Why should we respect them if they dont want to follow the guidelines of our agreements?

Whereas if nobody threatened NATO, the Euros would still be spending <1%

Pyrrhic Victory

It's not a Pyrrhic victory if a) NATO still exists and b) is materially stronger

Is that really the way we want to be seen in the world? As bullies?

You are not paying attention to the facts and are instead paying attention to emotion

We are already seen that way

All I care about is results.

What facts?

That they resent us?

That NATO still exists and is getting militarily stronger.

Take your pick of nations, south korea, japan, france

they see the US as a bully thats trying to control them

CatToday at 3:11 PM
It's like divorce. You just never put it on the table.

so if you're in a bad relationship where your significant other beats you regularly, abuses your children, you're the one working while your partner leeches off of you to go out and get drunk and cheat on you, etc. etc. etc.

Nope, Divorce can't be on the table! You just never put it on the table!

Sometimes it takes a divorce for the other person to start addressing their issues

In that case you divorce. It's not a negotiating tactic. You just do it.

Okay, then that's what Trump needs to do.

The United States is the World Hegemon but it has no clear and present threat against the world as a whole

I don't see what's so awful about saying "Start spending what you agreed to spend or the agreement is over"

But Europe has fulfilled their end of the bargain. Article 5 after 9/11.

I'm not saying that our deals are quite as bad as I've cited in my divorce comparison, but they ARE bad. So your stance is that Trump should just back out of all of them, period.

No they havent

Nato requires a certain amount of spending on defense budgets

Who gives a fuck about how they *feel* about us. They made an agreement and they need to stick to it.

Many European nations helped with Iraq

They have and they are

The five nations to meet this amount were: Germany, England Estonia, Poland and Greece

The nations of NATO are making the progress they agreed to for them to reach 2% by 2022.

Oh reallyl? did you know the amount is supposed to be 5%

They signed an agreement to reach by a certain date. It's still well in the future.

We don't even spend 5%!

So they agreed to pay half of the amount they're supposed to spend

@DrYuriMom I never knew you'd be such a hardliner about immediately backing out of all those deals. ... I thought you'd be more supportive of Trump trying to keep in the deals. But, so be it.

I'll support your idea that Trump should merely abandon the existing deals entirely, and wait for the rest of the world to come crawling to us begging for a new deal from square one.

Wonderful

It's 2% of GDP

Thank you, @Atkins

Its less of an issue for the US as our budget dwarfs that of NATO

And @JustTom , I said you divorce in an abusive relationship. Europe isn't abusing us. If anything, we're insulting them.

But many were (and still are) spending less than 1%, and many include pensions and social spending in that figure when it should be active troops and procurement only.

Europe is abusing us.

For decades they slashed military spending and expected us to defend them for free.