Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
The problem isn't Germany, the real problem is NATO. This was a great organization for waging the Cold War. Now that the Cold War is 20 years into the rearview mirror it has taken on a disturbing new role. If the U.S. pulled out of NATO, I suspect the EU would stand it down shortly thereafter as being either redundant to the EU or simply irrelevant.

The U.S., however clings to this organization as it gives us tremendous leverage to coerce our allies to do things in support of US national interests that are not necessarily in support of their own. The old Cold Warrior crowd are also using NATO to push Russia back into a corner for reasons that escape me.

I for one believe it is time to seriously reconsider our role in NATO and to be careful on how our current approach is wearing thin with our allies and competitors alike.
Bob, I appreciate your contributions to FID/SOF/SF analysis, however I disagree with your analysis of NATO. The US is not an Island; globalization impacts us even more than it has in the past.

Regards,

Steve

A critic’s analysis of the cost of WW II

…the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion...
2000 Forbes Analysis of the cost of NATO

Were it not for keeping the peace in the Balkan states of Bosnia and Kosovo, a reasonable mission that is more suited to the United Nations, NATO would have nothing else to do. NATO is a military alliance--and having added three members in 1998, a growing military alliance--that has no adversary. Barring the unlikely event that Russia suddenly goes back to being a militaristic power with expansionist leanings, NATO will have little to do other than prepare for a war that will never come, and endlessly contemplate its role in the world.

With an estimated annual budget of $1.56 billion, the U.S. shouldered about 29% of NATO's operating budget in 1999, or about $452 million. Each of the member nations pays into NATO based on its gross domestic product, making the U.S. the biggest single contributor. That fund pays for NATO's basic day-to-day operations like staffing and communications, and will presumably pay for NATO's new headquarters, a 557,000-square-foot complex in Brussels
2005 IHT NATO Analysis of the cost of NATO

NATO has a civilian budget of around €130 million, or $167 million, and a military budget of around € 780 million. The United States, Britain, Germany and France are the largest contributors to both segments, with payments ranging from 15 percent to over 23 percent into those budgets while Belgium, Turkey, Denmark, Poland and the Netherlands pay under 2.75 percent.