"It [the draft] is duty rather than slavery. I part with the author on the caviler idea that individual freedom (whatever that may be to the person) leads to nirvana, anyone older that 12 knows that is BS."
-(Midcan5)
"Allow me to masturbate my patriotism furiously and publicly at this opportunity."
-(Ib1yysguy)
"There is no 'equal opportunity' today unless the government makes it so."
-(apple0154 )
"abortion is not killing Its birth control"
-(Desh)
you see what you want to see.You listen to way too much Fake News.
I see economic nationalism "America First". Give us some tax reform ( including middle class relief)
and corporate rates,and you get repatriation,and GDP growth on top of Obama's jobs recovery.
Oil/nat gas exporting. Doing some renegotiation of NAFTA
It's too bad we can't get some reconcilliation with Russia -
but the Deep State and Dems would rather us pony up more and more money for NATO
"Fake news" is such a lame crutch for you. I watch Trump - he isn't who you think he is, at all.
And you buy everything he says without question. Look at your NATO comment - such a lack of understanding. I'm sure you see as fact Trump's claim that we spend "billions and billions" annually. We spend less than $500 million (and sorry - that's pretty paltry considering the importance of NATO).
I don't see what I want to see - you do. I see the truth. You are as wrong as you could be about Trump.
TTQ64 (09-21-2017)
anatta (09-21-2017)
I have no idea where you get that figure -is that a NATO operating budget?
You are not seeing the cost of Defense. Obama's "European Reassurance Initiative" was $3 billion /year EXTRA alone!
Consider the new rotations in Poland/new permanent US presence in Finland..etc etc.
We do spend "billions and billions" -easily. and we are spending much more for NO REASON
as any more spending is literally just overkill
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/nor...SAAEgL0R_D_BwE
the primary financial contribution made by member states is the cost of deploying their respective armed forces for NATO-led operations. These expenses are not part of the formal NATO budget, which funds alliance infrastructure including civilian and military headquarters. In 2015, NATO members collectively spent more than $890 billion on defense [PDF]. The United States accounted for more than 70 percent of this, up from about half during the Cold War.
anatta (09-21-2017)
Moscow has viewed NATO's post–Cold War expansion into Central and Eastern Europe with great concern. Many current and former Russian leaders believe the alliance's inroads into the former Soviet sphere are a betrayal of alleged guarantees to not expand eastward after Germany’s reunification in 1990
Most Western leaders knew the risks of enlargement. “If there is a long-term danger in keeping NATO as it is, there is immediate danger in changing it too rapidly. Swift expansion of NATO eastward could make a neo-imperialist Russia a self-fulfilling prophecy,” wrote Secretary of State Warren Christopher in the Washington Post in January 1994.
NATO's Bucharest Summit in the spring of 2008 deepened suspicions. While the alliance delayed Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia, it vowed to support their full membership down the road, despite repeated warnings from Moscow of political and military consequences. Russia's invasion of Georgia that summer was a clear signal of Moscow's intentions to protect what it sees as its sphere of influence, experts say.
In an address honoring the annexation of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin expounded Russia's deep-seated grievances with the alliance. “They have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO's expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders,” he told Russia's parliament. “In short, we have every reason to assume that the infamous [Western] policy of containment, led in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, continues today.”
In congressional testimony [PDF] in March 2017, General Scaparrotti said “a resurgent Russia has turned from partner to antagonist,” and has remained one of the top security challenges in Europe. Moscow continued to flex its military muscles in the region, he said, sending its sole aircraft carrier on its first-ever combat deployment, moving nuclear-capable missiles into Kaliningrad, and conducting significant operations in Ukraine and Syria. Meanwhile, Moscow pursued malign activities short of war, including misinformation and hacking campaigns against European member states, he said. The Kremlin has denied allegations it attempted to interfere in U.S. and European elections.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/north-atlantic-treaty-organization-nato?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIourf_IG31gIVDY1pCh3bfgj3EAA YASAAEgL0R_D_BwE
Ahead of a NATO summit in May 2017, Montenegro was expected to become the twenty-ninth member of the alliance, the first since Albania and Croatia joined in 2009. In a statement on the former Yugoslav republic’s accession, the White House noted to other NATO hopefuls “that the door to membership in the Euro-Atlantic community of nations remains open and that countries in the Western Balkans are free to choose their own future and select their own partners without outside interference or intimidation.” The Kremlin has warned that NATO’s eastward expansion “cannot but result in retaliatory actions.”
Another perennial point of contention has been NATO's ballistic missile defense shield, which is being deployed across Europe in several phases. The United States, which developed the technology, has said the system is only designed to guard against limited missile attacks, particularly from Iran. However, the Kremlin says the technology could be updated and may eventually tip the strategic balance toward the West.
A Revived Alliance
Fears of further Russian aggression have prompted alliance leaders to reinforce defenses on its eastern flank. Since its Wales Summit in 2014, NATO has ramped up military exercises and opened new command centers in eight member states: Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The outposts, which are modestly staffed, are intended to support a new rapid reaction force of about twenty thousand, including five thousand ground troops. In a major emergency, NATO military planners say that a multinational force of about forty thousand can be marshaled. At the Warsaw Summit in 2016, allies agreed to rotate four battalions (about four thousand troops) through Poland and the Baltic states. The United States has added an Army armored brigade to the two it has in the region, under its European Reassurance Initiative.
Meanwhile, NATO members, particularly Denmark, Germany, the UK, and the United States have increased air patrols over Poland and the Baltics. In 2015, NATO jets scrambled to intercept Russian warplanes violating allied airspace some four hundred times. In 2016 this number doubled, alliance officials said.
NATO members have also boosted direct security collaboration with Ukraine, an alliance partner since 1994. But as a nonmember, Ukraine remains outside of NATO's defense perimeter, and there are clear limits on how far it can be brought into institutional structures. The UK and the United States sent modest detachments of troops to train Ukrainian personnel in 2015, but the United States has refrained from providing Kiev with lethal weapons to help counter the Russia-backed insurgency out of fear this would escalate the conflict.
In the longer term, some defense analysts believe the alliance should consider advancing membership to Finland and Sweden, two Partnership for Peace countries with a history of avoiding military alignment. Both countries have welcomed greater military cooperation with NATO following Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. (Nordic peers Denmark, Iceland, and Norway are charter NATO members.)
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/north-atlantic-treaty-organization-nato?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIourf_IG31gIVDY1pCh3bfgj3EAA YASAAEgL0R_D_BwE
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