9 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”

1. The NATO bombdoggle

   The USA spends 3.4% of GDP on core defence. Its main adversary is rapidly growing China and its principal theatre of competition the Pacific. The other NATO countries – European plus Canada – have just agreed to a plan to increase core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP or $884bn, 5.4 times that of Russia. Why? (The other 1.5% is for vaguely defined infrastructure and cybersecurity, which can and will be massaged. )

   Then answer is that Trump demanded the others match US defence spending as his price for not walking out of NATO completely, and they caved in (with the honourable exception of Spain). There is no other explanation. There are no quantified lists of threats, or needs in manpower, equipment, and warfighting consumables. It would have been much cheaper for the other members to thank Trump politely for past American services, and plan for a defence without assured American support, which would be welcome in the event. With luck, they will treat this huge concession as a “Trump deal”, valid for just as long as it serves its purpose of buying a breathing-space for adapting to an alliance without the USA, and abandoning it the moment he is gone.

   Euro-NATO faces exactly one conventional adversary: Putin’s Russia, a corrupt, badly run and technologically backward middle-income autocracy dependent on the export of raw materials, particularly fossil fuels facing rapid structural decline. It is a very real threat to its neighbours from its perverse political culture and its huge stockpile of Soviet nuclear weapons.

   At current prices, Russian GDP in 2024 was $2,100 bn. That of NATO ex USA was $25,256 bn, 12 times larger. Russian military expenditure was $149 bn, 7.1% of GDP – and it is fighting a war. That of NATO ex USA was $507 bn, 2.0% of GDP, and 3.4 times that of Russia. (Data on Russia from Wikipedia, data on NATO from NATO https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/6/pdf/240617-def-exp-2024-en.pdf )

   If the NATO countries carry out their promise, these numbers will rise to $884 bn, 3.5% of GDP, and 5 times Russia. Is there any reason to think this is really necessary?

   It can be argued that Russian wages are much lower than European so it pays less for a given quantum of military effectiveness. True, but on the other hand the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the inferiority of the Russian defence industry and armed forces when confronted by motivated troops fielding modern NATO weaponry. Non-American NATO countries pay over the odds for military equipment from capture by national defence contractors. The true ratio of military expenditures is no doubt lower than 3.5x – but surely still over 2x.

   In addition, we must factor in that since Russia is fighting a war and NATO is not, Russia has to spend money on recruitment and war pensions that NATO does not. The biggest adjustment is that Ukraine is not in NATO, and its massive expenditures do not show up on the NATO ledger. Its motivated, experienced and innovative armed forces of 980,000 include what is probably the best army in the world just now. It has not asked NATO for foreign boots on the ground, triggering a dangerous escalation, but for specific types of equipment and ammunition, satellite intelligence and ongoing financial support to allow low-cost domestic production.

   Ii am not arguing that supporting Ukraine and deterring Russian aggression is or could become costless. We have already seen a massive and essential expansion of the NATO production of artillery shells, and other major adaptations are surely necessary. European countries are still humiliatingly dependent on the USA for logistics. The priority however is to give Ukraine what it has asked for, until it wins on the battlefield or judges that Russia is ready to accept a worthwhile negotiated armistice.

   Ukraine’s defence budget is $54 bn, 27% of GDP. If its allies put up $100 bn, Ukraine can match Russian spending and finance its victory. That would be 0.4% of the GDP of NATO minus the USA. Now that I do support.

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2. JW, sorry to say, but that sounds pretty much like the slant we get from the BBC government broadcaster rebroadcast here daily in various formats, sometimes live, sometimes delayed.

   “Euro-NATO faces exactly one conventional adversary: Putin’s Russia…”

   Except it isn’t.

   When not passing on a UK government line, as most but not all BBC rebroadcast content here is, the overly subscribed ABC (and much less so SBS) can be rather good.

   Hard new world — our post-American future, with Hugh White and Allan Behm (52min. 20250630)
   https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/bigideas/our-post-american-future-with-hugh-white-and-allan-behm/105376636

   Refences there from the ABC to USA, Russia, Europe, Ukraine, NATO, costs, military power, etc., but particularly several to resolve. For example: From 28:28 “So what kind of power really counts? …and when the interaction is a contest between states concerning their position in the international system, who’s a great power and who isn’t, amongst the great powers who’s the dominant one… Thucydides (war not inevitable says White?) … these are the contests that are determined by a contest of military power and resolve.” End 30min. A refreshingly realist take.

   Our post-American future — what will the new world order look like? (52min. 20250611)
   https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/hugh-white-trump-america-los-angeles-china-new-world-order/105383566

3. NATO, an Atlantic alliance that does not include Australia. This is a Pacific country, and faces hard strategic choices, as JQ has written, caught between a rising China and a self-destructive USA. I have nothing useful to say on this.

4. You apparently have missed how much ex-US NATO is involved here, and how ar it has extended its remit beyond the Atlantic. Australia takes a seat at all major warmongering Euro / Nato meetings these days. Has permanent functionaries in place with Euro / NATO. Provides relatively significant diplomatic, military and funding support to Euro / NATO activities in Europe locally and from a distance locally here. NATO including ex-US NATO are regularly meeting at all levels here and joining with Australian Pacific Ocean stratagems including operations in the Indian Ocean and in countries nearby to and along the cost of China. No more need be said.

5. ar = far

6. But, sorry, there is another thing left unsaid. I didn’t mention that partly in response to the above, Euro-NATO’s “conventional” adversary, Putin’s Russia, is notably increasing its projection into the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions.

7. White House website, 11 March 2025:

   “The Trump Administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. President Trump himself has said it (over and over and over again).”

   ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/03/fact-check-president-trump-will-always-protect-social-security-medicare/. Emphasis added)

   Trump’s monstrous OBBBA, which does exactly that, passed the US Senate by the narrowest possible margin, 51 to 50. Vice-President Vance cast a tiebreaking vote. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Rand Paul (R-KY) joined Democrats in opposing the bill. This means that each one of the 51 Ayes carries full and undiluted personal responsibility for the measure: but for their vote, it would not have passed.

   Legislatures quite regularly adopt measures like increasing speed limits, lowering pollution standards, or delaying carbon taxes that will predictably lead to increased human suffering and deaths. The OBBA case is unusual both in the scale of the damage – the lowest estimate of Americans who will lose all or part of their health cover is 10.5 million – and the absolute transparency of the causal link. We can also be pretty sure that the doctors and nurses who will be forced to deny the victims the treatment and services they need will remind them who was responsible. The cuts will fall most heavily on low-income rural Americans: angry, confused and betrayed MAGA voters with guns.

   If I were a life insurance salesman, I think I would strike all 51 off my list of prospects.

8. There is little doubt now that the US is collapsing into a very dark place. Will there be a point where the collapse can be still halted? Or will their collapse be a freefall into a bottomless abyss? Sadly, I think it is the latter. Can we (the rest of the world) avoid some of the mayhem and destruction? I don’t know. Maybe a bit. We might be able to struggle on at some more basic and difficult level of existence. Who knows?

9. The BBB has turned ICE into a massive secret police force, comparable to the SS. The betrayed MAGA voters with guns will be in the same position as Ernst Rohm and the brownshirts if they try to cause any trouble.