Germany rejects commitment to spend 2 % of GDP on defense

You are quite right, this is not a German American problem, it is a NATO-American problem. Were it just a German-American problem, it might be possible to resolve it between our two governments. As a NATO-American problem, it's not worth the effort. Europe has a larger GDP and population than the US. Europe certainly has the resources to provide for its own defense. If it chooses not to do so, Europe, and ONLY Europe, should have to deal with the consequences.

 

Actually, the majority of the homeless in the US are drug addicts or the mentally ill. In short, they prefer to not have jobs, living off of whatever the state will give them or they can steal - so long as they can still get their drugs.

In days past, we used to put people like that in jail, or the mentally ill into mental institutions. But today that is considered cruel, so instead they just live on the street like animals.

I have worked for years in trying to help homeless veterans, and the simple fact is that most really do not want help. Offer them a clean and safe place to live, 3 meals a day, and training on the condition they get a job within 6 months and stay drug and alcohol free, and most turn it down.

That is not infrastructure, that is not even poverty. They are people who care more about their next high than anything else.

And a rich socialist who travels the world and drives a Mercedes? Yea, that sounds about right to me.

 

Germany is ranked as #9 for strongest military world power although we all know after two world wars Germany is not weak. Here is some info for you:

http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=germany

The site says Germany has a defence budget of $36,300,000,000 as of 2016
Labor Force is 44,790,000
Naval Strength is 81 ships with no destroyers, 676 aircraft, 408 tanks, 5869 armored fighting vehicles, 154 self propelled guns (SPG's) and 50 Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems (MLRSs)
The manpower is 37,000,000 with 29,540,000 fit for service. Total population is 80,854,408.
Active frontline personnel is 180,000 and active reserve is 145,000. Reaching military age annually is 791,000.

Germany is not weak but to say it is stronger than Russia is misleading. Russia is ranked #2 for strongest power in the world as of 2016.

Russia has the world's largest tank force, second largest air force, and the 5th largest naval force with a defence budget of 46,600,000,000.
Compare that to Germany ranked 18 for largest air power and 29 for largest naval power. 408 German tanks vs more than 15 thousand Russian tanks.

Of Course America has both countries beat but that is not surprising when the defence budget is 581,000,000,000 and we have 19 air craft carriers vs Russias 1 lone carrier.

All countries have their problems and we are all stronger if we work together. NATO means we are a team. This is not a bad thing because we should never under estimate other countries including Russia or China or North Korea or India which all put a lot of effort into having a great military.

 

Russias economy is magnitudes smaller than ours.

That said, no one here actually is able to tell hiw exactly we should expand our military.

 

I'm familiar with these numbers, thanks.
I've read different numbers for the US though (589 billion) and I don't recall mentioning Russia in any of my posts. A direct conventional confrontation would probably be a walk in the park for Putin. But I'm not really interested in sand table exercises. My point was that some fools didn't even care to read my comment that they replied to or completely misread it.
The simple fact that during the summit in Wales 2014 Nato agreed on this here, was obviously too complicated.

Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level will:(2% of the GDP)

• halt any decline in defence expenditure;
• aim to increase defence expenditure in real terms as GDP grows;
• aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls.

http://www.nato.int/cps/de/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm

'aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade' doesn't really sound awfully difficult to me. Within a decade means until 2024, it's 2017 by my calendar, which, again, was apparently too complicated for some to grasp.
Trump's tweets that Germany or other countries "owe" the US vast money is complete rubbish. Call me old-fashioned, but for some reason I think Nato's official summit decleration containing 113 different points is more important and meaningful than 10 words put out twitter.

 

Russia does not have any "aircraft carriers", they have not really had any since after WWII.

What they have is a "Heavy Aircraft Carrying Missile Cruiser". Aircraft carriers are platforms which use their aircraft for conducting strike missions. The Admiral Kuznetsov only has 12 attack aircraft on board, with a designated role of providing combat support and defense of the missile cruiser itself and it's flotilla of ships.

Just because a ship can land and take off aircraft, that does not make it an aircraft carrier (other than in the most literal sense). By that definition, almost every cargo container ship in the world is an aircraft carrier.

 

I guess you missed it the first time so:

"One year ago, he described how the Saxony-based 371st tank battalion, prior to taking on its role as "spearhead" of the NATO Response Force, had to borrow 15,000 pieces of equipment from 56 other German military units. In another example, the 345th artillery training battalion, based just west of Frankfurt, was officially supposed to have 24 armored artillery vehicles at its disposal. In reality, though, it had just seven, of which six were on standby for NATO and could not be used. And the seventh was in reserve for the six on standby"

"A mountain infantry unit had only 96 pairs of night-vision goggles available instead of the 522 it had been allotted -- of which 76 had to be loaned out to other units. Which meant they only had 20, of which 17 were damaged."

"The number of Leopard 2 battle tanks at the Bundeswehr's disposal likewise plunged during that same time period, from 2,000 to 225"

http://www.spiegel.de/international...es-political-debate-in-germany-a-1136140.html

Why don't you start with making up some of those equipment short-falls, we can talk about expanding it after you've done that.

 

"Russia was always weak. How did you wear them down in 19th century or 18th century? Germany was always magnitudes more rich than Russia." Sobo

Germany may have always been richer than Russia but that doesn't mean Russia was/is/will be weaker than Germany. In 1762 the Russian army was about to capture Berlin. Then the Empress Elizabeth died and her pro-Prussia nephew became Emperor and made peace with Prussia, giving up all Russian gains for nothing. In short Frederick the Great got lucky.

In the 19th century Russia was a friendly power to the USA and was also very distant from the USA.

If Napoleon hadn't invaded Russia in 1812, the various German states would probably still be dominated by the French Empire.

"Without our nuclear umbrella, Germany would have been nuked to slag by the Soviets. You’re welcome." Null Spot the Destroyer

No, the prevailing westerlies would have blown the fallout towards Russia. A conventional invasion would have been possible but much more likely is that West Germany becomes a neutral (like Austria or Finland) and East Germany remains separate and stays a Soviet ally. This might or might not have prevented the collapse of the Soviet Union.