just to be clear, my criticism of trump here is not that he suggested that nato members should spend more on defense. i'm critical of his methodology.
we're not the largest military spender on the planet because it's necessary to deter russia from invading europe. that's nonsense.
Has anyone claimed otherwise, or are you just building a strawman here?
i take it to be an implicit justification for the argument that defense spending by nato nations somehow trades-off with us defense spending. in other words, if our defense spending is motivated by own our priorities, objectives, and interests, then there's no necessary, causal link between what germany spends on defense and what we spend on defense.
i get that you're saying that defending europe is one of those priorities, but i think in most ways that priority is incidental to the fact that we want to have a strong military presence in europe for a whole host of other reasons that are entirely self-serving. if any nato nation, albania, germany, england, whatever, decides to spend more on defense, then i don't think we're going to pocket that cash.
Of all people in this thread, you're easily the least justified in being upset about someone making petty remarks about the silly things you said. Half of the time you just call people's arguments "nonsense" with no substantiation, or you mock them by implying that they think Albania's defence budget would somehow impact that of the USA (protip: swap in Germany for Albania and the claim becomes much more nuanced)
i don't find it petty because it's a jab at me. lol i took the exact same jab at myself in my prior post. keep making it if you like, it's hardly upsetting.
fwiw, i find it petty because you're so elated at such a trivial mistake. i called russia an ally and said we cooperate on a whole bunch of foreign affairs shit, like arms control and syria and whatnot. i was wrong to call russia an ally. i was not wrong that we cooperate with russia on a whole bunch of foreign affairs shit, and that was the actual crux of my argument. you well know that i didn't mean it like "russia is a nato member and soon to become the 51st state," because that wouldn't make sense in the context of anything else i said. that's why it's petty.
which "that's nonsense" did you find unwarranted? you appear to agree with the first one, and the second one is supported by the national review article i posted.
Is it really so petty to just reverberate your own argument? I have to wonder if you still think Russia and China are our allies, and if you do still think so, why you would think NATO should even exist.
i don't think russia or china are significant threats to us hegemony or sovereignty, and i don't think that nato's usefulness is at all constrained to deterring russia from europe.
let me ask you this: to the best of your knowledge/reasoning, why do you think nato pursues members like albania, croatia, latvia, et al.? i mean it's obvious why we'd want members like germany, france, and the uk; but, in your opinion, why does nato pursue these smaller states at all? or, if you like, why do we allow these other 24 states to pay under their "fair share"? why haven't we kicked them out already?
"nato and car insurance aren't even remotely relatable. your analogy captures exactly none of salient issues and relationships between the actors involved." Sigh.
srsly that really isn't even close to analogous. i honestly am not sure i even get who the players are supposed to be. we're the insurer, and europe is the insured, and the oil change is defense budgets, and mechanical failure is war? is that how it goes?
geico isn't a state with budgets set by political parties with constituents and all the other shit that makes up nations. europe isn't a single consumer running a household budget. insurance companies don't have their own interests and motivations for insuring your car even if you can't pay your bills. the list goes on...
this is precisely the issue i have with the way you and trump see things. you actually do think it's all as simple as a single consumer making a decision about purchasing car insurance. as if the effect it has on our budget is the only effect that matters.