Obama administration SecDef calls out European freeloading leeches

[^_^ 5,021]

Even so, Gates' assessment ... that NATO is falling down on its obligations and foisting too much of the hard work on the U.S. was unusually harsh and unvarnished.

....

"The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress - and in the American body politic writ large - to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense," he said.

Without naming names, he blasted allies who are "willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets."

...

But reluctance of some European nations to expand defense budgets and take on direct combat has created what amounts to a two-tier alliance: the U.S. military at one level and the rest of NATO on a lower, almost irrelevant plane.

Gates said this could spell the demise of NATO.

....

To illustrate his concerns about Europe's lack of appetite for defense, Gates noted the difficulty NATO has encountered in carrying out an air campaign in Libya.

"The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country, yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference," he said.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110610/D9NOU8EG1.html

[scandal 951]

There was a very good discussion of Gates' speech on the Newshour last night.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1991393993

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june11/nato_06-10.html

RICHARD BURT, Former U.S. assistant secretary of state for European affairs: you have got to begin by recognizing that NATO was created and sustained in a very different strategic era.

There were over 500,000 Soviet forces deployed in Eastern Europe arrayed against NATO. And NATO's forces were designed to deter and defend against an attack in Europe. Now, when the Cold War came to an end, for many Europeans, that existential threat came to an end.

And when we think about Afghanistan, we Americans think about Afghanistan as the place where we were attacked by al-Qaida. And so it had very special relevance in terms of their -- of American thinking about its security.

That's not the case in Europe. And in the special case of Germany, the Germans don't believe, given their special history, that military force is necessarily a solution to every problem. And I'm amazed, just to tell you the truth, that there are 45,000 European troops fighting in Afghanistan, and some of those are Germans.

The idea of German forces being deployed outside of Europe, 20 years ago, would have been politically unthinkable.

[luckytxn 2,265]

America needs to remove any and all troops we have in Europe and bring them home. No money should ever be sent to Europe. They are big boys and girls and can handle themselves.