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Europe under extreme duress

Flash said:
Well, where to begin? The three things that I think were most damaging were:

- The constant public criticism of NATO, NATO Allies along with several proposed actions that undermined the alliance. There is a time and place to critique one's allies to try and get them to do more, and several previous Presidents did so, but sudden and unexpected pronouncements and criticisms via tweet probably ain't the way to do that. Coupled with some fundamental misunderstandings by the President of how NATO functioned it was not a happy time for the alliance.
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While rather very rough, I do think he was right overall in how he went about that. For too long certain members of NATO refused to pay the minimum 2% of GDP for defense. Yes, prior presidents did criticize them, but it didn't do anything. And by not spending what they should, that unto itself was being pretty disrespectful to the United States, IMO. While Trump constantly criticized NATO, he sought to further strengthen it in this sense. He also warned them about dependence on Russian energy.
Flash said:
- Blocking funding to Ukraine for domestic partisan political reasons. Not only did it lead to his first impeachment but it also undermined Ukraine at a critical time. That and subsequent funding has proven critical to Ukraine's survival as a country.
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Agree there.
Flash said:
- The President's open admiration and even defense at times of Putin, going so far as to publicly proclaim that he believed him over his own national security and law enforcement agencies in a joint press conference. The difference in his treatment of Putin versus some of our closest allied leaders was stark, undermining personal relations between allied leaders in a pretty critical time in recent history. I would hazard to say that history has proven that Putin is not a man to be trusted, admired or emulated in any fashion.
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Yes, but remember, what Trump says versus what he does are two very different things, and the Europeans by then should have recognized that. Also considering Germany's clearly being fine with trusting Putin for energy (at the time) and Europe's reaction overall to when he invaded the Crimea (he was invited to a big state dinner and France at first had agreed to sell him two helicopter aircraft carriers), Trump simply saying nice things about him was nothing concerning. Trump was the one who kept trying to warn the Europeans that it was a bad idea to make themselves dependent on Putin for energy purposes and that they needed to do their part to strengthen NATO.
 
hlg6016 said:
Given the level of competence they have shown lately I would not be surprised if it had just fallen off the pylon.
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Given the level of competence they have shown lately I would not be surprised if the plane had just fallen out of the air and the missile decided it didn’t want to crash and fired itself to stay in the air.
 
Random8145 said:
While rather very rough, I do think he was right overall in how he went about that. For too long certain members of NATO refused to pay the minimum 2% of GDP for defense. Yes, prior presidents did criticize them, but it didn't do anything. And by not spending what they should, that unto itself was being pretty disrespectful to the United States, IMO. While Trump constantly criticized NATO, he sought to further strengthen it in this sense. He also warned them about dependence on Russian energy.
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He did FAR more than just criticize our NATO allies on the 2% GDP NATO defense goal, in addition to be blatantly ignorant of how NATO works on a fundamental level. As for the energy thing, as I've already pointed out in thread previously that goes all the way back to Reagan and most of his predecessors for criticizing Europe's, and in particular Germany's 'Ostpolitik', energy strategy towards Russia. To claim that the previous President was somehow uniquely perceptive about that is ignorant of the last 40 years of America's policy towards that particular policy.

Random8145 said:
Yes, but remember, what Trump says versus what he does are two very different things, and the Europeans by then should have recognized that.
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The former President many times does exactly what he says, notwithstanding that kind of behavior is not exactly great in a leader on any level.

Random8145 said:
Trump simply saying nice things about him was nothing concerning.
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I think you need to go back and watch their joint news conference, he didn't just say nice things about Putin.
 
Flash said:
He did FAR more than just criticize our NATO allies on the 2% GDP NATO defense goal, in addition to be blatantly ignorant of how NATO works on a fundamental level. As for the energy thing, as I've already pointed out in thread previously that goes all the way back to Reagan and most of his predecessors for criticizing Europe's, and in particular Germany's 'Ostpolitik', energy strategy towards Russia. To claim that the previous President was somehow uniquely perceptive about that is ignorant of the last 40 years of America's policy towards that particular policy.
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What else did he do that was so bad? Also I am not saying he was uniquely perceptive about German and overall European energy dependence on Putin. My point is that for all the talk about his praising of Putin, in terms of his actual actions, he behaved a lot better than the Europeans.
Flash said:
The former President many times does exactly what he says, notwithstanding that kind of behavior is not exactly great in a leader on any level.
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On the more extreme things he would say, he'd usually do the opposite. On other things, such as red lines regarding the killing of Americans, he was dead serious.
Flash said:
I think you need to go back and watch their joint news conference, he didn't just say nice things about Putin.
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I assume you mean his saying he trusts the Russians over the American intelligence agencies? I agree that such a thing isn't noble behavior in a president, but it also IMO wasn't the big deal everyone was making it out to be either, especially given the vast amounts of nonsense Trump was known to spout. I don't even think the issue of Russian interference in the election (what Trump was referring to) was really any major deal. Prior to winning, Trump had said Russia could interfere in the election and swing it and this was mocked by Obama and the media. It was only after Trump won that all of a sudden, the issue of Russia interfering in the elections turned into some major issue.
 
Random8145 said:
I assume you mean his saying he trusts the Russians over the American intelligence agencies? I agree that such a thing isn't noble behavior in a president, but it also IMO wasn't the big deal everyone was making it out to be either,
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Stop talking. Just stop. You don’t even know when you’re in over your head, so stop. Go hang out with the sealions.


2014-09-19-1062sea.png
 
nittany03 said:
Stop talking. Just stop. You don’t even know when you’re in over your head, so stop. Go hang out with the sealions.
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Because we know how much more damaging Trump saying such a thing is than the horrendous foreign policy decisions made by the prior two presidencies, which needlessly actually got people killed.
 
Random8145 said:
Because we know how much more damaging Trump saying such a thing is than the horrendous foreign policy decisions made by the prior two presidencies, which needlessly actually got people killed.
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Can't they all be bad, just in different ways? Setting aside the obvious differences in motive and intent, why would you hand waive incredibly bad behavior by a US president merely because other US presidents have also done bad things? Not following the logic there.
 
Brett327 said:
Can't they all be bad, just in different ways? Setting aside the obvious differences in motive and intent, why would you hand waive incredibly bad behavior by a US president merely because other US presidents have also done bad things? Not following the logic there.
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Well not meaning to hand wave it in terms of the behavior itself, it just seemed very baffling to me how so many in the media and Washington establishment seemed to lose their minds over it but did not seem to do so over what, IMO, were much more destructive actual actions by the prior presidents. I don't see how it contributed to Trump supposedly being so destructive to our relations with the Europeans. Yes, it was very bad to say, but then again, it was Trump, spouter of all manner of ridiculous over-the-top things. The important thing to look at was what actual actions did he engage in.
 
Random8145 said:
What else did he do that was so bad? Also I am not saying he was uniquely perceptive about German and overall European energy dependence on Putin. My point is that for all the talk about his praising of Putin, in terms of his actual actions, he behaved a lot better than the Europeans.
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One of the most egregious, and thankfully not carried out, was the withdrawal of a third of our troops from Germany that was announced in the summer of 2020. It was done so without consulting NATO or more importantly the leaders of Germany, Italy and Belgium where the troops were supposed to move to and from. Or Congress for that matter, the folks who approve the funding which is kinda important when it comes to stuff that's going to cost a lot.

But the main problem was not the how but why. Moving the troops from Germany to Belgium and Italy made no sense in particular, which is away from the main 'problem' that NATO was and is facing, so why the move? Well, it came down the fact that the previous President didn't like Chancellor Merkel of Germany. That's it. He was making a large, permanent and expensive troop redeployment without bothering to consult some of our closest allies, all because he didn't like someone.

Random8145 said:
On the more extreme things he would say, he'd usually do the opposite. On other things, such as red lines regarding the killing of Americans, he was dead serious.
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And there is the core of the problem, you can't trust anything he says. At all.

Random8145 said:
I assume you mean his saying he trusts the Russians over the American intelligence agencies? I agree that such a thing isn't noble behavior in a president, but it also IMO wasn't the big deal everyone was making it out to be either,
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Yes, and it was a big deal. Especially coupled with all the other admiration he heaped upon Putin and Russia. It wasn't just unseemly but damaging, and to the folks who say it was for reasons I am still trying to figure out what the hell they were.

Random8145 said:
...especially given the vast amounts of nonsense Trump was known to spout. I don't even think the issue of Russian interference in the election (what Trump was referring to) was really any major deal.
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Again, a bit of a problem when it comes to someone who is the President of the United States.
 
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