Should NATO spending be cut?

So here's the question: Should NATO spending be cut?

Excerpted from “Barney Frank: Cut NATO Spending, It 'Serves No Strategic Purpose'” By Amanda Terkel, The Huffington Post, First Posted: 12-27-10 02:25 PM | Updated: 12-27-10 03:40 PM
[SIZE="+2"]L[/SIZE]awrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress … estimates that approximately 20 percent of the baseline defense budget is NATO-related, resulting in about $100 billion in spending each year. … Interestingly, that amount is the same figure that House Republicans have pledged to cut from the federal budget next year, representing approximately one-fifth of the domestic discretionary budget. The GOP instead plans to slash spending for education, firefighters and cancer research.

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My sense is that once our combined efforts in Afghanistan wind down, there's little purpose in NATO now that the Soviet Union is no more.

Yes and cut the UN while your at it....and I mean completely.

No, we shouldn't abandon our European allies.

Solace said:

No, we shouldn't abandon our European allies.

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How does cutting NATO spending ‘abandon’ our European allies? To what are we abandoning them to?

Chappy said:

My sense is that once our combined efforts in Afghanistan wind down, there's little purpose in NATO now that the Soviet Union is no more.

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Yeah, we're all one big happy world.

Chappy said:

How does cutting NATO spending ‘abandon’ our European allies? To what are we abandoning them to?

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Quite right.

NATO isn't the military infrastructure of Europe -- it's the military infrastructure of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance (which is all but a thing of the past, now, thanks to France).

Each European nation still has its own military -- and two of those militaries, the British and French, are among the top five in the world. Cutting NATO spending would not endanger us in Europe, but rather weaken the military bond between Europe and the States -- which, as I said, is already a fatally wounded beast, thanks to France and Germany.

NATO has its uses, certainly it is not as vital to national or global security as it was 20 to 30 years ago. And while being in the Army myself and a believer in a strong global force, that's no reason the massive budget spent to maintain that military and its presence should be spent on trivial items.

I also hate the theory that many hold to that any related to defense is scared and cannot be touched for any reason, especially politicians who'll throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a project with no real purpose or real chance of being completed. A huge example is the Comanche helicopter or this damn thing:



The helicopter was designed to be a stealth helicopter, thats stealth to radar as in it uses the same material in the B-2 stealth bomber. Think about it for a second, its a low flying attack helicopter, and have you ever heard a helicopter flying low? Its loud, its big, and you aren't hiding it from anything there's no point in making it harder to find by radar because a normal helicopter is already mostly radar invisible if its flying low enough. Also if you wanted to put more than 8 rockets on it, you had to stick wings on the side which by the way ruin the stealth profile of the aircraft.

So this program began in 1988, and was canceled in 2004 with only two prototypes built and almost 7 billion dollars spent in a total and complete waste for a pipe-dream

I've really been rethinking my views on NATO. I used to think that it was one of the few successful organizations left...but the last few years have really poured cold water on that idea. I think that we'd be wise to draw down our spending on NATO. We shouldn't completely leave NATO, as it can still be useful for diplomacy and geopolitical wrangling...but the military/defense aspect of it has probably outlived its usefulness.

Wiseone said:

NATO has its uses, certainly it is not as vital to national or global security as it was 20 to 30 years ago. And while being in the Army myself and a believer in a strong global force, that's no reason the massive budget spent to maintain that military and its presence should be spent on trivial items.

I also hate the theory that many hold to that any related to defense is scared and cannot be touched for any reason, especially politicians who'll throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a project with no real purpose or real chance of being completed. A huge example is the Comanche helicopter or this damn thing:

The helicopter was designed to be a stealth helicopter, thats stealth to radar as in it uses the same material in the B-2 stealth bomber. Think about it for a second, its a low flying attack helicopter, and have you ever heard a helicopter flying low? Its loud, its big, and you aren't hiding it from anything there's no point in making it harder to find by radar because a normal helicopter is already mostly radar invisible if its flying low enough. Also if you wanted to put more than 8 rockets on it, you had to stick wings on the side which by the way ruin the stealth profile of the aircraft.

So this program began in 1988, and was canceled in 2004 with only two prototypes built and almost 7 billion dollars spent in a total and complete waste for a pipe-dream

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Furthermore, American politicians often fall prey (in a big way) to the idea that more military spending = more effective military, which is simply untrue.