Politics

1dirthawker said:

my thoughts regarding waiting out trump OR another candidate's term:

either way, the NATO countries should be interested and motivated to bump up their spending, etc for their own defense. a real concern for NATO counties IMHO is, with the large influx of migrants that have not assimilated into the European culture or way of thinking, are those migrants going to be willing to even sign up to fight for their current "sugar daddy" country?

much like here in america, i doubt many if any "liberals" or leftist individuals would be willing to sign up to protect the US. i imagine many of the illegal immigrants would feel the same. it truly makes me sad to se so many of my countrymen that seem to believe that the country that gives them so much freedom (and assistance when needed) are so hate filled for it.

i think trumps not being "conventional" is a gift and has helped him steer this country back on track (in a general sense, he is not perfect in every way!) getting rid of DEI, closing the border, wanting only citizens to vote, ejecting illegal immigrants etc. are things that i am in support of, and previous presidents "conventional" actions were not getting things done.

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mdwest said:

Read prior posts..

Trump does not have the ability to pull the US out of NATO.

It takes a 2/3 vote from the US Senate.. Or an act of congress that passes both the house and the senate..

And AFTER that happens, the US has to provide NATO with a 1 year formal notice..

What Trump can do is simply refuse to involve the US in anything NATO related for the remainder of his term in office.. no more joint exercises.. no more allowing hundreds of NATO officers attend US war colleges, advanced military training at US school houses, etc.. no more funding of anything remotely linked to NATO.. no more participation in NATO command structure... and basically render NATO completely combat ineffective..

For the crying liberals out there.. whether you want to acknowledge facts and truth or not.. the US alone funds 16% of NATO's direct budget.. and 62% of NATO's defense spending comes from the US..

So.. Europe needs US participation in NATO far more than the US needs Europes participation...

If the US stops writing the checks (which is exactly what Trump would do).. it would push Europe to disbanding NATO and forming a new, fragmented alliance, without the US's money.. which for very obvious reasons would make the new alliance a pretty piss poor offensive fragment of what Europe had prior..

Europe and Canada may be finally after decades of abandon starting to ramp up its miliary capability again.. but what it took decades to destroy will take decades to rebuild..

And good luck continuing to fund all of those social welfare programs, dealing with your out of control migrant programs, etc.. while having to ramp up your defense and offense capabilities at an even faster pace once all US money is taken off the table..

People can get upset and moan until the cows come home.. it doesnt change the facts... Europe lacks the economy to continue on the path its on if it has to start footing the bills that the US has been carrying related to NATO (like 15% of the $6.5B it takes just to keep the NATO infrastructure funded in 2026 and 62% of the $1.5T in defense spending across the 32 NATO member countries)..

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Aaron N said:

Yes I was thinking decades down the line, but regardless, does it serve Americas best interests to get that ball potentially rolling? Or does it just make a good talking point

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KJE81 said:

I was referring to whats written in this article that I had in my previous post (link below), it seems to suggest that Trump might indeed be able to exit Nato if he so chooses?

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/08/trump-nato-congress-courts-00188426

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Tubby’s Canteen said:

I would argue a lot of the depends on context, mega can also be used to differentiate between right of centre and hard or alt rights. Maga seems to be a very hard right leaning movement with isolationist ideals. One could almost make the point that trump formed a coalition of sorts between centralists all the way to the far right. Atleast that has been my observation based on the opinions expressed on this forum.

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KJE81 said:

It does seem like the US spent roughly equal to the EU when only financial and military aid is considered? And quite a lot less when humanitarian aid is also calculated:

Who Spends More On Ukraine Aid: The US Or EU?

How much have the US, EU, and other allies spent on supporting Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022?

www.rferl.org

Cant find how much the Nato members outside EU has contributed right now but I guess they sent some aid aswell...

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mdwest said:

youd have to re-read prior posts..

the assurances written in the Budapest Memo have indeed been met.. roughly equally by the UK and the US..

there was never an assurance of military response..

the assurance was economic...

and the US has spent $114B on Ukraine since 2022.. which comparitively to the US economy vs the brit economy is about on par with Brit spending since 2022...

which as stated earlier.. is MORE than all of NATO outside of the US has contributed to Ukraine..

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KJE81 said:

In my opinion Trump should either stop with all this comments like: "we will remember", "Nato is a paper tiger and Putin knows it" etc or just go ahead exit Nato.

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375 Ruger Fan said:

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mdwest said:

Much of the enrichment process is classified for obvious reasons.. so nothing in the public domain is going to tell you how quickly 60% enriched uranium can be turned into 90%, which is considered weapons grade..

What is available in the public domain, without going into any measure of depth here on a hunting forum is..

the process to get to 60 is extremely difficult, extremely time consuming, and extremely expensive..

and the process to get from 60 to 90 is MUCH easier, much less time consuming, and not nearly as expensive..

the big hump to get over in the enrichment process is 60.. this is why IAEA considered 60% "near weapons grade" and why 60% is a very serious threat..

whether the truth is 2 bombs or 11 or 10,000.. and whether Iran can do it in 2, 3, or 10 weeks.. does it really matter?

what matters is.. the IAEA confirms they have more than enough on hand for 11 bombs already at 60%.. and that the IAEA absolutely confirms this is seriously dangerous.. and that getting from 60 to 90 doesnt take long (if youre the US it takes almost no time).. and that Iran is the largest participant in state sponsored global terrorism on the planet..

not to mention.. if everyone is bitching about them holding up traffic in the strait of hormuz with only conventional munitions.. what exactly does everyone think happens when Iran goes nuclear?

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Doug Hamilton said:

Many Europeans suffer from TDS. Sad.

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mdwest said:

I think therein lies the problem..

If we allow people to create their own definition of MAGA or acknowledge it means multiple things.. then it actually means nothing at all..

No different than every non liberal is a "facist".. because a facist can be whatever I want it to be rather than adhering to the actual definition of a facist..

Or everyone opposed to men competing in womens sports is "homopobic".. because a homophobe can be whatever I want it to be rather than adhering to the actual definition of a homophobe..

Trump is seen as the leader of the MAGA movement.. he has made it very clear what and who he sees as "MAGA"... and made it very clear that many republicans and many conservatives are NOT MAGA.. hes told the world in God only knows how many public announcements, public speaking events, interviews, etc.. what his ideals and priorities are and what he believes constitutes MAGA..

To frame MAGA as anything else, to include people right of center, is simply wrong...

No different than calling everyone that thinks Ilhan Omar is an idiot an Islamophobe..

Blanket labeling has been a failed tactic by the left.. it used to work at one point.. no one wanted to be called a facist, racist, etc..

It doesnt work anymore though.. people have finally rescinded to the truth of its just a disengenous means of trying to counter an argument that you lack the ability to counter in good faith or honestly..

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RLD said:

Actually, the evidence you need to bomb a country and kill their leadership matters a lot. If say Taiwan decided to enrich to 60% would it be okay for China to kill their leadership and destroy their country? If the Ukraine went to 60 would it be all good for Russia to invade?

That's why the United States has traditionally worked so hard to create a rules based order. To prevent the kind of international anarchy that short term transactional only thinking engenders. Trump sows the chaos but he won't be around to reap it. The wild west was cool on TV but not so much fun to live in.

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Pondoro said:

Gasoline is more than $5 per gallon on Manhattan now..?

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mdwest said:

The argument isnt the EU.. its NATO.. two different things..

NATO has 32 member nations.. 2 of which arent in Europe (US/Canada).. Take the US contributions out of the calculation and the US alone has contributed slightly more than the rest of all of NATO combined (acknowledging humanitarian assistance isnt included in those figures as non military alliances and NGO's have largely been responsible for humanitarian aid)..

The EU by contrast has 4 countries in Europe that are NOT NATO members.. Add those countries contributions to Ukraine into the mix and the numbers still marginally favor the US..

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Ukraine bilateral aid allocations by country 2025| Statista

Since 2022, the U.S. has provided the most bilateral aid to Ukraine as of December 2025, followed by the EU institutions.

www.statista.com