Posted on 02/08/2018 7:22:53 PM PST by Olog-hai
France on Wednesday announced plans to hike defense spending by more than 40 percent, bringing it into line with NATO targets after complaints from US President Donald Trump that Europe is not pulling its weight.
European NATO members have come under pressure from Trump to relieve the burden on the US, which currently accounts for about 70 percent of combined NATO defense spending.
The French government unveiled a bill that increases spending on the armed forces from €34.2 billion ($42 billion) in 2018 to €50 billion in 2025, taking the defense budget from 1.82 percent of GDP currently to a NATO target of two percent.
Nuclear-armed France and Britain are the biggest military powers in the European Union.
The French spending hike under new centrist President Emmanuel Macron marks a shift after years of belt-tightening in defense, which caused tension in the ranks. …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.fr ...
More winning.
Vive la Trump!
I don’t think this is really about responding to Trump. I think this means the elites in Paris have finally figured out that they’re going to fighting a civil war really soon and they aren’t prepared.
Unlike Germany, whose elites seem ready to lead the nation to suicide, the French elites have always been about saving their own hides come what may. They have a self-preservation instinct that Germans, Swedes and Belgians seem to have evolved out of.
Actually - this about the Frogs-Dutch-Germans-and little guys further distancing themselves from a rogue bankrupt country whose leadership is deranged paranoid
Moving to take the issue away from LePen and the National Front. Macron consolidating power in an off election year, jobs created in a stagnant economy next door to economic powerhouse Germany. Big export market for them in MENA and Asia.
I think that this is a sign that France has become aware that President Trump is going to be here for 7 more years and that it is time to toe the line. When the Muslim insurrection begins the French are on their own if they haven’t been a good NATO ally.
For well over a generation these nato allies has been kicking back on their defense obligations while the usa paid the cost in materials & blood. Most of them has barely been doing 1% defense expenditures and the treaty amount is 5% of GDP.
Meanwhile the giant Germany sits at 1.12%.
And contracting.
If it were not for their neighbors, they’d be occupied. Hell, a good Boy Scout troop could do it.
In fact, either Poland or France could do it today. And wouldn’t that be some sweet irony...
This winning could get habit forming! MAGA!
“A chunk of the funds will be spent on replacing ageing armoured personnel carriers, adding more refuelling aircraft and ships and upgrading France’s nuclear arsenal.
The bill also sets aside more money for the troops, in the form of better training, improved accommodation for military families and new equipment, including new bullet-proof vests and night-vision goggles.”
I think that if France believed it would be fighting a civil war they’d concentrate on manpower and training, not refueling and nuclear weapons. This is just a generalized increase in everything.
I worked for the defense arm of Schlumberger, at the time the world’s largest corporation. French military hardware was a joke. It was built, mostly as a reason for socialist welfare payments. It created make-jobs. We would receive equipment for inclusion in contracts my American based firm had with Canada and find that nothing worked. We’d open the equipment and find that the units did not have critical elements like power supplies. Even though they came with obviously false data saying they’d passed tests. We’d be told, “ah, well, everybody was on holiday. We will send you the power supplies when they are done.”
Perhaps we were only treated this way because we were a wholly owned subsidiary. The shoemaker’s children, as it were.
I am reminded of General Schwarzkopf’s comment about the French not helping in the Gulf War, “Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your bagpipes.”
...by more than 40 percent, bringing it into line with NATO targets after complaints from US President Donald Trump that Europe is not pulling its weight... to relieve the burden on the US, which currently accounts for about 70 percent of combined NATO defense spending... Nuclear-armed France and Britain are the biggest military powers in the European Union.
They could afford more, but they *have to* keep bringing in millions of jihadists. Thanks Olog-hai.
Treaty guideline is 2% not 5. In 2017 6 countries were meeting it - USA, Greece, Estonia, UK, Romania and Poland. Looks like France and some other countries will reach it next year.
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