsibilities in that respect. The withdrawl of forces, closing of bases, and suspendingthe need for maintaining interoperability would save the US a lot of money that could be better used in building the armed forces the US needs to secure it's own national security and interests. China's presents a problem in the respect that they have strategic nuclear strike capability, and that's about it. Militarily speaking. The US needs to start focusing on what is good for the US militarily speaking, and that means spending our defense money on building an armed forces that is capable of defending the US against any and all conventional threats. Thats about it in a nutshell. You are right though. Europe doesn't need the US, and the US doesn't need Europe. Thats a good thing.

reply to post by CosmosKid


If course, That's why the US need to look out for themselves instead we got the UN and NATO telling us to stop the conflict instead and EU leaders are stingy so they are dependent on our defenses - it's one of the reason why US has a military bases there under our taxpayer's expense.

I agree the UN and NATO should be shipped off to somewhere. The US needs the US. As George Washington said that getting involved in world affair is not good. The US needs the US and Europe needs Europe.

reply to post by Paulioetc15


Serbia ? You mean Kosovo ? NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, right ?

I think Bill Clinton used that campaign to distract opponents from the embarrassment of Monica Lewinsky. The NATO airstrikes took top billing on US news channels at the time, displacing Monica to second or third place. Most Republicans were against that campaign, including George W. Bush (oh, the irony).

That being said, the US Air Force took lead role in the air war, with 3 European aircraft carriers & task forces taking lead in Adriatic naval operations. European servicemen made up the majority of forces deployed in the far more dangerous peacekeeping operations on the ground, from mid Summer 1999 onwards.

To suggest that the Europeans did little, sitting back while the Americans did everything, is just factually incorrect.

As to withdrawing US bases from Europe, most people in Europe wouldn't object. So that's something on which we could probably agree. What plans do you have for all these servicemen once they are repatriated to the USA ? I'm just curious what your own defence requirements would be if the USA opted out of it's self appointed global policeman role.

Originally posted by Niall197
reply to post by Paulioetc15

 

Serbia ? You mean Kosovo ? NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, right ?

I think Bill Clinton used that campaign to distract opponents from the embarrassment of Monica Lewinsky. The NATO airstrikes took top billing on US news channels at the time, displacing Monica to second or third place. Most Republicans were against that campaign, including George W. Bush (oh, the irony).

That being said, the US Air Force took lead role in the air war, with 3 European aircraft carriers & task forces taking lead in Adriatic naval operations. European servicemen made up the majority of forces deployed in the far more dangerous peacekeeping operations on the ground, from mid Summer 1999 onwards.

To suggest that the Europeans did little, sitting back while the Americans did everything, is just factually incorrect.

As to withdrawing US bases from Europe, most people in Europe wouldn't object. So that's something on which we could probably agree. What plans do you have for all these servicemen once they are repatriated to the USA ? I'm just curious what your own defence requirements would be if the USA opted out of it's self appointed global policeman role.

Simple: We rather use our soldiers as national defense to look out for our country and keep eyes on watch to other countries who were threatening us and go back to it's isolationism where we supposed to be. End war on drugs, We all agree that we should pull out military bases but the leaders of both sides are are so stuck up.

I think no matter what we do, we still get hated. That's why our troops should be home now. We had done enough. We should get back to the days of George Washington Isolationist policy

Originally posted by Paulioetc15

Simple: We rather use our soldiers as national defense to look out for our country and keep eyes on watch to other countries who were threatening us and go back to it's isolationism where we supposed to be. End war on drugs, We all agree that we should pull out military bases but the leaders of both sides are are so stuck up.

I think no matter what we do, we still get hated. That's why our troops should be home now. We had done enough. We should get back to the days of George Washington Isolationist policy

Isolationism is all very laudable, but the trade off would be a reduction in the size of the US armed forces, wouldn't it ? What need would an isolationist US have for a blue water navy, Abrams battle tanks or B52 bombers ?