Here’s a little explainer tweeting from Robie Gramer, assistant director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security on the source of American “frustration” with NATO. Basically, NATO members are not not pulling their weight, and this one chart shows just how cheap they are:
#NATO capabilities by country, in case any European colleagues were wondering where American frustration came from pic.twitter.com/QH78MyHbbN
— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) December 2, 2014
Wow.
@RobbieGramer @ArianaGicPerry Seeing Greece at no.3 is just painful
— Kyle Frese (@HKFrese) December 2, 2014
Yes, Greece and Estonia are spending more as a percentage of GDP than the wealthier nations of Germany, Canada and to a lesser extent, France.
@RobbieGramer @ArianaGicPerry Yes, the sad 'put your money where your mouth is' truth of it all…
— PATRICK JAMES (@puertavieja_) December 2, 2014
@robbiegramer @sikorskiradek Clearly the U.S. is spending too much.
— Maciej Trybiło (@maciejtrybilo) December 3, 2014
Maybe the U.S. is spending too much. We wonder how cutting our defense budget in half would go over with our NATO allies? Probably not so well as the latest news is that NATO can’t figure out how to pay for the defense forces they announced to counter Putin and Russia:
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Today's #NATO foreign ministerial: pledges to protect allies #Russia will "run into financial reality" today http://t.co/H0H89PWWMm
— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) December 2, 2014
.@UKNATO Amb. Thomson: Standing up NATO's new force "has more difficulty involved than perhaps the alliance expected" http://t.co/mZlHccR2Dz
— NATOSource (@NATOSource) December 2, 2014
#NATO announced a new 'spearhead force' the #WalesSummitUK. Unsurprisingly, its struggling to muster funds for it http://t.co/F82pFvQ1iX
— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) December 2, 2014
Come on, NATO — time to star writing some checks.
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