I feel like I’m going crazy. I’m reading along and it’s been answered about twenty times.
- There is no legal obligation.
- This is not the same as a debt or bill, all NATO organisational costs are covered by members.
- This is an informal agreed target to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP over time.
- There is no covenant in the NATO agreement that says the alliance is impacted by how much a country is willing/able to spend on defence. If there were, many countries would never have joined in the first place. It’s not part of the agreement so introducing this concept now is contrary to the established relationship.
- Even if it were a legal obligation (which again it is not), most countries are now spending 2% anyway, so what the fuck is exactly the problem?
Let’s say you joined a private club and they were like “Oh you can join, it’s £100 a week, we all help eachother here… but one thing is we ask people to try and wear an Armani suit to dinner. But it’s not an obligation.” And you were like “Well I can’t afford an Armani suit right now but I’ll still join if that’s okay?” And they go “Yeah that’s fine.” Then five years later they suddenly go “Right if you haven’t got your Armani suit for the next meeting we’re going to kick you out and we’re going to ‘encourage’ your boss to fire you by telling him what a sack of shit you are.”
You’d just think they were a ****. Which is non-coincidentally what I think of Trump.