(08-02-2020, 07:35 PM)homebiscuit Wrote:

(08-02-2020, 07:26 PM)mikesez Wrote: I totally agree that other countries need to be spending more on national/shared defense.  They're hardly spending anything.  
You guys just told me it takes 12 American aircraft carriers plus one UK plus one French to keep the shipping lanes safe. Total 14. And we agree we want the allies to spend more.  Maybe the French and British each build one more, maybe Germany builds one, and maybe Japan builds one too. But then there'd be clearly have too many, right? There would be 18.  A waste.

The whole point of asking other countries to spend more is so we can spend less!!!

Trump doesn't get that.  Republicans don't get that.

I think we should get them to buy our carriers off of us.  Or maybe, those countries would tell us that a different type of ship is really what's needed to defend shipping lanes. Maybe our whole concept of carriers being the necessary lynch pin of a group is out of date.

Wonderfully aspirational and I don't disagree with it. But the fact of the matter is getting other countries to pay their fair share is easier said than done. Trump is the first president that demands they do, but you say he doesn't, so there's that.

Trump literally believes that the other countries are going to transfer the money to us, or at least be forced to use it to buy american-made hardware.
That's not how alliances or mutual defense work.
Maybe you want it to work that way. Or maybe you are charitably ignoring this part of Trump's rhetoric. "It's just a joke!"
Regardless, why are we demanding that certain allies spend 2% of their GDP on defense and calling it their fair share?
If that's the fair share, why are we spending 3.4% of our GDP on defense? 
By our own formulation, we are drastically overspending in this area!
Yet Trump and other Republicans are actually calling for us to spend more! Romney wanted 4%. That's insane!

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