— Musings —03.28.2017 11:53 AM
— Musings —03.28.2017 11:53 AM
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Strange I think it’s time we work towards ending poverty in this country instead, you’d rather spend money helping Trump’s military campaigns, I guess we have different priorities.
I think this is a golden opportunity for the NDP if Trudeau does what Trump wants.
Sorry, that’s not how NATO works. The alliance is not a club with a membership fee.
NATO was founded and operates on the principle of collective defence. Put simply, and as you’ve no doubt heard before, an attack against one or more members constitutes an attack on the whole. So far, NATO has only been attacked once – in response to 9/11.
To ensure this works, NATO sets an official target on what members of the alliance should spend. In 2014, NATO members agreed to spend two per cent of their GDP on defence. Problem (at least for Trump and others) is that few of them actually do. That’s because it’s a target. There’s no penalty for not meeting it, and that target doesn’t account for foreign aid, peacekeeping missions outside of NATO, immigration and other soft-power efforts.
That two per cent figure is just a target for the amount that countries should spend on their own defence. The US spends 3.61 per cent of GDP on defence. Germany spends 1.2 per cent, which is why Trump was griping, wrongly, that Germany owed money to the US and NATO.
Apples:Apples comparison is required too. A lot of European countries get away with counting as “defence” spending the kinds of things that in Canada are called “police”, and fall under provincial or municipal budgets.
Sorry … correct kind of.
We don’t have to match America’s addiction to military spending.
I’m proud of how little we spend on wasteful war machinery.
Let’s make an effort to get them to scale back and stop trying to destroy the world.
2% of GDP is 2% of $2T is $40B. (2015)
Tax revenue in 2015 was $282B.
I have a serious problem with us spending $1 out of every $7 colleceted paying to keep Trump happy.
I think your enthusiasm with siding with Trump is a little premature. I think Trump is pushing the 2% narrative because it is unrealistic everywhere – $1 out of every $7 in Canada – and it’s purpose is to reveal that NATO is too expensive and that a treaty with Russia would better serve everyone.
But who am I?
collected
its