2017-05-28 By Danny Lam

NATO members excluding the United States account for 21% of world GDP with a per capita income of $31,000. It is a wealthy collection of democracies that is very much a creation of the post war US grand strategy.

As such, NATO (x USA) is more than able financially to look after themselves in terms of security if they want to – at least since the 1970s when NATO members UK and France both fielded their own nuclear deterrent.

A century of dependence on the United States to come to the aid of Europe, beginning with World War I and II, and then post-war, have however created a dependent, parent-child relationship where NATO members continued to look to the United States to provide their security and solve all their problems.

NATO have become a spoiled child that is very much a product of the US nuclear umbrella mixed with the dominant social-democracy ideology of Europe.

Like NATO citizens looking to their social-democratic governments to solve their problems, NATO allies look to the United States and American taxpayers and expect Uncle Sam to provide.

Successive US Administrations have to deal with several NATO allies (e.g Canada, Germany, etc.) that behave like petulant 2 year old children, stamping their feet, shedding crocodile tears, or raising their voices when asked by the US to abide by their NATO commitments made to the Obama Administration most recently in 2014.

To be clear, not all of the NATO allies act in this manner — there are those who take their Article III commitments seriously, but the problem is that NATO as the Article V club does not. 

Everyone cut back defense spending after the cold war was won, and in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crash, but a decade later, when the crisis is past and urgent new security challenges loom, there is no excuse but to raising defense spending back to at least normal historical levels.

President Obama (2014 Wales Declaration) and Trump both expended considerable political capital to exhort NATO members to do so.

Instead of doing so, several NATO leaders greeted President Trump with a temper tatum on his first visit to NATO headquarters.

President Trump presided over the dedication of the new NATO Headquarters and the 9/11 memorial. NATO leaders decided to make the centerpiece of the visit the fact that the United States was the sole and only member to invoke Article 5 after 9/11.

While this fact is true, the repeated nagging of the United States on this point reeks of a Leni Riefenstahl production more appropriate a century past. Or the kind of guilt trip that Israelis lay on Germans, or Beijing China heaps on Japan.

Seventy years after WWII, this is getting old.

President Trump showed extreme restraint and diplomatic tact to not, in his speech, publically placed this fact (US invocation of Article 5) in the context of all the times that the US came to the aid of Europe before and after NATO without waiting for Article 5 being invoked.

Should President Trump have mentioned the Greek Civil War, Berlin Airlift, Hungarian Revolution, Cuban Missile Crisis, Invasion of Czechoslovakia, to name a few?   Or enumerate the cost of each intervention?

In each and every one of these cases, the United States mobilized troops, put Americans, and CONUS civilian populations at risk to defend NATO and Europe without the formalities of Article 5 being invoked by a fellow NATO member.

What about the present and immediate future?

Presently, the United States is fully shouldering the burden of defense against Iranian & DPRK ballistic missiles in Europe and North America with only token participation from European partners and nil from Canada.

With the explosively growing nuclear ballistic missile threat from Iran via their collaboration with North Korea, might NATO allies have woken up from their willful blind eye and slumber and realized that a new, (non-Russian) existential threat is nearly upon them?

Do they need to wait for the equivalent of 1940 to rearm?

Will NATO “allies” like Germany (Defense: 1.2% GDP) or Canada (1% GDP before it is Sajjaned) honestly expect Uncle Sam to pay for the full bill of providing a Ballistic Missile Defense for them for free?

Indeed, the nuclear threat and its growing complexity in the Second Nuclear Age is a core element of what Article V really is all about, and Britain and France already possess nuclear weapons because they wanted to include nuclear weapons within Article III and not hope for the US to do an Article V commitment.

What about reciprocity?

What capacity do NATO allies except the US have to provide for “collective defense” obligations to Canada?

What aid can NATO provide the United States in the event of a North Korean or Iranian ballistic missile attack on North American cities?

Conversely, what capacity do Canada have to aid European NATO allies in the event of an Iranian ballistic missile attack — which was amply demonstrated during the past week by the North Korean proxy missile test.

NATO’s ceremony laid bare the fatal flaw of the organization:  It is too much of a one way relationship. NATO Europe is not even taking care of problems in their own backyard (e.g. Russia, Middle East, Southern Flank, or Missile Defense against Iran) let alone pretend to offer all but a token expeditionary capability to aid the US, Canada, or non-NATO allies in a crunch.

Europeans and Canadians (who couldn’t care less about defending themselves adequately) argue that Russia’s territorial annexations / incursions are the top priority.

And with Brexit and the general crisis in Europe deepening, the future of European defense does not revolve around President Trump but devolves to the key European states to enhance their own defense capabilities as could be understood within an Article III context.

If it is so important for NATO allies to beat back Russia in the Ukraine “on principle”, please explain why the identical principle do not apply to the PRC’s “sea grab” of the South China Sea — unilaterally violating a signed and ratified treaty (UNCLOS) by Beijing China and grabbing a territory about the size of Europe from the Channel to Eastern Poland.

This is all the more puzzling as NATO member Canada seem to have no objection to Beijing China’s claims, or care enough to protest, let alone participate in FONOPS, even though all NATO allies, including Canada is dependent on freedom of navigation of SCS for trade.

President Trump could have affirmed his support for Article 5 and then publically invoked Article 3 in front of his NATO peers and pointed out that their failure to provide for their own self-defense is a necessary pre-condition for seeking aid under Article 5.  

That would have sent a clear message that the mythical 2% GDP defense spending target is necessary, but not sufficient.

What good is 2% GDP spending that do not result in bona fide, credible, deployable, usable capabilities held at high levels of readiness for military contingencies and as deterrent?

The assembled NATO dignitaries did not take a hint when President Trump took note of the headquarters and pointed said he did not once ask about cost.

Or the inevitable compare with costs of similar facilities in the US.

And the tradeoff between lavish HQs staffed with REMFs and useable NATO defense capabilities.

America’s NATO “allies” like Germany, rather than address this point, resorted to farcical arguments that spending on foreign aid, development, and others should be counted in NATO “defense” spending.

Canada, similarly, resorted to fictitious and fraudulent accounting “alternate numbers” to claim inflated defense spending and “contributions”.

While such arguments might have merit if ALL NATO members are given the same opportunity to apply the same rules once the rules are changed by consensus, which was not the intent of Canada or Germany: Effectively unilaterally implementing “new math” rules that only apply to them.

Brazenly defrauding allies with lies is in turn operationalized by the Trudeau regime’s tactics against the Trump Administration: organizing multilateral coalitions, intense lobbying of American interests, exploiting legally and politically dubious relationships with Administration officials, threats, persistently and routinely reneging on government-to-government commitments, withdrawing from signed and ratified treaty, etc.

By making public Canada’s stratagem ostensibly to help NATO allies and Mexico reign in the Trump Administration, Canada opened the door for the same game being played by Russia, Beijing-China, Iran, North Korea, Jihadists, etc.: A consequence that may not have been anticipated by the Trudeau regime.

Ultimately, the US Administration and Congress will have to respond by blocking these moves that constitutes interference by foreign agents in domestic US politics.

Dishonesty of lobbyists and abrupt reversals, or tumbleweed like policy by touts is to be expected.

President Trump could have addressed this issue of persistent dishonesty by unilaterally initiating the preparation of a semiannual annual report by US-DoD on every NATO member that rates their performance on meeting Article 3 obligations.    

A report that would publically identify the threats facing each NATO member, and assess what they have done and actual readiness and preparedness to mitigate the threat. These facts, independently compiled by DoD, can be considered as a factor like progress toward 2% GDP spending in any consideration of Article 5 obligations beyond the requirement for “consultations”.

A semiannual Article 3 Report on every NATO member would be a much better gauge now that members have taken the lead in using Arthur-Anderson accounting. If exhortations to do the right thing have no effect, perhaps public shaming semi-annually to their electorate can do better.

At some future point, the Article 3 reports might delve into the capacity, readiness and willingness of NATO members to come to the aid of the United States, e.g., in the Pacific theater.

Wouldn’t it be a revelation and revolutionary for NATO obligations to be truly mutual?

NATO leaders began the meeting with barely disguised contempt for President Trump, whom they regarded as “someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues”.

The indisputable fact is that NATO xUSA, rather than President Trump, revealed themselves to be so described:   An organization that is incapable of paying attention to the imminent threat from Iranian nuclear ballistic missiles (sent via proxy DPRK) days before. (Short attention span.) Unable to recognizing the importance of upholding UNCLOS / Freedom of Navigation in the South China Sea. (No interest in in-depth policy issues.) Willfully blind to the imminent existential threats from DPRK to NATO allies USA and Canada.  (No knowledge of NATO, esp. Article 3).

Should we even mention the dangers of jihadists or Syria obtaining nuclear weapons / missiles from DPRK?

The unabashed expression of European elite arrogance at the NATO summit toward the American leader of the untermensch could have been resulted in a less restrained and diplomatic President Trump walking out.

Instead, the statesman President Trump, rather than feed this self-serving elite’s demand for continued welfare payments from the American taxpayer, diplomatically told them to get on with investing in their own defense.

Or should the United States look for more credible bilateral relationships within Europe rather than having a running argument with those European states that are self-satisfied and preoccupied with their own economic development and social welfare rather than their own defense and use NATO as a club to protect themselves from the Russians with a low cost insurance loan?

Editor’s Note: If you wish to comment on this article, please see the following:

Tough Love for America’s NATO Allies

Here are the comments made by President Trump to NATO during his visit:

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Thank you very much, Secretary General Stoltenberg.  Chancellor Merkel, thank you very much.  Other heads of state and government, I am honored to be here with members of an alliance that has promoted safety and peace across the world.

Prime Minister May, all of the nations here today grieve with you and stand with you.  I would like to ask that we now observe a moment of silence for the victims and families of the savage attack which took place in Manchester.  (A moment of silence is observed.)  Thank you.  Terrible thing.

This ceremony is a day for both remembrance and resolve.  We remember and mourn those nearly 3,000 innocent people who were brutally murdered by terrorists on September 11th, 2001.  Our NATO allies responded swiftly and decisively, invoking for the first time in its history the Article 5 collective defense commitments.

The recent attack on Manchester in the United Kingdom demonstrates the depths of the evil we face with terrorism.  Innocent little girls and so many others were horribly murdered and badly injured while attending a concert — beautiful lives with so much great potential torn from their families forever and ever.  It was a barbaric and vicious attack upon our civilization.

All people who cherish life must unite in finding, exposing, and removing these killers and extremists — and, yes, losers.  They are losers.  Wherever they exist in our societies, we must drive them out and never, ever let them back in.

This call for driving out terrorism is a message I took to a historic gathering of Arab and Muslim leaders across the region, hosted by Saudi Arabia.  There, I spent much time with King Salman, a wise man who wants to see things get much better rapidly.  The leaders of the Middle East have agreed at this unprecedented meeting to stop funding the radical ideology that leads to this horrible terrorism all over the globe.

My travels and meetings have given me renewed hope that nations of many faiths can unite to defeat terrorism, a common threat to all of humanity.  Terrorism must be stopped in its tracks, or the horror you saw in Manchester and so many other places will continue forever.  You have thousands and thousands of people pouring into our various countries and spreading throughout, and in many cases, we have no idea who they are.  We must be tough.  We must be strong.  And we must be vigilant.

The NATO of the future must include a great focus on terrorism and immigration, as well as threats from Russia and on NATO’s eastern and southern borders.  These grave security concerns are the same reason that I have been very, very direct with Secretary Stoltenberg and members of the Alliance in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations, for 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they’re supposed to be paying for their defense.

This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States.  And many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years and not paying in those past years.  Over the last eight years, the United States spent more on defense than all other NATO countries combined.  If all NATO members had spent just 2 percent of their GDP on defense last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defense and for the financing of additional NATO reserves.

We should recognize that with these chronic underpayments and growing threats, even 2 percent of GDP is insufficient to close the gaps in modernizing, readiness, and the size of forces.  We have to make up for the many years lost.  Two percent is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats.  If NATO countries made their full and complete contributions, then NATO would be even stronger than it is today, especially from the threat of terrorism.

I want to extend my appreciation to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York for contributing this remnant of the North Tower, as well as to Chancellor Merkel and the German people for donating this portion of the Berlin Wall.  It is truly fitting that these two artifacts now reside here so close together at the new NATO Headquarters.  And I never asked once what the new NATO Headquarters cost.  I refuse to do that.  But it is beautiful.

Each one marks a pivotal event in the history of this Alliance and in the eternal battle between good and evil.  On one side, a testament to the triumph of our ideals over a totalitarian Communist ideology bent on the oppression of millions and millions of people; on the other, a painful reminder of the barbaric evil that still exists in the world and that we must confront and defeat together as a group, as a world.

This twisted mass of metal reminds us not only of what we have lost, but also what forever endures — the courage of our people, the strength of our resolve, and the commitments that bind us together as one.

We will never forget the lives that were lost.  We will never forsake the friends who stood by our side.  And we will never waiver in our determination to defeat terrorism and to achieve lasting security, prosperity and peace.

Thank you very much.  It’s a great honor to be here.  Thank you.

2017-05-24 By Danny Lam

The Trudeau regime promised Canadians a defense policy update on June 7 after PM Trudeau visit with his counterparts at NATO and G7.

Meanwhile, North Korea tested two ballistic missiles, (May 13&21, 2017), one that demonstrated a re-entry vehicle for nuclear warheads, and the latter a solid fuel MRBM that directly threatens much of Western Europe and the Middle East when launched from DPRK’s Axis collaborator Iran.

The following analysis of what is likely to be in the forthcoming Defense Policy Update is based on analysis of submissions and pubic consultations, public statements by officials in Canada and allies, and discussions with defense industry experts and suppliers.

The “updated” Canadian defense policy will go down in history as the Gander Airport of Canadian Defense:  Gander airport was the largest, busiest mid-North Atlantic refueling stop until the jet age.

Ottawa invested to upgrade the airport in 1971 even as longer ranged jet aircraft began to dominate air travel in the 1960s and bypassed Gander, creating a white elephant that only was used to full capacity exactly once: 9/11.

Canada is about to repeat the Gander story in Defense Policy with the “update” that will be shown by 2018 to have failed in identifying the main, imminent existential threat to Canadians, and with it, how the Canadian Armed Forces can address the challenges and what it will cost in 2017 and 18, not by 2030.  

What are the failures?

North Korea under Kim Jong Un is a clear and immediate existential threat to Canada and allies. This is now generally recognized by Pacific allies like South Korea, Japan, Australia and the US but not Canada.

European NATO allies are in the process of joining the consensus after the most recent DPRK missile test that was a proxy for their financier and Axis partner Iran.

Yet, the Liberal regime of Canada put forward a Defense Policy that ignored the near term threat from North Korea’s nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles beginning 2019. By then, DPRK will be a credible thermonuclear ballistic missile threat to Canadian population centers like Vancouver.

Furthermore, Canada’s defense and foreign policy establishment failed to recognize the motivations that is driving the Kim Jong Un regime, preferring to be concerned with softwood timber tariffs and milk quotas.

DPRK is not arming with WMDs that can threaten Canada just for the sake of deterrence, but for the purpose of extortion. Extortion is the use of force or threat of force to obtain money, property. It is fundamentally and legally distinct from blackmail.   (Bracken, 2017).

Nuclear blackmail has precedence with Israel’s threat to use nuclear weapons unless they received urgent conventional arms aid during the Yom Kippur War.     Nuclear extortion has no known precedence EXCEPT DPRK.

If sanctions and military action failed to prevent Kim Jong Un’s North Korea from successfully practice nuclear extortion, it will be devastating to the existing world order. It is a matter of time before states like Canada become tribute paying vassals if DPRK prevails.   Or nuclear blackmail will be applied to other issues like genocide, imposing religions by force, or other purposes that Anglo-Europeans abhor.

Canada need to urgently evaluate the extent and scale of threat in the Second Nuclear Age where Canada cannot solely rely on American extended deterrence as sufficient to deter regimes like North Korea in the near term.

The Defense Policy review is silent on what needs to be done in 2017 to have a deterrent and/or defensive capability in place by 2019 or sooner.

Allies like Australia, Japan, S. Korea, and the United States are giving Beijing China a last chance to curb the DPRK threat this year.   Should that fail, Canadian Defense Policy must prepare for military options in concert with allies.

This is not a problem for the next decade or 2030, but a problem in 2017.

Near term military action against North Korea will strain resources from every NATO and Pacific ally including Canada.  A prescient defense policy update would have recognized that on this short a timeframe, urgent action and expenditures need to be undertaken today to bring existing Canadian forces to a high level of readiness.

That is to say, everything from training, maintenance, to having adequate stockpiles of costly precision munitions.

Plans need to be put in place to rapidly improve and update capabilities ahead of a major, high intensity and long duration conflict that Canada has not fought in since World War II.    Orders need to be placed yesterday for missile defense systems, which will be in short supply. To date, Canada’s DND have not even initiated a formal request for information to manufacturers of missile defense systems when they are within a year of being swamped with priority orders from other allies.

Canadian warfighting systems are not just underfunded, poorly equipped and antiquated that successive governments pay lip service to improve – and then break the solemn government-to-government pledges.

What the Policy Review does to improve Canada’s credibility (or lack thereof) in the short run (2018-2020) without concrete, irreversible action is an open question. If it is to happen, it should already be in the public record like the Canadian Federal Budget released in March, 2017.

Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan the Trudeau regime loyalist, within the span of one year, went from sounding the alarm about a fighter “capability gap” in June 2016 that must be immediately met by a no-bid purchase of 18 “interim” F/A-18 Super Hornets, to have the deal being reconsidered in May 2017 by Liberal regime loyalist colleague Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland.  This abrupt change in defense policy against the Boeing made F/A-18 in retaliation for the ITC investigation against Bombardier – with Boeing calling for countervailing duties and antidumping charges of 80% – strains what little credibility the liberal regime has left.

Expeditiously acquiring 18 F/A-18s was an important enough issue to have Prime Minister Trudeau press President Trump during their February 2017 meeting for “immediate acquisition”.     When the deal is questioned in May (not even 100 days later), no alternative was proposed to meet the former “capability” and credibility gap by Sajjan, Freeland, or the PMO.

Would Canadian commitments to NATO presented by Prime Minister Trudeau in Brussels May 25 do any better than his track record with President Trump?

Beyond the chronic problem of underfunding of Canadian Armed Forces, decades of engaging in low level conflicts and peacekeeping primarily against poorly equipped irregulars have weakened Canadian’s ability to fight in a high intensity war. A war against North Korea will not be a replay of Gulf War I or II against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.   Or a fight against rag tag armies in Afghanistan or Rwanda or Mali: It will not be a slow motion “war” that Canadian Armed Forces presently excel at.

Yet, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia “free rider” Freeland apparently have no inkling that traditional Canadian Forces missions like UN Peacekeeping will be the least of Canada’s concerns once allied consensus crystalize about the DPRK-Iran threat.

War on the Korean peninsula is unlikely to be a limited war of high tech stand-off strikes touted by planners. Or a short duration war with Canadian troops “home by Christmas”.

Canadians and allied forces cannot automatically count superiority in quantity or quality (technology, doctrine, training, logistics, or anything else) taken for granted since World War II.   Or the security of unprotected supply lines from Canada. Nor can Canada count on immunity from nuclear strikes against the Canadian mainland for which Canada presently have no defense.   Will the Defense policy update talk of fielding a missile defense by 2030 when credible threats exist beginning 2019?

In order to have a missile defense in place by 2019, orders should have already been placed. None is known to be placed or planned for 2017.

In a likely high intensity conflict in the Korean Peninsula where DPRK will be supported by other peer competitor belligerents, Canadian and Allied Armed Forces will quickly discover that the cumbersome doctrines, tactics and rules of engagement built up over the half century of peace are not only an impediment, but have fatal consequences against first rate enemies with no such concerns.

A review of these quaint, outdated legacy codes, archaic as the Code of Chivalry, need to be urgently be undertaken and contingent doctrines and ROEs devised.

Canadian Forces have apparently learned nothing from the training mission with the Ukraine: at least in the urgency of revising ROEs and doctrine for high intensity multi-dimensional warfare.

Finally, the Defense policy update failed to recognize that reform of the cumbersome, outdated, obsolete and costly procurement system that Canada (and most allies) operate is an urgent priority with or without the looming threat of a high intensity, long duration war in the Korean Peninsula.

Canadian defense procurement systems in its present form will collapse within months of a high intensity conflict; but not before failing to deliver Canadian forces in the field up-to-date gear needed to survive. Just how will the Canadian public react to Canadian Forces being outmatched 10:1 by DPRK precision munitions that are superior when it happens?

There is still time to sketch out contingency plans for the issues and eventualities and append it to the Defense Policy Update before it is released on June 7.

Or alternatively, to suspend release pending an update that address these contingencies in the Appendix.

Canada will have the opportunity to listen very carefully to allies at the NATO summit and consult with Pacific allies like Australia, Japan, South Korea to ensure that the draft Canadian Defense Policy is consistent with the consensus view about the DPRK threat before the document is finalized.

Canada cannot field a credible missile defense against without the participation of non-NATO allies Japan, South Korea, working with the US nor participate in a high intensity war in the Korean peninsula in their present condition.

The Trudeau regime need to act now lest we end up with another Gander Airport.

Note: The Liberal regime did not see fit or necessary to issue a statement, comment, tweet, or any other expression of Canadian government views after the most recent North Korean Ballistic Missile test on May 13^th and 21^st.

A curious omission for an aspiring member of the UN Security Council.

Editor’s Note: If you wish to comment on this article, please see the following:

The Gander Airport of Defense Policy Update: Awaiting Canada’s Defence Policy Review