As much as I respect the men and women of the Canadian Forces, be sure to schedule the S. Dakota Civil Air Patrol, Brownie Troop 233 from Jacksonville, Fl and the Marina Del Rey Sea Cadets for the invasion
Sal will need someone at Commerce, Transportation and Energy to give him the industrial base he needs to build ships and someone at Treasury and the Fed to create a financial system to support that base. Your country may be calling upon your services yet again.
I'd rather be at DARPA. I have WAY too many ideas bouncing around up here. It's almost embarrassing for a Marine.
But honestly, I'm not holding my breath. I volunteered for Trump v1.0 and never even got a call back, even though I was willing to take a substantial pay cut.
Unless he has a solid team to staff government, Trump v2.0 is going to make the same mistakes that Trump v1.0 did.
He saw the bureaucracy as the enemy (rightly) and so he wanted to starve it, by not filling positions, and then those he did fill were staffed by establishment Repubs.
ANY Republican coming into office in late January, 2025, needs to have a plan in advance to fill EVERY billet they possibly can fill with solid conservatives starting on day 1, and then a new round of executive orders reclassifying all supervisory positions with policy implementation authority as 'at will'.
I hope, but do not have great optimism in this regard.
I think he'll do better in this regard on second pass. He knows how bad the RINOs in the establishment really are now.
That said, wrt "I have WAY too many ideas bouncing around up here. It's almost embarrassing for a Marine" how many ways are there to eat a crayon anyway?!
Ooo, Ooo, Ooo! (raising hand and waving it) DASN Ships for me, as long as I don't have to actually LIVE in the DC area. My sanity is far too important to me to expose it to that risk. Conversely, I'll also support ANYONE that will force Big Navy to stop playing games with the realities of building ships.
I'm glad Trump sounds like you. Wish a lot more of DoD (and by inference NATO) did as well.
In Southeast Asia they have an acronym in the common civilian vernacular in both Indonesia and the PI: NATO...not the alliance, but short for "No Action, Talk Only".
Worked with Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk for decades. Jobs program: Check, soft intel collection effort: check, laser focused on process minutiae with zero regard for actual desired outcomes / goals: check. Measuring light speed progress in years and decades: Check.
No surprise talking is much preferred to spending money on actual capabilities. Note the UK is further reducing their ground forces by 10%. Hats off to the Finns and Poles; they see the future and are trying to prepare (Polish government appears to be in trouble now). Invade Finland from the east and good luck, you will need it.
Brett, as a long time reader of Sal you must have skipped over the blogpost from the 15th. True "naval/aerospace powers" don't decomm ships in their prime due to lack of crew, and run an aircraft carrier around for 14 months with no aircraft.
When you have a bloated social services line-up, nobody wants their side of the trough to be cut-off.
My understanding is the QE-carrier battle groups were never intended to be deployed as a RN-only force but a mix of RN and several other NATO surface ships to make up its battle group. The push to have carrier based on THAT side of the pond was to take the strain off of US carrier and the impending shift to Pacific deployments/needs.
I would bet those below the cut line that host US or NATO HQs, installations, et al, might sing a different tune if US would renegotiate stationing rights and support….i.e. the Fatherland…howzabout unrestricted flight hours at Ramstein and for Apache low level training ? Return Graf and Hohenfels to 24/7 ops. Sure it would suck for the Batsi’s….but that would get Markus Soder to step up to stolz, et al…likewise, relook all thebhost nation support for Panzer Kaserne and Clay Kaserne…of better yet, look who is above the 2% cut line and see if they might be interested in hosting….
Am sure Spain and Tuerkei would be interested in renegotiating as well.
Oh, but that would require DOS and DOD to do something other than focus on dei.
Last time someone talked about moving troops from Germany to Poland? He was anti-NATO and any mention of Poland was not to be found in the mainstream reporting.
I submit the following as the basis for a proper alliance:
We should be dumping NATO and all other "mutual defense" treaties, that being code for "Defense Welfare at American Expense and American Risk," and renegotiate our treaties, if any, on the following principles:
1. We must be able to trace secure and unconstrained sea lines or rail lines or a combination thereof to you. This means, for example, currently, “No, Poland, sorry, but Germany is currently weak and unreliable. Thus we cannot trace secure SLOC or rail to you, hence cannot guarantee to defend you. So we won’t lie to you and say we can. You may have our sympathy but that’s all; you’re on your own.” This means, in Europe and the Med, in any case, that we could be allied with Morocco, France, the UK, and Portugal, but not Spain without Portugal, not Germany without France, and not Italy without Portugal, Spain, France, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, nor Norway or France without the UK. For example.
2. You must field forces commensurate with your population and economic situation, _before_ accounting for the costs of your welfare state, the maintenance of which is no concern of ours. The short formula is that you must spend 4% of GDP on defense, and we will tell you how to spend it. In fact, we will tell you what you must do, spend, and field.
3. You may, in the alternative, simply turn over 4% of your GDP to us, and grant us the right to recruit freely among your population, plus give us any colors demanded so we can field units with some tradition.
4. You must agree, in advance, that if you reneg on or otherwise neglect your responsibilities under this alliance, we and your neighbors may invade without further warning to set your society and government aright.
5. You agree in advance to send whatever troops we demand, to do whatever we want done, for as long as we want it done, and that neglecting to do so will trigger paragraph 4, above.
6. We will have veto power over the appointment of your flag officers.
7. If you have signed onto them, you must immediately denounce (oddly, the proper term) The Ottawa Anti-personnel Landmine Ban, the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court, and the Protocols Additional One and Two to Geneva Convention IV. You must not house or give succor in any form to the ICC.
8. You must vote with us/as we direct you, in the UN, 100% of the time.
9. Your foreign policy is subject to our approval and veto.
10. You must accept, as part of your domestic law, the American Bill of Rights as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. If you do not, then a) clearly we are politically incompatible and b) you are just another tyranny and not worth defending.
I think I could support this form of the alliance and, moreover, that it would, in the long run, be better for the allies. But, ya know, if they don't like these arrangement, so what? It's not like we need them for anything.
Russia can do as it likes. I'm perfectly happy being allied to no one in Europe. If they want our protection, at our risk, this is what we ought demand in return.
I doubt you'd feel the same way if Walmart, Sam's club, Costco, and your local grocery store can't keep anything on the shelves and inflation get's to Venezuelan levels.
That's what happens when you turn your back on allies who can't stand up to China or Russia on their own.
Our entire economy is built upon global trade.
Are there MANY things here I would change? sure. But you destroy our place at the head of the global economy and you destroy us. Not overnight, but with absolute certainty.
Frankly, William, screw the global economy. Moreover, industry is coming home at breakneck speed. Why? Because we have the only genuinely secure energy supplies in the world.
Respectfully disagree. I agree we SHOULD be energy independent. I agree we should have the flexibility to act in our own interests.
But in nearly every other respect, the world you are describing has not actually existed for more than 30 years.
And with respect, Industry is trickling home. We can and should do more on those issues.
But again, you turn your back on our allies and your grandchildren will be bowing to portraits of Chairman Mao (if they aren't already)
This is a purely self-interested argument.
Then there is the moral argument. We are, or were, a Christian nation. We should be so again. As such, do you really propose standing by and allowing genocide or ethnic cleansing?
I'm no NEOCon. I DO NOT believe in trying to ush regime change around the world and trying to remake barbarian and tribal societies into democracies.
But everybody wants to make this into an argument of extremes, ie,, isolationism vs Globalism/neocons.
I'm in the middle.
We have the power, and the responsibility.
We should act to preserve our role at the top of the global economy, BOTH because it benefits us AND because it has raised more people out of slavery and starvation than any other thing in the history of humanity.
We have no responsibility to them, William. Zero, zip, zylch, nada, none. "We are the friends of liberty everywhere but the guardians only of our own."
The big mistake, the really BIG mistake that screwed up the whole planet was our getting involved in European squabbles. If we'd stayed out of the Great War, if we'd not let the proto-globalists drag us into something that was none of our business, Germany would have gone on to win the Great War. Think about that; no Hitler, no Lenin (not of any account, anyway, or for long), no Mao, no Pol Pot, no Castro. Hundreds of millions were done to death as a result of our meddling.
I'd rather we just went home and let the world go to complete hell, of course, but if they're willing to pay, for the very first time, a fair price for our defense I'm willing to help them, too. And if not? Their choice and they can all go to Hell with it.
It's a military organization so somebody needs to be in charge. So why not the firstest with the mostest? That'd be us based on our (past) track record. But who's going to rally to a Milley, an Austin, a Levine, a Vindman, a Biden? Our leaders can't even rally recruits here. Nah. We need a real Coalition of the Willing...not a cow, no BS. The Willing. You want to be a member of an alliance? Then commit. No umbrella for the weak sisters and freeloaders. But yeah, someone needs to take the reins and maybe even jerk a knot in their collective keisters. But, ya know, COL Kratman, they won't like these arrangements. They'll balk at your every issue. So what? It's not like we can rely on them for much of anything anyway.
I agree on almost every level, but can we stop equating Richard Levine with the military. He's in the uniformed public health service, which is in itself a joke. They fall under HHS, they have no enlisted or warrant ranks, and they are legally classified as non-combatants.
Never blame the comic if the audience doesn't get a good joke.
I'm a little tone deaf on that issue, as my daughter lost out on placement in cross country to a male pretending to be female, and we are worried she may face the same issue in her swimming.
They never do. I believe Eisenhower and Roosevelt had some problems with our "allies" even as we were spending American lives and dollars fighting for their very existence.
How would you handle the resulting nuclear proliferation issue? I count a minimum of three new nuclear weapons states as a result of your proposed policy.
I guess we can dream of tight borders and ports. My confidence of any bipartisan policy actually doing this is quite low. I believe any policy that involves never electing Democrats again is not serious.
It would not surprise me if IRN detonates an underground nuclear weapon by mid-2024. SAU will join very quickly thereafter. The current US policy is essentially no policy.
Those two are not even on my minimum list, which were Turkey (nuclear sharing partner), Poland (requested nuclear sharing in June 2023), and Romania (did it before when it was in the communist sphere and much poorer).
So, with respect, this is a recipe for the utter and complete ruin of the US economy.
Like it or not, our support guarantees both that allies will take advantage and ride our coat tails, but also that they will remain independent of the pressure of Russia and China.
Few countries will fight a major power unless they have no choice, or unless they think the US really has their back.
Your plan would result - within a decade or two, in Russia and China browbeating everyone in their neighborhood into economically distancing themselves from the US, eventually resulting in the dollar falling and the Yuan rising as the global currency.
Then, we will become noting more than a debt ridden former power, with a big military we can't afford.
You want the benefits of a global economy we built, you have to work to keep it, even if that means doing more than our share.
The world ain't fair.
But if you think we have problems now, imagine trying to weather a NEW great depression that won't end, since China will be the dominant global economy.
Like it or not, our standard of living and freedom are STILL better than anywhere else on earth, and that depends on trade and the global economy, from which we benefit far more than almost anyone else.
Any idea how little of our GDP is global trade and of that little how much is Mexico and Canada, who will remain our bitches, like it or not? We are less involved in the global system, for which we pay, (and get less benefit from it)as a percentage of GDP, than any country except South Sudan and possibly Afghanistan.
I absolutely and unreservedly disagree. You are thinking in small terms, like how many widgets we import or export from somewhere. We are dependant on imports because we don't build enough shit.
We are also the center of the global information economy, and information is now more valuable than hard goods. This is why patent infringement and IP theft are such an issue.
Global markets depend on the stability of the US dollar. The financial stability of most Americans depends on the stability of Wall St. More and more Americans depend on Social Security as their primary (or only) source of retirement.
You are focused on percentages. I'm focused on reality. If enough countries fall under the pressure sway of Russia and China, the stability of the dollar will implode. It doesn't matter if the changes are only 2%.
The system is fragile as it is. like a bridge with weak girders. It might have 50, but taking out 1 or 2 might be enough to cause it's collapse.
The fever dream of the US as a proud independent nation ruling over North America and ignoring the rest of the world is just that, a silly dream.
Just like the NEOCons are fools for their fiction of democratizing the world by force, isolationism is no less foolish or fantastical thinking.
In the real world, we built a system and we re as much dependent on that system as many others. We turn our backs on that and we will suffer greatly.
China is unlikely to survive as a single country for another 20 years. (Zeihan says ten but I think he underestimates the ability of a fascist state to manipulate the emotions). Russia and China both are in demographic collapse. Other than for nukes they are no threat. If Germany, with a GDP of 4.1 Trillion cannot handle Russia with a gdp only a little over half that then Germany is worthless to both of us.
I am, however, willing to make some accomodation to Japan, the PI, Taiwan, and Vietnam until China collapses. After that, same deal as for everyone else.
That assessment of China is so wholly uninformed it makes me cringe. It is the EPITOMIE of "Western Hubris".
China has survived for THOUSANDS of years.
Look, I know your no liberal, so stop and think for a second. What you just described is EXACTLY how the spinless idiots at Foggy Bottom think, and how we get into so much trouble in the first place.
Magical thinking that presupposes other people will think and act in ways that make sense to us.
Chinese culture will go NoWhere!.
Internal CCP/PRC power is stronger now than it has been at any time since Mao.
And Americans tend to assume everyone else thinks about dictatorships and autocratic leadership the same way we do.
China, in the last 4,000 years, has NEVER known true representative rule.
Their people value stability and obedience to central authority. It's as baked into their culture as apple pie is to ours.
It can sustain FAR greater levels of authoritarian rule. we are nowhere near peak Chinese power.
See, the Western intellectual class convinced themselves that history was over, and that all peoples would eventually gravitate toward a peaceful, mostly democratic form of governance with heavy socialist overtones. Because they thought it was the pinnacle of human governance.
They made no allowance for the fact that other cultures value different things.
Ironically, you are using a globalist argument to support your rationale that China will not be a threat, and that a more isolationist policy can succeed.
Demographic collapse will only make China MORE dangerous. It will make them even more determined to hold dominion over everyone in Asia so as to have access to those populations for what will amount to serfdom.
I invite your attention to Zeihan's various talks. He's not always right, of course, but he appears to be right on this.
You're mistaking China's continued existence, as a culture, for China's unified existence, as a powerful state. No, these are different and, while the former is certain, the latter is vanishingly unlikely.
WRT "the dollar" why are more countries NOT using the dollar in exchange? Nearly 20 countries now are using native currencies in trade. Why? Well for one, we froze a sovereign country's dollar holdings - Russia. And they all think "hmmm, could happen to us". Another is more and more countries have and are buying gold to support their currency. We simply issue more debt - more than $1 Trillion in 15 weeks from last Sept. We are now at 125% debt to gross annual output with INTEREST eating over 30% of all tax revenue. The dollar will implode when the rest of the world simply stops buying at the weekly auctions.
Unrestrained Hubris is THE most deadly enemy to a nation's continued growth. We are approaching that 250 year anniversary as a nation and I'd venture a guess it might be a little too early to start celebrating.
this is true, however, because China and Russia are autocratic societies, accustomed to authoritarian rule, they have FAR more leeway to force their populations to accept pain and suffering in ways our population would never accept.
So at the end of the day, they CAN live without us far easier than we can live without them.
But, nuance is important. I don't think the Chinese elite dream of a world in which the US is wiped off the map.
But they do dream of a world in which the US is reduced to a 2nd rate power that is beholden to them for the trinkets that keep our increasingly listless population sated.
Congress caps GO/FO numbers, but I don't think there's a floor. Since we occifers serve "at the pleasure of the president," the GO/FO ranks could be unilaterally & drastically slashed by a president who gives neither a damn nor a f*** about bad publicity.
Such a brave soul might follow up by frocking a bunch of O6 and O5 superstars to fill the truly critical billets, and leave the superfluous billets (and staffs) vacant.
POTUS could start with the Coast Guard as a proof-of-concept exercise. I'll bet the late, great ADM Russell Waesche would smile down in approval.
So, there is what is political, and what is actual, and Alliance and EU/US engagement is a prime example of this.
First, calling out the Euros on defense spending publicly isn't the Trump Doctrine; its more properly the Gates Declaration, and for those of you of a certain age, Gates was Obama's SECDEF when he made his farewell address to the Alliance, in 2012. Frankly, outside of the Poles and Balts, nothing has changed, for reasons set forth, below.
Second, Euro government budgeteering, esp. inside of the EU, is complex on a scale that would baffle the average GS15/SES DC bureaucrat, let alone a well meaning person attempting to stay informed from the outside. Suffice it say there are really no agreed to measure within the Alliance, to say nothing of the EU that all NATO/EU members agree to in budget terms. Lots of political wriggle room, unsurprising likely by design.
Third, there is a huge disjunct between what NATO/EU military strategy IS, versus aspirational declarations, NAC statements and the like. The Irish Sea Service Reserve has 77 members. Recent reporting says the Bundeswehr has 50,000 issued rifles. At this point, you are just no longer an active participant in your own defense. The UK and France are the outliers, mostly out of the dynamics of large overseas commitments/EEZs and the requirements to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent. So, the majority of NATO and EU militaries (and the overlap is duplicative, often at cross purposes, and political necessarily and vital) exist to be tripwire forces that are large enough to die in a fashion that will politically motivate NAC or some other mechanism of American military involvement.
Fourth, that's been great strategy for the Europeans writ large, except that by 2012, see Gates Declaration above, it was clear that it was getting overcome by events. That hasn't improved. One big issue is that institutional mechanisms that take government money and turns them DOTMLPF into actual military capacity, simply no longer, even in larger nations. You could give them a Wonka Golden Ticket of military money, and they don't maintain the bureaucracy.
In this episode of Yes, Prime Minister, the PM wants to cancel nuclear submarines in favor of conventional forces and is prevented from doing so by the entrenched bureaucracy.
Missing the boat assumes that the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden will be as clean as the Autobahn in a matter of weeks. I have yet to see signs that the US Administration is committed to undertaking the bug hunt and resupply interdiction necessary for the elimination of risk to shipping in the region. Today's announcement that the Houthis will be placed on the terrorist JV roster 30 days in the future is yet another indication of half measures. If I had to place a bet that either Houthis will have stopped attacking shipping a month from now or that the Persian Gulf and North Arabian Sea are fully involved, I would take the latter. IMO there with be plenty of opportunity for the RAN to ante up. They may come late to the table but the piles of chips will be mostly the same.
Won't argue that, but...would argue "power" is in the eye of the beholder. How many surface combatants, subs and aircraft does UK have that can actually deploy? TBF, I'd take a good hard look at our numbers as well.
To the larger point of CDR's article, defense is just not a priority for most of NATO. A big influencer on the UK is apparently an inability to recruit. Previously noted, the U.S. shares issues that impact recruitment with the UK (and Europe). School systems teach the young (of all ethnicities) that your nation sucks, so why would you sign up to fight for it? The land forces are the largest component, so they suffer recruitment difficulties the most. Same for us and our army, although problems exist across the board with USAF and USN. Big apologies up front if I'm coming across badly here. The west collectively has been "admiring the problem(s)" for a very long time; not sure how much time we have left...
As one of the few crayon eaters on this substack, I must take a moment to point out that my Alma Matter is cooking the books to make mission on recruiting.
For background, I worked at Marine Corps Recruiting Command HQ from 2000 - 2001.
Traditionally, the USMC Does outperform all other branches in this regard.
However, for the last 2 years, to make mission, MCRC has been gutting the delayed contract pool to advance ship recruits in order to ensure we don't miss annual numbers.
That can only work for so long, as we will soon exhaust that resource, and then we will have to come up with another way to cook the books in order to pretend we are not facing an existential crisis.
I just saw a news blurb recently mentioning that the Navy wasnt currently able to field 75 combat capable ships. Considering thats a pretty important yardstick, at least somebody is looking. Im just suprised that statement made it into the public realm- considering the classification of so many readiness measurements like INSURV lately...
While you are correct about NATO, the elephant in the room is demographics. Not just China but all the west. We cannot recruit those that were never born. The US has 20-25% less 18 year olds each year.
This is occurring at the same time we are re-shoring/friend-shoring thus needing more labor. This is occurring at the same time as the debt bomb. This is occurring as our leadership/elite class seems psychologically unable to make good long term changes. It seems as though they are stuck in a sinking ship mode. Everyone is running for the lifeboats and no one is dealing with the flooding.
The percentage figures of GDP spent don't take into account programmed inefficiencies (Canada making everything bilingual, despite it being far less expensive to teach the francophones to speak english), criminal corruption in (say) Greece and the Balkans, etc...
And mission #1 for NATO when a war starts is to blow up HQ in Brussels... If the enemy doesn't do it first (if they're smart, they won't).
Luxembourg is an odd duck. Much of the working population isn't resident in the country, and it historically was a speedbump between Germany and France. I'm not sure they could provide much more.
We might as well start with Canada 🇨🇦 😔
56°13' OR FIGHT!
As much as I respect the men and women of the Canadian Forces, be sure to schedule the S. Dakota Civil Air Patrol, Brownie Troop 233 from Jacksonville, Fl and the Marina Del Rey Sea Cadets for the invasion
Always been a jobs program. Would be interesting to see it attempt to focus on war fighting
Christian: You beat me to it. A jobs program, a vendor showcase and buying club, all in one.
My God! You sound like Trump! 😀
No, Trump sounds like me. I beat him on this topic by a decade.
Sal for SECNAV in the next Trump administration!
Fully endorse this comment 1,000%!!!
Sal will need someone at Commerce, Transportation and Energy to give him the industrial base he needs to build ships and someone at Treasury and the Fed to create a financial system to support that base. Your country may be calling upon your services yet again.
I'd rather be at DARPA. I have WAY too many ideas bouncing around up here. It's almost embarrassing for a Marine.
But honestly, I'm not holding my breath. I volunteered for Trump v1.0 and never even got a call back, even though I was willing to take a substantial pay cut.
Unless he has a solid team to staff government, Trump v2.0 is going to make the same mistakes that Trump v1.0 did.
He saw the bureaucracy as the enemy (rightly) and so he wanted to starve it, by not filling positions, and then those he did fill were staffed by establishment Repubs.
ANY Republican coming into office in late January, 2025, needs to have a plan in advance to fill EVERY billet they possibly can fill with solid conservatives starting on day 1, and then a new round of executive orders reclassifying all supervisory positions with policy implementation authority as 'at will'.
I hope, but do not have great optimism in this regard.
Didn't get a call back from Trump,🤔.
I think he'll do better in this regard on second pass. He knows how bad the RINOs in the establishment really are now.
That said, wrt "I have WAY too many ideas bouncing around up here. It's almost embarrassing for a Marine" how many ways are there to eat a crayon anyway?!
:)
Ooo, Ooo, Ooo! (raising hand and waving it) DASN Ships for me, as long as I don't have to actually LIVE in the DC area. My sanity is far too important to me to expose it to that risk. Conversely, I'll also support ANYONE that will force Big Navy to stop playing games with the realities of building ships.
Or CNO
Come for his NATO commentary, stay for his naval observations.
I'm glad Trump sounds like you. Wish a lot more of DoD (and by inference NATO) did as well.
In Southeast Asia they have an acronym in the common civilian vernacular in both Indonesia and the PI: NATO...not the alliance, but short for "No Action, Talk Only".
Worked with Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk for decades. Jobs program: Check, soft intel collection effort: check, laser focused on process minutiae with zero regard for actual desired outcomes / goals: check. Measuring light speed progress in years and decades: Check.
No surprise talking is much preferred to spending money on actual capabilities. Note the UK is further reducing their ground forces by 10%. Hats off to the Finns and Poles; they see the future and are trying to prepare (Polish government appears to be in trouble now). Invade Finland from the east and good luck, you will need it.
Tbf, the British are a naval/aerospace power like us. Like us, they need to spend more on sea and sky and less for land.
Brett, as a long time reader of Sal you must have skipped over the blogpost from the 15th. True "naval/aerospace powers" don't decomm ships in their prime due to lack of crew, and run an aircraft carrier around for 14 months with no aircraft.
When you have a bloated social services line-up, nobody wants their side of the trough to be cut-off.
My understanding is the QE-carrier battle groups were never intended to be deployed as a RN-only force but a mix of RN and several other NATO surface ships to make up its battle group. The push to have carrier based on THAT side of the pond was to take the strain off of US carrier and the impending shift to Pacific deployments/needs.
The British are a conquered people, what a joke.
I prefer diminished, as we are as well.
I would bet those below the cut line that host US or NATO HQs, installations, et al, might sing a different tune if US would renegotiate stationing rights and support….i.e. the Fatherland…howzabout unrestricted flight hours at Ramstein and for Apache low level training ? Return Graf and Hohenfels to 24/7 ops. Sure it would suck for the Batsi’s….but that would get Markus Soder to step up to stolz, et al…likewise, relook all thebhost nation support for Panzer Kaserne and Clay Kaserne…of better yet, look who is above the 2% cut line and see if they might be interested in hosting….
Am sure Spain and Tuerkei would be interested in renegotiating as well.
Oh, but that would require DOS and DOD to do something other than focus on dei.
"...DOS and DOD to do something other than focus on dei."
They will require drag shows for children.
Last time someone talked about moving troops from Germany to Poland? He was anti-NATO and any mention of Poland was not to be found in the mainstream reporting.
Write up your thoughts and SECDEF will review when he has recovered.
I submit the following as the basis for a proper alliance:
We should be dumping NATO and all other "mutual defense" treaties, that being code for "Defense Welfare at American Expense and American Risk," and renegotiate our treaties, if any, on the following principles:
1. We must be able to trace secure and unconstrained sea lines or rail lines or a combination thereof to you. This means, for example, currently, “No, Poland, sorry, but Germany is currently weak and unreliable. Thus we cannot trace secure SLOC or rail to you, hence cannot guarantee to defend you. So we won’t lie to you and say we can. You may have our sympathy but that’s all; you’re on your own.” This means, in Europe and the Med, in any case, that we could be allied with Morocco, France, the UK, and Portugal, but not Spain without Portugal, not Germany without France, and not Italy without Portugal, Spain, France, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, nor Norway or France without the UK. For example.
2. You must field forces commensurate with your population and economic situation, _before_ accounting for the costs of your welfare state, the maintenance of which is no concern of ours. The short formula is that you must spend 4% of GDP on defense, and we will tell you how to spend it. In fact, we will tell you what you must do, spend, and field.
3. You may, in the alternative, simply turn over 4% of your GDP to us, and grant us the right to recruit freely among your population, plus give us any colors demanded so we can field units with some tradition.
4. You must agree, in advance, that if you reneg on or otherwise neglect your responsibilities under this alliance, we and your neighbors may invade without further warning to set your society and government aright.
5. You agree in advance to send whatever troops we demand, to do whatever we want done, for as long as we want it done, and that neglecting to do so will trigger paragraph 4, above.
6. We will have veto power over the appointment of your flag officers.
7. If you have signed onto them, you must immediately denounce (oddly, the proper term) The Ottawa Anti-personnel Landmine Ban, the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court, and the Protocols Additional One and Two to Geneva Convention IV. You must not house or give succor in any form to the ICC.
8. You must vote with us/as we direct you, in the UN, 100% of the time.
9. Your foreign policy is subject to our approval and veto.
10. You must accept, as part of your domestic law, the American Bill of Rights as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. If you do not, then a) clearly we are politically incompatible and b) you are just another tyranny and not worth defending.
I think I could support this form of the alliance and, moreover, that it would, in the long run, be better for the allies. But, ya know, if they don't like these arrangement, so what? It's not like we need them for anything.
It’s “ok” to make these assertions as NATO - somehow I doubt you’d endorse Russia issuing the same directives to their allies.
Russia can do as it likes. I'm perfectly happy being allied to no one in Europe. If they want our protection, at our risk, this is what we ought demand in return.
I doubt you'd feel the same way if Walmart, Sam's club, Costco, and your local grocery store can't keep anything on the shelves and inflation get's to Venezuelan levels.
That's what happens when you turn your back on allies who can't stand up to China or Russia on their own.
Our entire economy is built upon global trade.
Are there MANY things here I would change? sure. But you destroy our place at the head of the global economy and you destroy us. Not overnight, but with absolute certainty.
Frankly, William, screw the global economy. Moreover, industry is coming home at breakneck speed. Why? Because we have the only genuinely secure energy supplies in the world.
Respectfully disagree. I agree we SHOULD be energy independent. I agree we should have the flexibility to act in our own interests.
But in nearly every other respect, the world you are describing has not actually existed for more than 30 years.
And with respect, Industry is trickling home. We can and should do more on those issues.
But again, you turn your back on our allies and your grandchildren will be bowing to portraits of Chairman Mao (if they aren't already)
This is a purely self-interested argument.
Then there is the moral argument. We are, or were, a Christian nation. We should be so again. As such, do you really propose standing by and allowing genocide or ethnic cleansing?
I'm no NEOCon. I DO NOT believe in trying to ush regime change around the world and trying to remake barbarian and tribal societies into democracies.
But everybody wants to make this into an argument of extremes, ie,, isolationism vs Globalism/neocons.
I'm in the middle.
We have the power, and the responsibility.
We should act to preserve our role at the top of the global economy, BOTH because it benefits us AND because it has raised more people out of slavery and starvation than any other thing in the history of humanity.
We have no responsibility to them, William. Zero, zip, zylch, nada, none. "We are the friends of liberty everywhere but the guardians only of our own."
The big mistake, the really BIG mistake that screwed up the whole planet was our getting involved in European squabbles. If we'd stayed out of the Great War, if we'd not let the proto-globalists drag us into something that was none of our business, Germany would have gone on to win the Great War. Think about that; no Hitler, no Lenin (not of any account, anyway, or for long), no Mao, no Pol Pot, no Castro. Hundreds of millions were done to death as a result of our meddling.
I'd rather we just went home and let the world go to complete hell, of course, but if they're willing to pay, for the very first time, a fair price for our defense I'm willing to help them, too. And if not? Their choice and they can all go to Hell with it.
"Americans should not go abroad to slay dragons they do not understand in the name of spreading democracy."
John Quincy Adams
Jpow going brrrrrrr has a lot more to do with inflation than cutting off Chinese trinkets.
It's a military organization so somebody needs to be in charge. So why not the firstest with the mostest? That'd be us based on our (past) track record. But who's going to rally to a Milley, an Austin, a Levine, a Vindman, a Biden? Our leaders can't even rally recruits here. Nah. We need a real Coalition of the Willing...not a cow, no BS. The Willing. You want to be a member of an alliance? Then commit. No umbrella for the weak sisters and freeloaders. But yeah, someone needs to take the reins and maybe even jerk a knot in their collective keisters. But, ya know, COL Kratman, they won't like these arrangements. They'll balk at your every issue. So what? It's not like we can rely on them for much of anything anyway.
See Section 4, the "or else" section.
I agree on almost every level, but can we stop equating Richard Levine with the military. He's in the uniformed public health service, which is in itself a joke. They fall under HHS, they have no enlisted or warrant ranks, and they are legally classified as non-combatants.
But "Admiral" Levine is such an irresistible trope, and a sharp stick to the eye. He's a belle that cannot be unrung.
"It's in the uniformed public heath service" FIFY.
no matter how crazy or mutilated HE is, HE is still a HE and always will be a HE.
No amount of drugs, surgery or wishful/deluded thinking will ever change ANY Male into anything other than a Male, and vice versa.
Why yes, of course. Was trying for a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. Obviously failed.
Never blame the comic if the audience doesn't get a good joke.
I'm a little tone deaf on that issue, as my daughter lost out on placement in cross country to a male pretending to be female, and we are worried she may face the same issue in her swimming.
What makes you think he's mutilated, you checked?
"they won't like these arrangements."
They never do. I believe Eisenhower and Roosevelt had some problems with our "allies" even as we were spending American lives and dollars fighting for their very existence.
How would you handle the resulting nuclear proliferation issue? I count a minimum of three new nuclear weapons states as a result of your proposed policy.
You mean if Europe decided the price was too high? With our own ABM system and tight borders and ports.
I guess we can dream of tight borders and ports. My confidence of any bipartisan policy actually doing this is quite low. I believe any policy that involves never electing Democrats again is not serious.
It would not surprise me if IRN detonates an underground nuclear weapon by mid-2024. SAU will join very quickly thereafter. The current US policy is essentially no policy.
Those two are not even on my minimum list, which were Turkey (nuclear sharing partner), Poland (requested nuclear sharing in June 2023), and Romania (did it before when it was in the communist sphere and much poorer).
So, with respect, this is a recipe for the utter and complete ruin of the US economy.
Like it or not, our support guarantees both that allies will take advantage and ride our coat tails, but also that they will remain independent of the pressure of Russia and China.
Few countries will fight a major power unless they have no choice, or unless they think the US really has their back.
Your plan would result - within a decade or two, in Russia and China browbeating everyone in their neighborhood into economically distancing themselves from the US, eventually resulting in the dollar falling and the Yuan rising as the global currency.
Then, we will become noting more than a debt ridden former power, with a big military we can't afford.
You want the benefits of a global economy we built, you have to work to keep it, even if that means doing more than our share.
The world ain't fair.
But if you think we have problems now, imagine trying to weather a NEW great depression that won't end, since China will be the dominant global economy.
Like it or not, our standard of living and freedom are STILL better than anywhere else on earth, and that depends on trade and the global economy, from which we benefit far more than almost anyone else.
Any idea how little of our GDP is global trade and of that little how much is Mexico and Canada, who will remain our bitches, like it or not? We are less involved in the global system, for which we pay, (and get less benefit from it)as a percentage of GDP, than any country except South Sudan and possibly Afghanistan.
I absolutely and unreservedly disagree. You are thinking in small terms, like how many widgets we import or export from somewhere. We are dependant on imports because we don't build enough shit.
We are also the center of the global information economy, and information is now more valuable than hard goods. This is why patent infringement and IP theft are such an issue.
Global markets depend on the stability of the US dollar. The financial stability of most Americans depends on the stability of Wall St. More and more Americans depend on Social Security as their primary (or only) source of retirement.
You are focused on percentages. I'm focused on reality. If enough countries fall under the pressure sway of Russia and China, the stability of the dollar will implode. It doesn't matter if the changes are only 2%.
The system is fragile as it is. like a bridge with weak girders. It might have 50, but taking out 1 or 2 might be enough to cause it's collapse.
The fever dream of the US as a proud independent nation ruling over North America and ignoring the rest of the world is just that, a silly dream.
Just like the NEOCons are fools for their fiction of democratizing the world by force, isolationism is no less foolish or fantastical thinking.
In the real world, we built a system and we re as much dependent on that system as many others. We turn our backs on that and we will suffer greatly.
China is unlikely to survive as a single country for another 20 years. (Zeihan says ten but I think he underestimates the ability of a fascist state to manipulate the emotions). Russia and China both are in demographic collapse. Other than for nukes they are no threat. If Germany, with a GDP of 4.1 Trillion cannot handle Russia with a gdp only a little over half that then Germany is worthless to both of us.
I am, however, willing to make some accomodation to Japan, the PI, Taiwan, and Vietnam until China collapses. After that, same deal as for everyone else.
That assessment of China is so wholly uninformed it makes me cringe. It is the EPITOMIE of "Western Hubris".
China has survived for THOUSANDS of years.
Look, I know your no liberal, so stop and think for a second. What you just described is EXACTLY how the spinless idiots at Foggy Bottom think, and how we get into so much trouble in the first place.
Magical thinking that presupposes other people will think and act in ways that make sense to us.
Chinese culture will go NoWhere!.
Internal CCP/PRC power is stronger now than it has been at any time since Mao.
And Americans tend to assume everyone else thinks about dictatorships and autocratic leadership the same way we do.
China, in the last 4,000 years, has NEVER known true representative rule.
Their people value stability and obedience to central authority. It's as baked into their culture as apple pie is to ours.
It can sustain FAR greater levels of authoritarian rule. we are nowhere near peak Chinese power.
See, the Western intellectual class convinced themselves that history was over, and that all peoples would eventually gravitate toward a peaceful, mostly democratic form of governance with heavy socialist overtones. Because they thought it was the pinnacle of human governance.
They made no allowance for the fact that other cultures value different things.
Ironically, you are using a globalist argument to support your rationale that China will not be a threat, and that a more isolationist policy can succeed.
Demographic collapse will only make China MORE dangerous. It will make them even more determined to hold dominion over everyone in Asia so as to have access to those populations for what will amount to serfdom.
I invite your attention to Zeihan's various talks. He's not always right, of course, but he appears to be right on this.
You're mistaking China's continued existence, as a culture, for China's unified existence, as a powerful state. No, these are different and, while the former is certain, the latter is vanishingly unlikely.
WRT "the dollar" why are more countries NOT using the dollar in exchange? Nearly 20 countries now are using native currencies in trade. Why? Well for one, we froze a sovereign country's dollar holdings - Russia. And they all think "hmmm, could happen to us". Another is more and more countries have and are buying gold to support their currency. We simply issue more debt - more than $1 Trillion in 15 weeks from last Sept. We are now at 125% debt to gross annual output with INTEREST eating over 30% of all tax revenue. The dollar will implode when the rest of the world simply stops buying at the weekly auctions.
Unrestrained Hubris is THE most deadly enemy to a nation's continued growth. We are approaching that 250 year anniversary as a nation and I'd venture a guess it might be a little too early to start celebrating.
"information is now more valuable than hard goods"
Shell starved Ukraine would disagree.
Shell starved Ukraine survives on its ability to make much better use of the shells it has than the Russian military.
Nice cope, but no. What's keeping Russians offensive operations in check is their inability to protect their assault forces from Ukrainian drones.
"We are dependant on imports "
That may be true, but that also means our trading partners are dependent on Exports (to us), which means they have to keep us at least a little happy.
this is true, however, because China and Russia are autocratic societies, accustomed to authoritarian rule, they have FAR more leeway to force their populations to accept pain and suffering in ways our population would never accept.
So at the end of the day, they CAN live without us far easier than we can live without them.
But, nuance is important. I don't think the Chinese elite dream of a world in which the US is wiped off the map.
But they do dream of a world in which the US is reduced to a 2nd rate power that is beholden to them for the trinkets that keep our increasingly listless population sated.
The US is in the process of doing without China. The Chinese dream is to control the world. Same with Putin, both are vanishingly unlikely to do so.
Ruin the US economy, for whom? The bankers on Wall Street?
I actually have 7 goats. Nigerian Dwarf's. 2x 3yr old does ready to breed, 3 yearlings (2 currently pregnant) and 2x 1 month old bottle babies...
...and ALL 7 of them have a better grasp of foreign affairs and geopolitics than you do.
Seriously. I'm pretty sure nobody here other than Russian and Chinese trolls takes you seriously, so do me a favor and stop responding on my comments.
If I need to kill brain cells, I have plenty of model glue to sniff, so reading your drivel is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.
In the not unlikely case that you are a Russian or Chinese troll, that would make it a war crime.
Hey, I wonder if I can get the VA to add that to my disability rating...
Throwing the baby out with the bath water. Steady, firm influence with both rewards and prodding in concert with those of like mind.
Served two NATO tours--Canada and Italy (NAVSOUTH). really like your formula proposal. Any way we can do similar with our own bloated FOGO ranks?
Congress caps GO/FO numbers, but I don't think there's a floor. Since we occifers serve "at the pleasure of the president," the GO/FO ranks could be unilaterally & drastically slashed by a president who gives neither a damn nor a f*** about bad publicity.
Such a brave soul might follow up by frocking a bunch of O6 and O5 superstars to fill the truly critical billets, and leave the superfluous billets (and staffs) vacant.
POTUS could start with the Coast Guard as a proof-of-concept exercise. I'll bet the late, great ADM Russell Waesche would smile down in approval.
Yea Verily
Might as well. If we were to start necking down staffs, quite a bit could be removed.
Wonder how many of those sea billets we're coming up short on could be filled??
Canada had better increase it’s defense spending or the PLA might cancel joint training programs.
:-)
Once again I ask my friends; why must we pretend Belgium and Luxembourg are real countries?
Blame Lord Palmerston for that.
King Leopold II...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Leopold_ii_garter_knight.jpg
---single-handedly put Belgium's foothold in the community of nations in the dumper.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/
Leopold II...
A spectacularly evil man...
https://allthatsinteresting.com/king-leopold-ii
And the icing on the cake of his depredations...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-kinshasa-1920s-was-perfect-place-hiv-go-global-180952953/
So, there is what is political, and what is actual, and Alliance and EU/US engagement is a prime example of this.
First, calling out the Euros on defense spending publicly isn't the Trump Doctrine; its more properly the Gates Declaration, and for those of you of a certain age, Gates was Obama's SECDEF when he made his farewell address to the Alliance, in 2012. Frankly, outside of the Poles and Balts, nothing has changed, for reasons set forth, below.
Second, Euro government budgeteering, esp. inside of the EU, is complex on a scale that would baffle the average GS15/SES DC bureaucrat, let alone a well meaning person attempting to stay informed from the outside. Suffice it say there are really no agreed to measure within the Alliance, to say nothing of the EU that all NATO/EU members agree to in budget terms. Lots of political wriggle room, unsurprising likely by design.
Third, there is a huge disjunct between what NATO/EU military strategy IS, versus aspirational declarations, NAC statements and the like. The Irish Sea Service Reserve has 77 members. Recent reporting says the Bundeswehr has 50,000 issued rifles. At this point, you are just no longer an active participant in your own defense. The UK and France are the outliers, mostly out of the dynamics of large overseas commitments/EEZs and the requirements to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent. So, the majority of NATO and EU militaries (and the overlap is duplicative, often at cross purposes, and political necessarily and vital) exist to be tripwire forces that are large enough to die in a fashion that will politically motivate NAC or some other mechanism of American military involvement.
Fourth, that's been great strategy for the Europeans writ large, except that by 2012, see Gates Declaration above, it was clear that it was getting overcome by events. That hasn't improved. One big issue is that institutional mechanisms that take government money and turns them DOTMLPF into actual military capacity, simply no longer, even in larger nations. You could give them a Wonka Golden Ticket of military money, and they don't maintain the bureaucracy.
Speaking of allies where is Australia? Didn't we sign a treaty with them recently? I don't see any of their ships in the Gulf of Aden.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-misses-the-boat-in-the-red-sea/
Australia misses the boat in the Red Sea
21 Dec 2023|Malcolm Davis
In this episode of Yes, Prime Minister, the PM wants to cancel nuclear submarines in favor of conventional forces and is prevented from doing so by the entrenched bureaucracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhYK1wYkTyw&t=23s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KId-GgDcGk
Fortunately, this is only a comedy.
There is a scary amount of truth in that series, but yes, hilarious. Particularly for those of us who had Pentagon tours.
Missing the boat assumes that the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden will be as clean as the Autobahn in a matter of weeks. I have yet to see signs that the US Administration is committed to undertaking the bug hunt and resupply interdiction necessary for the elimination of risk to shipping in the region. Today's announcement that the Houthis will be placed on the terrorist JV roster 30 days in the future is yet another indication of half measures. If I had to place a bet that either Houthis will have stopped attacking shipping a month from now or that the Persian Gulf and North Arabian Sea are fully involved, I would take the latter. IMO there with be plenty of opportunity for the RAN to ante up. They may come late to the table but the piles of chips will be mostly the same.
Shades of Gulf of Tonkin 1964...
Won't argue that, but...would argue "power" is in the eye of the beholder. How many surface combatants, subs and aircraft does UK have that can actually deploy? TBF, I'd take a good hard look at our numbers as well.
To the larger point of CDR's article, defense is just not a priority for most of NATO. A big influencer on the UK is apparently an inability to recruit. Previously noted, the U.S. shares issues that impact recruitment with the UK (and Europe). School systems teach the young (of all ethnicities) that your nation sucks, so why would you sign up to fight for it? The land forces are the largest component, so they suffer recruitment difficulties the most. Same for us and our army, although problems exist across the board with USAF and USN. Big apologies up front if I'm coming across badly here. The west collectively has been "admiring the problem(s)" for a very long time; not sure how much time we have left...
The USMC hits its goals, though. Which makes you wonder if the Air Force is quite as smart as it likes to think.
As one of the few crayon eaters on this substack, I must take a moment to point out that my Alma Matter is cooking the books to make mission on recruiting.
For background, I worked at Marine Corps Recruiting Command HQ from 2000 - 2001.
Traditionally, the USMC Does outperform all other branches in this regard.
However, for the last 2 years, to make mission, MCRC has been gutting the delayed contract pool to advance ship recruits in order to ensure we don't miss annual numbers.
That can only work for so long, as we will soon exhaust that resource, and then we will have to come up with another way to cook the books in order to pretend we are not facing an existential crisis.
Lies, damned lies and statistics.
I just saw a news blurb recently mentioning that the Navy wasnt currently able to field 75 combat capable ships. Considering thats a pretty important yardstick, at least somebody is looking. Im just suprised that statement made it into the public realm- considering the classification of so many readiness measurements like INSURV lately...
While you are correct about NATO, the elephant in the room is demographics. Not just China but all the west. We cannot recruit those that were never born. The US has 20-25% less 18 year olds each year.
This is occurring at the same time we are re-shoring/friend-shoring thus needing more labor. This is occurring at the same time as the debt bomb. This is occurring as our leadership/elite class seems psychologically unable to make good long term changes. It seems as though they are stuck in a sinking ship mode. Everyone is running for the lifeboats and no one is dealing with the flooding.
Interesting times.
The percentage figures of GDP spent don't take into account programmed inefficiencies (Canada making everything bilingual, despite it being far less expensive to teach the francophones to speak english), criminal corruption in (say) Greece and the Balkans, etc...
And mission #1 for NATO when a war starts is to blow up HQ in Brussels... If the enemy doesn't do it first (if they're smart, they won't).
Luxemborg - highest per capita GDP in NATO, lowest contribution. Dang! That's a good gig if you can get it. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/gdp_per_capita_ppp/NATO/
Luxembourg is an odd duck. Much of the working population isn't resident in the country, and it historically was a speedbump between Germany and France. I'm not sure they could provide much more.
Iceland is the same. They don't even have an army.
spot. effing. on.
the slackers will get serious when the GLCMs get launched in their direction...