Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

[Roar87]

Not only that, the nations with below par spending had ALREADY COMMITTED to bringing it up.
Trump was literally making a fuss about something already solved in effect. But the low IQ, low energy types who think he was anything other than a grifter would not know that.

Also, Trump didn't like Germany buying Russian gas. Now I wonder, can anyone think of another nation who had dramatically increased shale gas production...

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Free and open access to global development data

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So like, it's a problem already solved, yet still not actually solved? Do you guys actually care about facts, or is it just saying what you want to be true then acting as if other people are stupid?

In case you didn't know, that 1.1% to 1.4% is supposed to be 2%, which it hasn't been since 1991.

If I’ve learned anything about Donald Trump it’s that his thoughts and feelings are transient to the extremes.

Trump is a contradiction locked in a dilemma, wrapped in confusion coated in bravado.

Ah yes, ignore the direct quotes and complete lack of evidence that Trump wants to withdraw from NATO and just go with your gut feeling.

 

[Freakbro]

"There's no evidence!!11!" cries Roar with hands over his eyes and fingers in his ears.

Trump vowed he’d ‘never’ help Europe if it’s attacked, top EU official says

‘By the way NATO is dead,’ the former (and potential future) US president added in private meeting.

www.politico.eu

"You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you," Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2020, according to French European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was also present at a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos.


"By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO," Trump also said, according to Breton. "And he added, ‘and by the way, you owe me $400 billion, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defense,'" Breton said about the tense meeting, where the EU's then-trade chief Phil Hogan was also present.

He has me on ignore, so anyone feel free to point out some of the evidence so we can all have a good laugh to see how Roar will dismiss it out of hand.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

World Bank Open Data

Free and open access to global development data

data.worldbank.org

So like, it's a problem already solved, yet still not actually solved? Do you guys actually care about facts, or is it just saying what you want to be true then acting as if other people are stupid?

In case you didn't know, that 1.1% to 1.4% is supposed to be 2%, which it hasn't been since 1991.



Ah yes, ignore the direct quotes and complete lack of evidence that Trump wants to withdraw from NATO and just go with your gut feeling.

The commitment iirc was by 2027/8 to get up to the levels required, from the latest agreement.
The initial agreement was back in 2006, but it was basically not taken seriously due to the financial crisis which hit just after.

AGAIN, pre Trump, they had already agreed it was unacceptable and had agreed to increase it.

"In 2006, NATO Defence Ministers agreed to commit a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP)"
"At the Wales Summit in 2014, NATO Leaders agreed that, within a decade, Allies who are spending less than 20% of their annual defence spending on major equipment will aim to increase their annual investments to 20% or more of total defence expenditures."

Its not news, its been known for sometime that many countries were not spending enough. They were already improving this, but you don't just switch on spending at the levels Germany would need to do for example.
FWIW the UK were one of the ones criticised 2014, because we hardly bought any new decent kit, a lot of our expenditure was on pensions, cyber etc, but little on actual kit for frontline.
We would probably still fail that test without the carriers. Which IMO were partly finalised after decades of on/off commitment due to those very spending commitments.

 

[bingham67]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1754511171569258878

 

[Roar87]

The commitment iirc was by 2027/8 to get up to the levels required, from the latest agreement.
The initial agreement was back in 2006, but it was basically not taken seriously due to the financial crisis which hit just after.

AGAIN, pre Trump, they had already agreed it was unacceptable and had agreed to increase it.

"In 2006, NATO Defence Ministers agreed to commit a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP)"
"At the Wales Summit in 2014, NATO Leaders agreed that, within a decade, Allies who are spending less than 20% of their annual defence spending on major equipment will aim to increase their annual investments to 20% or more of total defence expenditures."

Its not news, its been known for sometime that many countries were not spending enough. They were already improving this, but you don't just switch on spending at the levels Germany would need to do for example.
FWIW the UK were one of the ones criticised 2014, because we hardly bought any new decent kit, a lot of our expenditure was on pensions, cyber etc, but little on actual kit for frontline.
We would probably still fail that test without the carriers. Which IMO were partly finalised after decades of on/off commitment due to those very spending commitments.

What do you mean they agreed to do it in 2006? It's 18 years later and they still haven't done it. Maybe just admit Trump was right on EU NATO members not meeting their agreed spending commitments. That's why he had to take a hard line approach with them.

The Financial Crisis was in 2008 by the way, so reasonably by 2012 Germany should have been increasing their defence spending, what actually happened is that it decreased from 1.2% to 1.1% - it basically only increased from 1.2% to 1.4% from 2018 to 2020 when Trump was in office.

 

[Harlequin]

Ah yes, ignore the direct quotes and complete lack of evidence that Trump wants to withdraw from NATO and just go with your gut feeling.

My post has already been superceeded by far newer quotes including some from a few weeks ago. TLR, he wants out of Nato

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

What do you mean they agreed to do it in 2006? It's 18 years later and they still haven't done it. Maybe just admit Trump was right on EU NATO members not meeting their agreed spending commitments. That's why he had to take a hard line approach with them.

The Financial Crisis was in 2008 by the way, so reasonably by 2012 Germany should have been increasing their defence spending, what actually happened is that it decreased from 1.2% to 1.1% - it basically only increased from 1.2% to 1.4% from 2018 to 2020 when Trump was in office.

It was the first time it was agreed, 2006, but with no deadline.

It was nothing to do with Trump.
If you read what NATO say its been coming for some time.
Germany already spends more than the UK in $ terms.

Again you seem to struggle to understand, you don't just go and spend $BNs, it takes time to ramp up, recruit, train, design etc.
You would see the same in reverse if you reduced the percentage, it would actually go up (as long term commitments were brought online or cancelled).
Hell its part of the reason some of us are so concerned now with the UK position.

There was also from memory something iffy with our nuclear. IIRC it was added to the NATO spending to boost our spend.
Not all spend is equal, we were rightly criticised that we were allegedly spending what we committed to and yet receiving very little kit. (the 2014 NATO summit)

My post has already been superceeded by far newer quotes including some from a few weeks ago. TLR, he wants out of Nato

The people in the room with him when he was very much expected to come out and say the US were leaving NATO confirmed it was last minute down to the wire trying to stop him.
We had this conversation years ago, its just some people who cannot accept it forcing the revisit constantly.

 

[D.P.]

What do you mean they agreed to do it in 2006? It's 18 years later and they still haven't done it. Maybe just admit Trump was right on EU NATO members not meeting their agreed spending commitments. That's why he had to take a hard line approach with them.

The Financial Crisis was in 2008 by the way, so reasonably by 2012 Germany should have been increasing their defence spending, what actually happened is that it decreased from 1.2% to 1.1% - it basically only increased from 1.2% to 1.4% from 2018 to 2020 when Trump was in office.

you seem to have difficulties understand this.

They agreed in 2006 to increase spending, but the timeline was not until the end of 2020s, something like 2028. You can complain in 10 years time if other NATO countries have not started paying 2%

 

[Roar87]

My post has already been superceeded by far newer quotes including some from a few weeks ago. TLR, he wants out of Nato

Is there a video stating that's his public position on NATO? Has his campaign said he'll be taking the US out of NATO if he's elected? Anything other than that is merely opinion and conjecture.

 

[Roar87]

you seem to have difficulties understand this.

They agreed in 2006 to increase spending, but the timeline was not until the end of 2020s, something like 2028. You can complain in 10 years time if other NATO countries have not started paying 2%

Trump doesn't need to care about what they'd previously agreed, setting a target for 2028 in 2006 is laughable because none of the people setting those targets would still be in office, it's just pushing the problem away from them. It should not take 22 years to increase defence spending, a few years perhaps following the financial crisis, but not that long. EU NATO members were taking the **** and Trump called them out on it.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Is there a video stating that's his public position on NATO? Has his campaign said he'll be taking the US out of NATO if he's elected? Anything other than that is merely opinion and conjecture.

After Trump the US changed the law so that he cannot simply do so. It seemed enough in US government also took his threats seriously that they moved to basically stop him or any other president unilaterally deciding to do so.
It doesn't stop the president moving to a position of inaction of course, the president being the CIC.

Edit, Boltons words were "Bolton, in an interview with Post opinions editor at large Michael Duffy, said the former president came close to pulling the United States out of NATO in 2018, a claim he originally made in a memoir published in 2020. In his book, Bolton wrote that he had to convince Trump not to quit NATO in the middle of a 2018 summit."
"On Friday, Bolton, who served as a top Trump adviser from 2018 to 2019, offered more details on their conversations that day, saying he “had my heart in my throat at that NATO meeting.”
“I didn’t know what the president would do,” Bolton said. “He called me up to his seat seconds before he gave the speech. And I said, look, go right up to the line, but don’t go over it. I sat back down. I had no idea what he’d do.”
“In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” Bolton said. “And I think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was waiting for that.”

 

[teejay73]

Is there a video stating that's his public position on NATO? Has his campaign said he'll be taking the US out of NATO if he's elected? Anything other than that is merely opinion and conjecture.

It's a moot point as to whether Trump wants out of NATO or not. Elbridge Colby, who is likely to play a key role in advising Trump on defence matters should he be re-elected has stated that the indo-pacific situation will be the U.S's primary objective from a defence/militray perspective. NATO will have a barebones U.S task force at best in Europe according to him. Point is it doesn't matter if Trump has said publicly or privately he wants out of NATO, the fact remains that he see's the U.S has greater needs than defending Europe.

 

[Roar87]

After Trump the US changed the law so that he cannot simply do so. It seemed enough in US government also took his threats seriously that they moved to basically stop him or any other president unilaterally deciding to do so.
It doesn't stop the president moving to a position of inaction of course, the president being the CIC.

Great so he hasn't stated that's his position, and he's not allowed to do it anyway. Can we stop with the anti-Trump propaganda then? It's the same **** as we need to support Ukraine or Russia will invade Europe, it's propaganda.

Edit, Boltons words were "Bolton, in an interview with Post opinions editor at large Michael Duffy, said the former president came close to pulling the United States out of NATO in 2018, a claim he originally made in a memoir published in 2020. In his book, Bolton wrote that he had to convince Trump not to quit NATO in the middle of a 2018 summit."
"On Friday, Bolton, who served as a top Trump adviser from 2018 to 2019, offered more details on their conversations that day, saying he “had my heart in my throat at that NATO meeting.”
“I didn’t know what the president would do,” Bolton said. “He called me up to his seat seconds before he gave the speech. And I said, look, go right up to the line, but don’t go over it. I sat back down. I had no idea what he’d do.”
“In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” Bolton said. “And I think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was waiting for that.”

Yeah that's meaningless drivel: "I had no idea what he'd do" "I think he may well have" lol

 

[Stretch]

Trump has threatened to leave NATO if conditions aren’t met.

Nothing he ever says is coherent/documentable. It’s a series of disparate rants. But the intention is clear.

His word means practically nothing now. So why would anyone agree to his demands.

People fear Trump because he’s a mad man. Not because of any inherently negotiating talent.

The alliance has been be significantly weakened because it depends on unity and loyalty.

 

[Freakbro]

After Trump the US changed the law so that he cannot simply do so. It seemed enough in US government also took his threats seriously that they moved to basically stop him or any other president unilaterally deciding to do so.
It doesn't stop the president moving to a position of inaction of course, the president being the CIC.

Edit, Boltons words were "Bolton, in an interview with Post opinions editor at large Michael Duffy, said the former president came close to pulling the United States out of NATO in 2018, a claim he originally made in a memoir published in 2020. In his book, Bolton wrote that he had to convince Trump not to quit NATO in the middle of a 2018 summit."
"On Friday, Bolton, who served as a top Trump adviser from 2018 to 2019, offered more details on their conversations that day, saying he “had my heart in my throat at that NATO meeting.”
“I didn’t know what the president would do,” Bolton said. “He called me up to his seat seconds before he gave the speech. And I said, look, go right up to the line, but don’t go over it. I sat back down. I had no idea what he’d do.”
“In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” Bolton said. “And I think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was waiting for that.”

It's hilarious reading Roars assertions that he knows Trumps thoughts and feelings better than the people who were actually there working with him.

Same in the Elon thread where he often, and confidently, tells us all what Elon is thinking and feeling about a subject....it's almost like he has a set world view and will twist and ignore information as required to fit within it.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Great so he hasn't stated that's his position, and he's not allowed to do it anyway. Can we stop with the anti-Trump propaganda then? It's the same **** as we need to support Ukraine or Russia will invade Europe, it's propaganda.



Yeah that's meaningless drivel: "I had no idea what he'd do" "I think he may well have" lol

Lol meaningless drivel from Bolton, who was literally the one Trump was turning to.
So the most senior advisor was unaware what Trump was going to do, and yet you seem to think Trump was not going to pull us out.

 

[Roar87]

Lol meaningless drivel from Bolton, who was literally the one Trump was turning to.
So the most senior advisor was unaware what Trump was going to do, and yet you seem to think Trump was not going to pull us out.

It doesn't mean anything because there's no actual quote there saying he planned to leave NATO, he's just saying what he thought might have happened in a second term after 2020, and that he didn't know what he was going to say in a speech.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

It doesn't mean anything because there's no actual quote there saying he planned to leave NATO, he's just saying what he thought might have happened in a second term after 2020, and that he didn't know what he was going to say in a speech.

There were others as well.
But I cant be bothered to look any more up, we did it to death in the Trump thread 5-6 years ago.
We dont need to go over it again because either your memory is that bad, or you simply didn't pay attention.

It wasn't just Bolton, it was the whole of the US team who went to the summit, there was even a mini docuseries about it, it was also a load of the other NATO leaders.

Edit, thought this was the NATO one but it was the G7 one, when Trump wanted Russia back at the table, my bad. He was so bad so often they are blurring in my memory now.
There was even a famous meme with a load of them standing around a table with Trump sitting there with his stubborn 3 year old face impression.

 

[ci_newman]

Friendly warning, talking about Trump and his NATO position has no place in this thread at the moment - he's not currently President and it's off topic and irrelevant (right now).

Let's bring it back on topic shall we?

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

Incredible 42 minutes of 4k footage of a Ukrainian offensive at Andriivka.
Just search on YT 3-тя окрема штурмова бригада