[Newsbot]

Title: Trudeau says Canada one of NATO's 'strongest actors' without committing more money
Category: Misc CDN
Posted By: martin14
Date: 2017-02-17 19:05:20
Canadian

[martin14]

Remeber folks, Trump has asked for other NATO members to step up to long before agreed commitments of 2% of GDP.

Trudope just refused.

Remember that.

[martin14]

$1:

Merkel resists US demands to raise defence spending and warns that she won't rush to meet Nato targets

Germany's chancellor said her country was 'conscious of its responsibility’
It will stick to the aim of raising defence spending to 2% of national income
EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker yesterday said Europe must not cave in to the US demands to raise military spending


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z4Z0SmktoS

Trump should do himself a favour and close all US bases in Europe.. tomorrow.

[herbie]

Yup thut wud be smart. Reel smart uh huh!

[BeaverFever]

martin14 martin14:

Remeber folks, Trump has asked for other NATO members to step up to long before agreed commitments of 2% of GDP.

Trudope just refused.

Remember that.

Oh well if Trump asked for it then 'gee golly we best get crackin' to please da masta! Jus' dont beat us no mo' masta pleasewe best be gettin ourselves one of dees:

[commanderkai]

Yeah, Trudeau's lying. We're nowhere near a "strong actor" in NATO and we're heavily dependent on the US for our defense. Of course, instead of spending more on defense, people are gonna get butthurt because now it's Trump reminding us we neglect our military, instead of Obama or whoever else.

Also amazing how NATO is seemingly akin to slavery now. Round of applause.

[bootlegga]

In some ways, Trudeau is correct - we did step up and put troops in Afghanistan, sent troops to train those fighting ISIS, have deployed units to Poland and the Baltic area for exercises/training missions more recently. We've also planes to bomb ISIS, routinely deploy our frigates with SMNG 1 & 2 and what not. We also support NATO allies with strategic airlift (as we did for France in Mali last year).

When you compare us to other small countries (Norway, Portugal, most eastern European NATO members) and even some larger countries like Italy, we do an awful lot in Europe and abroad.

Having said that, we certainly did much more in the past (like when we deployed thousands for troops and air crew to Europe for 4 decades) and should be doing more.

We should be significantly re-investing in our navy and our Super Hornet purchase should be much larger than 12 aircraft. Ideally, it should be enough to equip several squadrons, which could then be transitioned into a CAS role once the competition to replace the CF-18 is completed.