Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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Cleans up the never-ending engagement for Don Jr, who seems to be openly dating other women, I guess?

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rodoheel said:
The value in having Lithuania and Montenegro and not that we need or want their troops to defend us. The value to US interests is in having as many friendly partners who depend on us as possible. Adept use of "soft power" through things like NATO, foreign aid, etc is hugely beneficial to US foreign policy (something that easily pays back the relatively paltry sums we spend) and is one of the major reasons we have historically succeeded in spreading our influence around the world. Kicking countries out of NATO, on the other hand, will (1) turn happy partners into disgruntled non-partners at best (and ultimately enemies at worst), and (2) send those countries elsewhere to look for partners, protectors, and friendly relationships. It is a really bad, self-defeating idea. Even when leaving aside the strategic implications - that these countries are strategically located next to Russia, one of the major potential foreign antagonists with the possibility to start a global conflagration.
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Foreign aid may be a relatively paltry sum but our defense spending is just the opposite. And a fair amount of that defense spending is needed because we are protecting those allies.

So what does that spending get us? Influence for what? Countries we have to defend right next to a large enemy? The juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Folks on here are ridiculing Trump's plan of cutting spending because this or that policy won't make a dent. I agree. But rolling back our defense commitments can most definitely make a dent, and its dismissed because we don't want to lose some not all that useful allies. I think the trade-offs are worth it.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Foreign aid may be a relatively paltry sum but our defense spending is just the opposite. And a fair amount of that defense spending is needed because we are protecting those allies.

So what does that spending get us? Influence for what? Countries we have to defend right next to a large enemy? The juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Folks on here are ridiculing Trump's plan of cutting spending because this or that policy won't make a dent. I agree. But rolling back our defense commitments can most definitely make a dent, and its dismissed because we don't want to lose some not all that useful allies. I think the trade-offs are worth it.
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Just so you'll have a clue, we only pay about 16% of the cost of NATO which is about the same as Germany.
 
nycfan said:


Cleans up the never-ending engagement for Don Jr, who seems to be openly dating other women, I guess?

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Does Kimberly think that she is “the best?” Because if so, then that quote - put in context of her dating Don Jr - would make perfect sense.
 
Iirc, one former mod on ZZL blamed the decline of the Presidency on Obama wearing a brown suit and Michelle a sleeveless dress. Is that really what brought us this?
 
finesse said:
Just so you'll have a clue, we only pay about 16% of the cost of NATO which is about the same as Germany.
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Sure. I'm sure all that defense spending and those bases in Europe are to protect Iowa from a Red Dawn style invasion.

Right now the US defense spending is 2/3 of all of the NATO country's defense spending. That's a little misleading because we have interests in the Pacific and South America but quite a bit of that defense spending goes to protect Europe.
 
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gtyellowjacket said:
Foreign aid may be a relatively paltry sum but our defense spending is just the opposite. And a fair amount of that defense spending is needed because we are protecting those allies.

So what does that spending get us? Influence for what? Countries we have to defend right next to a large enemy? The juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Folks on here are ridiculing Trump's plan of cutting spending because this or that policy won't make a dent. I agree. But rolling back our defense commitments can most definitely make a dent, and its dismissed because we don't want to lose some not all that useful allies. I think the trade-offs are worth it.
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To be clear, I wasn’t just mocking the “make budget cuts by requiring everyone to work five instead of three days,” merely because it won’t move the needle in regards to the deficit.
It’s also because it is about the dumbest way possible to eliminate part of the workforce to save money. Instead of having department heads decide which 25% percent to cut, it’s only slightly less arbitrary than pulling names from a hat. How do they know the best, most productive people won’t be the ones to quit first? Usually, they are the ones that have the most options.

However, I agree that defense spending should be looked at. Not sure that leaving NATO (if that is the plan) is the best plan for that. Could be penny wise and pound foolish.
 
I wonder if the Europeans will at some point call Trump's bluff..something along the lines of "You want to pull out of NATO? Go ahead. Europe will defend Europe.".
1. The Russian threat is not as scary as it was 3 years ago. The boogey man is not quite as scary.
2. The euros take it as an opportunity to funnel government spending into their regional defenses industry.
3. Germany shrugs off its post war aversion to rebuilding its armed forces.

That scenario, in the long run, makes the world a more dangerous place. Trump is a fool for not understanding the importance of NATO in global stability and American preponderance in the last 75 years.
 
ChileG said:
To be clear, I wasn’t just mocking the “make budget cuts by requiring everyone to work five instead of three days,” merely because it won’t move the needle in regards to the deficit.
It’s also because it is about the dumbest way possible to eliminate part of the workforce to save money. Instead of having department heads decide which 25% percent to cut, it’s only slightly less arbitrary than pulling names from a hat. How do they know the best, most productive people won’t be the ones to quit first? Usually, they are the ones that have the most options.

However, I agree that defense spending should be looked at. Not sure that leaving NATO (if that is the plan) is the best plan for that. Could be penny wise and pound foolish.
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To be clear, I'm not for leaving NATO. I am for shrinking our NATO commitments to the most important allies.

If Russian aggression threatens a place like Lithuania, a Ukraine style conflict funded by us and our allies serves our interests better than a commitment to put forces into combat.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
To be clear, I'm not for leaving NATO. I am for shrinking our NATO commitments to the most important allies.

If Russian aggression threatens a place like Lithuania, an Ukraine style conflict funded by us and our allies serves our interests better than a commitment to put forces into combat.
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Short-sighted nonsense.
 
finesse said:
What do we get for the 4 billion we give to Israel which is mostly military as well? How many troops have they provided?

Do you think Russia is not put at a serious disadvantage by NATO?
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Hey I'd pull that money out of Israel too. Screw those genocidal maniacs.

Russia is at a serious disadvantage but maybe that is the wrong way to think about it. Let's figure out what the main US interests are and come at it like that instead of checking Russia.

Did it really affect us when Russia took a few provinces in Georgia? Would it really matter to the vast majority of American taxpayers if Latvia lost a few provinces, assuming that Russia could do it?

I just think if we are going to reign in our spending, defense spending to protect some very weak allies is a very juicy target. But the military industrial complex has convinced us that we need to buy their goods to protect Albania against the threat of a Russian invasion that can't fight their way across Ukraine.

The defense contractors are not nearly as effective at convincing Germany that their interests are well served by mortgaging their grandkids' future to protect against that Russian threat. We could take a lesson from those guys.
 
Can anyone identify a time in our nation’s history when isolationism has been beneficial to our long term strategic interests?
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Hey I'd pull that money out of Israel too. Screw those genocidal maniacs.

Russia is at a serious disadvantage but maybe that is the wrong way to think about it. Let's figure out what the main US interests are and come at it like that instead of checking Russia.

Did it really affect us when Russia took a few provinces in Georgia? Would it really matter to the vast majority of American taxpayers if Latvia lost a few provinces, assuming that Russia could do it?

I just think if we are going to reign in our spending, defense spending to protect some very weak allies is a very juicy target. But the military industrial complex has convinced us that we need to buy their goods to protect Albania against the threat of a Russian invasion that can't fight their way across Ukraine.

The defense contractors are not nearly as effective at convincing Germany that their interests are well served by mortgaging their grandkids' future to protect against that Russian threat. We could take a lesson from those guys.
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Seriously, anything that Russia wants to do outside its borders is generally against our interests. Making it difficult for them there for less money than it costs to operate our carrier groups for a year is a win. Btw, at 27 billion to build and 3 billion to operate a year, why do we have so many?

You might want to get so recent information on NATO spending. Europe has picked up its spending and changed its spending focus, Germany in particular.
 
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