Thursday, August 13, 2020

Seriously Germany?

Germany spends more time trying to avoid their 2014 commitment to NATO to spend 2% of GDP on defense by 2024 than they do meeting that commitment.

Just stop:

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is pushing for a new yardstick to measure Berlin's contributions to NATO, suggesting the country could shoulder 10 percent of alliance requirements.

The figure is meant to reflect the share of NATO’s total “planning targets,” which are tabulated periodically, a defense ministry spokesman told Defense News. Such math would be able to more accurately capture Germany’s efforts across the categories “cash, capabilities and commitments” than the current defense-spending objective of 2 percent of GDP, according to the spokesman.

Three and a half years ago the Germans floated another idea to avoid meeting the commitment they made in the Obama era to spend 2% on defense.

The wealthy Germans should be ashamed of their failure to meet alliance defense spending responsibilities and nobody should be fooled by the new excuse of the Bad Orange Man for not meeting that goal on time.

In 1942 the German army reached the Volga River. Today they'd have trouble reaching the Oder.

The Germans should simply focus on meeting their actual commitment to NATO and stop their word games to avoid that commitment.