The Twitterverse is agog with dumb Trumpists whining about NATO not kowtowing to Trump and following his lead into war with Iran. Clearly illustrating they have no idea what NATO is.
What Is NATO?
NATO is a mutual defense treaty where members agree to come to the assistance of other members who are attacked. There is no obligation to assist a member who wants to carry out military adventures – even if those military adventures have reasonable goals behind them.
And it isn’t the US going to war with Iran; it’s Israel going to war with Iran and the US is helping its ally. Israel isn’t a member of NATO, so there’s even less reason for NATO to assist.
Is It Legal?
I’ve no idea if Netanyahu’s military adventure is legal or not, but there are legitimate concerns about whether Israel’s and the USA’s actions are legal. There’s no mandate from the UN giving permission to spank Iran; there’s not even a consensus amongst the nations of NATO.
Whilst it may seem strange to USAians that some country leaders worry about whether their actions are legal, it is not unreasonable to refuse to assist a military adventure if doing so may end up with a time in gaol.
Unlikely but not impossible.
The Nukes?
Is Iran developing nuclear weapons? Well come up with proof of that, and you’ll get cooperation. But we haven’t seen any proof; we’re supposed to trust the word of Israel (who are currently short on trust). No thanks.
Particularly when previous military adventures supposedly destroyed the weapons programme.
The Money Question
One of the things that keeps cropping up when the USians want to whine about NATO is that the US is supposedly paying for Europe’s defence. A great deal of that whining is based on lies.
First of all the direct costs of running NATO are funded by all members making a contribution based on how wealthy they are – the US contributes 16.2% of the total (Germany is also on 16.2%), and that percentage is of the entire NATO budget of €5.3billion.
NATO membership also requires countries to spend at least 2% of their GDP on military spending. That target is increasing to 5%.
However whilst Europe has traditionally lagged at below the 2% commitment, the situation has changed considerably in recent years with 23 out of 32 countries meeting or exceeding the 2% of GDP.
You will hear a great deal of the US’s $1 trillion spent on European defence. That’s another lie; the US spends that amount on all military spending including world-wide commitments. And yes that’s more than every other country in Europe – that’s how that “2% of GDP” works out – the rich pay more, and the US is effectively as large as the whole of Europe.
Now if you add up all European military spending, it still doesn’t match the US spending and that should be corrected (which is slowly happening) but it is actually a huge chunk of money – $472 billion. That’s well over twice what Russia spends militarily.
Who Defends Who?
The only time NATO was obligated to defend one of its members under “Article 5″ was in the aftermath of 9/11. Defending the USA.
