NATO GDP's and the 2014 Narrative

Trump's criticism of NATO member countries is getting some press and yet once again mainstream outlets like NPR and the BBC disappoint.

First, they ought to be explaining that this tension with Washington is driving EU leading nations like France and Germany toward forming NATO-independent military structures. The implications of this not only signal the potential collapse of NATO and Atlanticism, but the potential for an arms race, and the EU pursuing an alternative and possibly rival foreign policy to the US in the Middle East and the developing world. Additionally a remilitarised Europe could spell disaster in the wake of an EU collapse.

I do not say this as a NATO fan. Quite the contrary, I would like to see it disbanded but I am more surprised by coverage that does nothing to help its consumers understand the world around them.

While there's a great deal of focus on the fact that EU Nations are being called to spend 2% of GDP on military spending, the United States spends roughly 5.5% of GDP on its military. This is especially noteworthy given the size of US GDP.... six times that of Germany, nine times greater than the UK, France and Italy. While China's GDP is roughly 2/3 of the United States, Russia's GDP is far down the list in the neighbourhood of Spain and Australia. It would take thirteen Russian economies to begin to equal the US and that's only by the measure of GDP.

Given that Australia's population is 25 million, Spain's is 47 million and yet Russia with its 144 million can only equal them economically... is telling. Once again Russia is not the powerhouse it's made out to be. Yes it has a considerable nuclear arsenal, and yet the state of Russia's overall military is questionable.

Official statistics put US military spending at about 3.5% of GDP but this is misleading as the Pentagon budget does not cover the full spectrum of defense-intelligence spending. The nuclear arsenal isn't even included in the Pentagon budget. The budget doesn't cover the wars that are currently being fought. Then you have to add in portions of the Homeland Security budget, the budgets of the NSA, CIA, NRO and then of course veteran's affairs. This is all part of the US military colossus of which the true budget, the true cost to the United States is well over 1 trillion a year.

Now to say that the United States spends 5-6% of its GDP on military spending is not to condemn Europe. Rather I think it's important to understand the true nature of US military machine. Contrary to the standard line about how the US spends more than the next seven nations combined, the truth is the United States spends more than virtually the rest of the world combined.

The story here is not Europe's lack of spending but what the United States spends... and demands. That story won't be told. And yet for all that America spends, it's apparently not enough. Washington wants Europe to spend a lot more... so it can build a new fortress Europe and have the funds for the wars the US is fighting in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and soon... Asia.

The US has already militarised Europe. Though troop numbers are but a fraction of what they were during the Cold War, the US still maintains over 60,000 ground and naval troops in Europe, several air wings, nuclear bombs in multiple countries, the sixth fleet, and after reducing the tank presence to near zero, the US is rapidly moving tanks, armament and other vehicles to Europe, mostly locating this hardware in the East.

Periodically some have sounded the alarm over conventional war scenarios. The Russians have always outnumbered everyone when it comes to tanks. Even while the US had 250,000 personnel and thousands of tanks stationed on European soil, the Russian still outnumbered the US.

The US troops were never meant to fight a conventional war against the USSR. They were viewed as a deterrent, a trip-wire and perhaps a means of delay. The US strategy was that if the USSR invaded Western Europe the response would be nuclear.

Billions and perhaps trillions of dollars were spent watching and waiting for an invasion that not only never happened, it was never even in the cards. The Soviets never intended to invade the West. Not to defend the brutal and quite evil USSR but their actions in Eastern Europe after the war were and are consistently misunderstood by Western analysts. In some cases this is deliberate in keeping with a larger narrative and set of policies.

Today, due to the significant drop in US presence there are those that believe the Russians would win a conventional war were they to invade Europe and get into a fight with NATO. While they still have their tanks, there are some that believe Russian numbers and prowess are grossly overrated. While Putin has used oil money to rebuild the Russian military it still is outdated, largely dilapidated and despite the statistics, a lot of their aircraft and equipment are dysfunctional, operating at levels insufficient to engage in active let alone prolonged warfare.

The question for the US at present is.... if Russia were to invade, would the US resort to nuclear weapons or be willing to take considerable losses to defeat Russia on the battlefield? I think most analysts (except for those who have an interest in US escalation or production) would agree that NATO would win such a fight but it wouldn't be like the US march to Baghdad.

Personally I don't believe Putin has any designs or plans to invade NATO territory. I believe this is a Western psy-op to justify not a policy of so-called containment but to mask American militarism and aggression. Putin may be evil but he isn't stupid and once again he's misunderstood.

I will also grant that undoubtedly China, Russia and (for the sake of discussion) India have sharply increased military spending. While this still represents but a fragment of what the US spends it may be that American spending no longer is greater than the rest of the world combined, but it is still without rival, without any other nation even coming close.

Additionally, the discussion keeps harking back to 2014. Just the other day I heard a US diplomat lie and manipulate the truth while being interviewed on the radio. According to him in 2014 everything changed because of Russia's annexation of the Crimea. It was in light of this that NATO members agreed to the 2% target.

He went on to say that Russia's actions in 2014 completely changed the post-WWII order. It was the first time a territory had been militarily seized on European soil since WWII. Moscow smashed the post-war status quo by their actions and thus (effectively) the nature of NATO must change.

What he forgot to mention was that in 1999 NATO effectively annexed Kosovo, militarily wresting it away from Serbian control. The process was completed in 2008 when the US proxy completed the already de facto reality and formally declared independence from Serbia. The new nation was diplomatically recognised by a slim majority of UN members. Despite this victory for US/NATO imperialism, it is noteworthy that 40% of the UN does not recognise Kosovo's independence, including a handful of nations found within the EU and NATO. It remains controversial, itself a mark of waning US power, but you won't hear that discussed in the Anglo-American media. The US via NATO (and not Russia) was the first nation to militarily annex territory on European soil since the World War II. Because it was not directly appropriated into the political structure of the United States or another NATO nation but was instead left ostensibly independent.... the US State Department can deny this reality. This is despite that fact that Kosovo has jokingly been referred to as the 51^st state. The nation is a US creation and completely dependent on Washington.

The real game change was in 1991 when the USSR collapsed and yet NATO did not disband. Eager for justification, within the decade NATO was involved in two wars in the Balkans and by the end of 2001 was involved in the US conquest of Afghanistan.

The next series of 'game changes' came in 1999 and 2004 when NATO added ten new nations, all of which were former parts of either the USSR or the Warsaw Pact, Slovenia being the only exception as it had been part of Communist but Non-Aligned Yugoslavia.

Albania was later added and NATO has continued to move on Moscow seeking to bring both Georgia and Ukraine into its fold. While Azerbaijan is not a member of NATO, the Caspian/Sub-Caucasian nation is part of NATO's Partnership for Peace programme, which effectively makes it a junior partner. It is these factors that have driven Russia to act.

We could also include the expansion of the EU. While not as threatening to Russia as NATO, in many ways they go together.

Finally the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in December 2001, a move that left Moscow both stunned and threatened.

It was the collapse of the USSR that brought about the changes of the post-WWII order. This factor combined with subsequent US actions and aggressions that have set the stage for the present.

These events mark the 'game change' that set the stage for Russian intervention in Crimea in 2014. The US diplomat was completely disingenuous and dishonest but he's simply parroting the official narrative and it's what the media wants.

Any discussion of Russian actions in Crimea without the larger context are inaccurate, disingenuous and likely a case of deliberate deception.