Dear Editor:
Remember Donald Trump's comments about NATO? I'm not a fan of Trump but there is certainly a basis for his comments.
There are 28 nations in NATO. NATO nations agreed to spend a minimum of 2 percent of their GDP on defense.
In 2014 only six (Estonia, France, Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States) met that goal.
Eleven of the nations (Albania, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain) spent 1 percent or less of their GDP on defense. We spent 3.5 percent of our GDP on defense, 66 percent of the total defense spending by NATO nations. Germany spent 1.2 percent of its GDP on defense.
One article I read stated that only five (the United States, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom and Estonia) would meet the 2 percent goal in 2015.
In February of this year the BBC reported that Obama's Pentagon wants to quadruple our NATO spending, increasing it from $789 million to $3.4 billion.
I support having a strong, well-equipped military but this is insane. Why should we borrow money to defend Europe when they won't pay to defend themselves? Why should we spend 3.4 percent of our GDP on defense, a significant portion of it for NATO, when nations like Germany refuse to spend more than 1.2 percent of their GDP?
Some statistics on North and South Korea are also interesting. The population of South Korea is twice that of North Korea. South Korea's GDP is 50 times that of North Korea's. South Korea only spends 2.4 percent of its GDP on defense, compared to our 3.5 percent, yet that amount is larger than North Korea's total GDP. Why are we spending money to defend South Korea?