Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Read the treaties. The North Atlantic Treaty for one does not mandate a specific military strength. In fact, it doesn't even mandate a specific reaction to an invasion. There's a lot of latitude involved (The Lisbon treaty is on paper a much stricter alliance, but almost nobody knows about this function!).
The Cold War is over. Spending too much on defense weakens us just as much as spending too little. Perhaps even more so.

Are we stronger when we borrow Billions from China to produce military capabilities designed to contain China??? No. China understands that and plays our fears masterfully.

And just because we have clung to outdated alliances along with outdated perspectives on how much military capacity we need to have on the shelf does not mean we are somehow duty bound forever to protect them from whatever might come along.

Our duty is to our own people and our vital interests. As a powerful maritime nation, like Britain before us, we have the luxury of being able to focus on our interests, and employ our wealth to play a counter balance by changing teams and providing resources to others to fight their own fights as it suits our interests best on a case by case basis. This whole "Red Team, Blue Team" mentality from the Cold War is detrimental to our security, as it locks us into bad partnerships and prevents us from forming smart ones.