All things Russia and Ukraine...

Golden showers fill his eyes....

Apologies to the Beatles.

 

In actuality the previous President was responsible for approving the first "lethal" aid to Ukraine in 2017 after they had been denied such aid by the Obama/Biden administration. Additional aid was provided or approved in 2018,19 and 20. The Javelins and Stingers that made headlines blunting the Russian offensive during the early days of the campaign, were sent during the previous administration. More importantly, the Ukrainian military had received ongoing, intensive training from the US military starting in 2018 (Canada, Poland and Lithuania also provide training teams). This transformed the Ukrainian military into the proficient, professional force that stopped Putin's invasion, which Putin though would result in the capture of Kyiv in two days and control of the country within two weeks.

Also, the high gas prices are only partially due to the war in Ukraine. At least half of the price increase had taken place, and was already a political issue, prior to the Russian invasion.

U.S. Troops Training Ukrainian Soldiers, Mattis Says > U.S. Department of Defense > Defense Department News --2 Feb 1018 DoD news story

From US News 18 June 2019..."The Trump administration will deploy $250 million worth of military aid and equipment – some of it lethal – to Ukraine's armed forces as it seeks to deter Russian aggression amid a recent spike in hostile acts, the Defense Department confirmed Tuesday. The new equipment the U.S. will provide includes sniper rifles for Ukraine's special operations forces, as well as grenade launchers, counter-artillery radars and equipment to detect and protect against electronic warfare. The Obama administration and initially President Donald Trump balked at sending lethal weapons to Ukraine reportedly for fear of provoking Moscow, despite pressure from Congress. Trump authorized sending Javelin anti-tank missiles in 2017."

A picture is worth 1000 words...US Marines train Ukrainian Marines 100 miles from Crimean border, July 13, 2018.


3d Infantry Division soldiers train Ukrainians in Combat Medicine. 5 years ago..

 

Cheers. Yes, we are buying rockets from Israel to protect our country. I would guess it is like the Iron dome system that they use against Hamas rocketry...

 

I recall Trump said he was thinking about pulling the US out of NATO because other member countries did not pay enough for their membership. I don't think he was kidding.

 

If the agreement was 2% by 2024, why was Trump rattling cages 2016-17? Perhaps, he did not know what year it was.

The 2% agreement is also mostly a bad joke.
1. It is only an input measure, not an output measure. So, it is a poor yardstick for what is actually being accomplished for the money spent.
2. Several European nations have seen their contribution rise, sometimes significantly....Why?
Not because they have increased spending, but because their GDP has fallen due to COVID.

 

In a way you must, I think, look at the countries you accept to join NATO. Like Greece and even Italy were running out of money a decade ago, and now as the EU Central Bank is setting the loan % up to 1-2% some countries already saying they cannot handle it. 0% was ok. If they were not able to pay to the government workers how could certain nations pay for NATO membership. I know they should but purely looking at the figures might make you lose your way. I think this is something Putin relied on as well: That we don't have the money to help Ukraine or keep NATO in one piece. At the moment electricity and food prices go up like a rocket but can we let go and not help Ukraine??

 

Putin is relying on NATO not wanting to start WWIII. He is obviously prepared to escalate the conflict. Thus, NATO has restricted itself to sending some arms & supplies - But, no NATO "boots on the ground" & no/not enough arms that will tip the scales in Ukraine's favor.

Putin tried and failed with a quick lightning strike, so now he is doing the slow grind, and it is wearing the Ukraine down faster than it is Russia.

 

Especially now as Russia is calling reserves to arms. They can send freely infinite number of men to attack.

 

The problem is the US was bearing 3/4's of the costs of defending NATO, while defense spending by the rest of NATO, with the exceptions of Britain, Estonia, Poland and Greece, was anemic and in many cases declining. This is understandable because it appeared that threats like the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact, that had driven defense spending during the Cold War were a thing of the past. In 2014, when the 2% GDP spending goal was made there were 28 NATO member nations, they comprised over half of global GDP and their combined strength should have dwarfed any potential opponent. Russia appeared to have moderated its aggressive stance and was becoming more economically intertwined with the west. You can understand why Estonia was trying to be prepared they share a border with Russia. Poland has historically suffered numerous invasions due to its central location in Europe. Greece has to worry about Turkey, the second strongest NATO country. Most of the others embraced the peace dividend and didn't want to spend money on equipment modernization, which by agreement was supposed to be 20% of their NATO spending. When "Orange Man" made an issue of it, the German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, stated, "A sensible security policy is not just buying tanks, driving defense spending to insane heights, and escalating the arms race... A reasonable policy means crisis prevention, stabilization of weak states, economic development and the fight against hunger, climate change and water scarcity." With the current Ukraine crisis, Germany wishes it had the weapons and troops it decided was not sensible to acquire.
Secretary of Defense Mattis, not a loose cannon, warned at the time, "Jim Mattis told NATO member countries 15 February 2017 they must increase defense spending by the end of the year or the U.S. might "moderate its commitment" to the alliance. Mattis said NATO must agree on a plan that would see governments increase military spending to 2 percent of GDP. "No longer can the American taxpayer carry a disproportionate share of the defense of Western values," Mattis said. "If your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to this alliance, each of your capitals needs to show support for our common defense." Remember, the US was providing 3/4's of NATO spending. It's also not, simply a matter of the size of the US economy, the combined GDP of the non-US NATO countries exceeds the United States' GDP, but their combined spending is only about 25% of what is spent on NATO and in most countries, defense spending has been declining. When the issue was raised by Trump, Germany's Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said Washington was making a fair demand and called on Germany to increase its defense spending. It also wasn't just Trump that had raised the issue, in 2014 President Obama also expressed concern over the lack of financial commitment by many NATO members when he told EU leaders in Brussels, “If we have collective defense, it means everyone has to chip in, and I have concern about diminished efforts by some in NATO,” he said. “Our freedom isn't free,” he said, adding that it was necessary to “pay for the assets, the personnel, the training... for deterrent force.”

Now, NATO is actually limited in what it can send to Ukraine without compromising their own defense capabilities. Most countries don't have the extra equipment and munitions stockpiles to do much more than is being done. Russia has huge stockpiles of artillery pieces and munitions and are leveraging this asset to make up for the lack of well-trained personnel (both quality and quantity) and tactical acumen that led to their early reverses. The Ukraine has shown a great deal of tactical/operational agility in their thinking in opposing the Russians. Most recently they've used their US HIMARS to target and destroy Russian ammunition dumps. Russia's lack of a robust logistical capability caused many issues and resulted in heavy losses during the initial invasion. Russia reoriented and started using rail lines to push fuel and munitions forward. This resulted in an accumulation of fuel/ammunition/supplies at rail heads. The Ukrainians only have 8 HIMARS systems (four more are on the way) and noting this new Russian tactic used the range and accuracy of their limited systems to go after munitions depots and headquarters. Ukrainians are being trained in Britain and Poland, and Zelensky has stated he'd eventually like to field a million personnel.

 

You are right, this is the problem...The structure of judging how much a country is spending to support NATO.

You see, the US was not bearing 3/4s of the costs defending NATO. The US has global military commitments and that 3/4 cost, supposedly defending NATO, actually are US global military commitments - Not NATO ones. The US is not defending NATO with the forces it has in SEATO or elsewhere throughout the globe.

For instance, the "Orange Man" reduced US troops in Europe to 68,000. That was only 15% of active US military forces. 15% now equals 75%? Calling BS on that. Did not the US withdraw all it's tanks from Europe(or was it just Germany) in 2013, only to start moving tanks back less than a year later. AFAIK, we are now back to 3 armored brigades in Europe. So, please spare me the US is bearing 3/4 of the costs of defending NATO...Unless, you can actually show how much the US is spending defending NATO, and not just simply using the US defense budget.

That is why I do not get the Democrat/Republican tomfoolery about what the US spends on NATO. Other than political populism to gain support of their respective voters, when it is plainly clear that the US is certainly NOT spending it's entire defense budget on NATO.

Haven't crunched the numbers, but I would hazard a guess that the US is not putting 2% of it's defense budget into US military forces in Europe.

 

In a way, sorry, suddenly the US taking suddenly its military force away from Europe and Asia, I bet there would be at least two people who would be smiling...

 

That is not what I am looking for.

How much a percentage of US GDP is spent on defense. The US has global military commitments...So, it's 3.57% of GDP is certainly not going all to defending NATO/Europe.

What I want to know is...what the US is actually spending to defend NATO/Europe?

Romania is not spending a portion of their 1.88% GDP defense budget on South Korea, Japan, Australia, Guam, the Mid-East, etc. Certainly, most NATO countries are not committed as globally militarily as the US is, so most of their military budget is actually spent defending Europe(although, veterans benefits & pensions do skew what is actually going to "defendeing" NATO/Europe.)

 

Thanks, that is closer to what I was looking for.

 

'Twelve of Putin's officers killed' in Ukrainian strike on Russia (msn.com)