NATO News and Discussion

[weatheriscool]

US 'to cease all future military exercises in Europe'

Nato countries could be forced to plan manoeuvres without US as Trump continues pivot away from bloc

The United States has told its allies that it does not plan to participate in military exercises in Europe, according to reports.

The move, the latest in Donald Trump’s pivot away from the bloc, would see America pull out of exercises beyond those already scheduled for this year.

The withdrawal concerns exercises that are on the “drawing board”, according to Swedish newspaper Expressen.

It means that Nato countries will be forced to plan exercises without the participation of the US military, the largest in the alliance.

Mr Trump has repeatedly criticised Nato countries for not meeting the current goal of spending two per cent of GDP on defence, arguing that the disparity puts an unfair burden on the United States.

More Here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics ... e-reports/

[weatheriscool]

Musk Calls on US to Quit NATO, Stop Paying for Defense of Europe

Source: Bloomberg

March 9, 2025 at 5:06 AM EDT

Billionaire Elon Musk threw his weight behind a US exit from NATO, saying on his social media platform that it “doesn’t make sense for America to pay for the defense of Europe.”

The senior adviser to US President Donald Trump was responding to a post on X early Sunday that asserted the US should “Exit NATO *now*!” “We really should,” the Tesla Inc. co-founder and chief executive officer said.

On March 3, Musk wrote on X he agreed with a suggestion by a conservative commentator that the US should leave both NATO and the United Nations.

Musk’s comments comes at a time when the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which will mark its 76th anniversary in April, hangs in the balance.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -of-europe

[weatheriscool]

U.S. admiral at NATO fired, latest ouster in Trump military purge

Source: Washington Post

The Trump administration has fired a top Navy admiral assigned to NATO headquarters in Brussels, people familiar with the matter said Monday, the latest ouster in an ongoing purge of senior military officers that has disproportionately targeted women.

Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee, was notified of her removal over the weekend, three officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel decision. Chatfield’s abrupt dismissal marks at least the ninth firing of a senior U.S. military officer, including four women, since President Donald Trump returned to office less than three months ago.

Chatfield had served at NATO since 2023, after becoming the first woman to lead the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. She will be replaced temporarily by Brig. Gen. Sean Flynn, an Army National Guard officer who had been Chatfield’s deputy at NATO, one person familiar with the matter said.

Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, did not respond to a request for comment. The news was reported first by Reuters.

Read more: https://wapo.st/425ymYR

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

Germany deploys permanent troops beyond its borders for the first time since WWII

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/ge ... rcna208700

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Spain Strikes Deal with NATO to be Exempt from 5 Percent Defence Spending Target
June 22, 2025

Introduction:

(France 24) Spain has struck a deal with the NATO military alliance that would allow the country to avoid spending 5 percent of its GDP on defence spending, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Sunday. US President Donald Trump has been pressuring NATO members to ramp up their defence spending.

NATO on Sunday signed off on a pledge to ramp up defence spending for its summit next week, but Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez insisted Madrid would not need to hit the headline figure of five percent of GDP.

US President Donald Trump has been pressuring allies to commit to that target when they meet for the two-day starting on Tuesday in The Hague.

Spain had been the last holdout on a compromise deal that sees allies promise to reach 3.5 percent on core military needs over the next decade, and spend 1.5 percent on a looser category of "defence-related" expenditures such as infrastructure and cybersecurity.

Multiple diplomats at NATO said the agreement had gone through with the approval of all 32 nations and that there was no exemption for Madrid.

Read more here: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/politics/int ... bArticle

[raklian]

Who thinks Trump will start throwing shade at Spain at every opportunity he gets?

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[raklian]

Who thinks Trump will start throwing shade at Spain at every opportunity he gets?

[firestar464]

More on that by the AP:

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump ... 2d08a36473

[caltrek]

NATO Members Pledge to Increase Military Expenditures Creates Problems
By Vijay Prashad’
July 3, 2025

Introduction:

(Counterpunch) By the end of the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in The Hague in June 2025, it became clear that everything was about money. In fact, the final communiqué was perhaps the shortest of any NATO meeting – only five points, two about money and one to thank the Netherlands for hosting the summit. The Hague Declaration was only 427 words, whereas in the previous year, the Washington Declaration was 5,400 words and ran to 44 paragraphs. This time, there was not the granular detail about this or that threat, nor the long and detailed assessments of the war in Ukraine and how NATO supports that war without limit (‘Ukraine’s future is in NATO’, the alliance said in 2024, a position no longer repeated in the brief statement of 2025). It was clear that the United States simply did not want to permit a laundry list of NATO’s obsessions. It was instead the US obsession that prevailed: that Europe increase its military spending to compensate for the US protective shield around the continent.

Having agreed to increase their military spending to 5% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the European states have created a series of problems for themselves.

The first problem is that they would have to invent the money out of their tight budgets. To raise their military expenditure to 5% of GDP would require them to reduce their social spending – in other words, to deepen the austerity policies that are already in place. In Germany, for instance, 21.1% of the population faces the risk of poverty or social exclusion. The German government, led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, has pledged €650 billion over the next five years to the military – an amount even the Financial Times finds to be ‘staggering’. To get to 5% of GDP, Germany, for instance, will have to raise about €144 billion per year out of reallocating budgets (austerity) and increased borrowing (debt); raising taxes is unlikely, even if these are regressive Value Added Taxes on consumption.

Read more here: https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/0 ... inations

caltrek’s comment: The article concludes that NATO “has no real threats.” I hate to sound like a cold warrior, but I think Russia is a very real threat.

[firestar464]

counterpunch is fundamentally unserious

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

I honestly couldn't find this anywhere

[caltrek]

NATO’s Contribution to the Climate Crisis Cannot Be Ignored
By Ian Davis
July 26, 2025

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) According to new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute, or CCI, recent increases in Pentagon spending alone will produce an additional 26 megatons of planet-heating gases—on a par with the annual carbon equivalent emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia.

With the Pentagon’s 2026 budget set to surge to $1 trillion (a 17% or $150 billion increase from 2023), its total greenhouse emissions will also increase to a staggering 178 megatons (Mt) of carbon equivalent emissions (CO2e). This will make the U.S. military and its industrial apparatus the 38th largest emitter in the world if it were its own nation. It will also result in an estimated $47 billion in economic damages globally, including impacts on agriculture, human health, and property from extreme weather, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s social cost of carbon calculator.
Yet the Pentagon’s true climate impact will almost certainly be much worse than estimated by the CCI, as the calculation does not include emissions generated from separate supplementary U.S. military funding, such as for arms transfers to Israel and Ukraine in recent years. It also does not include the emissions from armed conflict, which are considerable when it happens.

And the CCI study only covers U.S. military spending. Military spending in European North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries is also surging. At the Hague Summit in June, the 32 NATO member states pledged to increase their military and security spending from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. As a result, NATO military spending in Europe and Canada could increase from around $500 million today to $1.1 trillion in 2035, when the combined defense budgets of the other 31 allies will essentially equal the Pentagon’s. Every dollar or euro of this military spending in preparation for NATO to fight hypothetical wars with China, Russia, or anyone else has a climate and opportunity cost.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/n ... e-crisis

[caltrek]

I honestly couldn't find this anywhere

[firestar464]

NATO’s Contribution to the Climate Crisis Cannot Be Ignored
By Ian Davis
July 26, 2025

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) According to new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute, or CCI, recent increases in Pentagon spending alone will produce an additional 26 megatons of planet-heating gases—on a par with the annual carbon equivalent emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia.

With the Pentagon’s 2026 budget set to surge to $1 trillion (a 17% or $150 billion increase from 2023), its total greenhouse emissions will also increase to a staggering 178 megatons (Mt) of carbon equivalent emissions (CO2e). This will make the U.S. military and its industrial apparatus the 38th largest emitter in the world if it were its own nation. It will also result in an estimated $47 billion in economic damages globally, including impacts on agriculture, human health, and property from extreme weather, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s social cost of carbon calculator.
Yet the Pentagon’s true climate impact will almost certainly be much worse than estimated by the CCI, as the calculation does not include emissions generated from separate supplementary U.S. military funding, such as for arms transfers to Israel and Ukraine in recent years. It also does not include the emissions from armed conflict, which are considerable when it happens.

And the CCI study only covers U.S. military spending. Military spending in European North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries is also surging. At the Hague Summit in June, the 32 NATO member states pledged to increase their military and security spending from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. As a result, NATO military spending in Europe and Canada could increase from around $500 million today to $1.1 trillion in 2035, when the combined defense budgets of the other 31 allies will essentially equal the Pentagon’s. Every dollar or euro of this military spending in preparation for NATO to fight hypothetical wars with China, Russia, or anyone else has a climate and opportunity cost.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/n ... e-crisis

Oooof. We need to reduce emissions, but at the same time Russia is a problem

[zzz]

NATO’s Contribution to the Climate Crisis Cannot Be Ignored
By Ian Davis
July 26, 2025

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) According to new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute, or CCI, recent increases in Pentagon spending alone will produce an additional 26 megatons of planet-heating gases—on a par with the annual carbon equivalent emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia.

With the Pentagon’s 2026 budget set to surge to $1 trillion (a 17% or $150 billion increase from 2023), its total greenhouse emissions will also increase to a staggering 178 megatons (Mt) of carbon equivalent emissions (CO2e). This will make the U.S. military and its industrial apparatus the 38th largest emitter in the world if it were its own nation. It will also result in an estimated $47 billion in economic damages globally, including impacts on agriculture, human health, and property from extreme weather, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s social cost of carbon calculator.
Yet the Pentagon’s true climate impact will almost certainly be much worse than estimated by the CCI, as the calculation does not include emissions generated from separate supplementary U.S. military funding, such as for arms transfers to Israel and Ukraine in recent years. It also does not include the emissions from armed conflict, which are considerable when it happens.

And the CCI study only covers U.S. military spending. Military spending in European North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries is also surging. At the Hague Summit in June, the 32 NATO member states pledged to increase their military and security spending from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. As a result, NATO military spending in Europe and Canada could increase from around $500 million today to $1.1 trillion in 2035, when the combined defense budgets of the other 31 allies will essentially equal the Pentagon’s. Every dollar or euro of this military spending in preparation for NATO to fight hypothetical wars with China, Russia, or anyone else has a climate and opportunity cost.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/n ... e-crisis

Oooof. We need to reduce emissions, but at the same time Russia is a problem