I would like to see a tariff applied to US goods produced in the US and exported to the rest of the world as means of charging the US for not abiding by the agreement.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/20/news/nato-funding-explained/
>The North Atlantic alliance has its own military budget worth €1.29 billion ($1.4 billion), which is used to fund some operations and the NATO strategic command center, as well as training and research. But it is miniscule compared to overall spending on defense by NATO countries, which NATO estimates will total more than $921 billion in 2017.
To be clear the vast amount of money spent by the US on defence (or offence) is not directly spent on NATO. There is a NATO operating budget that is approx 0.33% of the US annual spending on military. So if the US withdrew from NATO they would not stop spending all that money on defence, sure they may close some bases in Europe and around the world but all that will do is further weaken their sphere of influence. And if there was a Russian or Chinese invasion of Europe then it would be in the US's interests to assist in any fight because if Russia or China managed to takeover mainland Europe that would be it for the USA in terms of any sort of world leader status/influence which is pretty much accepted because of the support of its NATO allies as it currently stands.
EDIT: I obviously misspoke using literally nothing, please replace with not a lot of money at all. The point that matters is: is it a non-trivial amount of money or not, and has it plausibly benefited Europe by decreasing the number of wars? The region does have a history of it after all.
This apparent sentiment that my line of thinking is 100% wrong feels a bit offensive to me, if anyone cares about such things, and believes that perhaps feelings affect real world behavior.
I'm not saying that there is no cost to US bases in Europe. They are probably expensive to maintain, but in general they are there because the US wants them there and they benefit the US more than the host nation. Same goes all over the world, Japan, the Middle East, Korea. The bases are there to give the US some influence and clout, it is force projection.
I would repeat for clarity that US bases in Europe have done nothing to prevent wars between EU nations, the credit for that goes to the EU.
This is speculation.
> They are probably expensive to maintain, but in general they are there because the US wants them there and they benefit the US more than the host nation.
I agree the US wants them there, but who benefits more is far from clear.
> I would repeat for clarity that US bases in Europe have done nothing to prevent wars between EU nations, the credit for that goes to the EU.
Since you've stated this twice I'm going to have to ask for some evidence. Of course there's none as it would require running alternate threads of reality.
Show me a text of this "NATO spending agreement", when and where it was signed by a Representative of the United States, and then we'll talk.
Hint: you can't, because no such treaty exists.
[0] http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Secretary_Kerry_Holds_Gra...
I now wonder if my perception of the military blanket of protection the US provides to Europe also a figment of people's imagination. Do they have military bases and personnel in the region, or am I imagining that also?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/world/europe/nato-trump-s...
The gist of it is that no NATO members are in arrears for the contributions that are required to NATO. There is a NATO goal that member states should spend 2% of their GDP on their own defence each year. This is where some countries are not meeting that goal but the money certainly is not owed to the United States. Further it could be said that given that the US is home to many companies that make weapons this is a way for the US to get NATO members to spend money on US goods. (NATO members are unlikely to buy weapons systems from Russia or China).
So as I said there is a very real difference between the 2 systems and it is unfair to use them in conjunction with one another because the NATO one is a goal, a 'nice to have' if you will.
>Are NATO nations violating a rule?
>No. The 2 percent standard is just a guideline, not a legally binding requirement. In 2006, even as the United States was increasing military spending because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, European allies were shrinking their military spending. NATO defense ministers that year adopted a guideline suggesting that each spend the equivalent of 2 percent of its annual economic output on its military — but it was a target, not a rule, and not endorsed by heads of state.
So the NATO 2% spending thing is: "just a guideline", "not a legally binding requirement", "a target, not a rule, and not endorsed by heads of state".
While the Paris Agreement is a formal treaty, signed in New York by a Representative of the United States, and then ratified by the US afterwards.
I don't see how you can compare the two side-by-side in any serious discussion.
I wonder if know it all's on the left will ever clue in that international relations are extremely nuanced rather than a hard science. Perhaps some people's relative willingness to cooperate is influenced by the level of respect and willingness to understand differing points of view.
I would argue this is a very important aspect of human relations and negotiations, and real world events I think support this theory quite well.
Regardless of my political affiliation I am aware that international politics is nuanced, unfortunately your president is just learning that himself. And yes you can disagree in principal but you don't seem to understand the system so it is difficult to accept that you disagree in principal when your sole argument (which has been thoroughly debunked for you) is based on claims made by donald trump. Do you have any other issues with NATO that you disagree with?
Indeed, there is no hard explicit contract stating a dollar amount that is owed by European governments to the US, there are only "targets". And according to the general sentiment on HN, I've now learned that the word "target" is a code word for literally no compensation, full stop.
There, I can acknowledge objective reality.
In turn I'll ask you this:
Do you think it is plausible that the US military presence in Europe has contributed in a material way to peace in the region? Yes or no?
Do you think the US bears an uncompensated financial burden for this military presence in Europe? Yes or no?
This also broke the EUs climate quota system, but that's a separate discussion.