Trump on NATO and in London

POTUS Trump got off to a quick start on NATO derailing even before the Summit in Brussels while still in USA that the European nations should pay more for their defence.

Something that plays well into the rustbelt States of the Trump heartland and - as with Brexit and ending the EU gravy train - repatriating USA taxes back to USA.

Except there are a few problems.

One is that the USA military presence is at one of its lowest ever levels since US Army Europe was first founded and sent overseas in 1942.

Just 35k US troops in Europe and many of them office staff is hardly a massive saving if reduced to say 25k or 15k. That 35k troop level is really the minimum to act as a Russian deterrent and tripwire for say Donetsk and the Baltic states.
If there was any substantial danger of a Russian invasion beyond Russophobia and sabrerattling for the military-industrial complex increased budgets.

Similarly US navy and Air Force cuts have already been made eg closing Mildenhall in Sussex one of the first USAF bomber bases in WW2.

Russian Bear bomber radar probes of UK are now just once a month.

While here in East Kent, questions should perhaps be asked of UK defences given Russian ships often sail through the English Channel - and without a hint of a surprise attack on Big Ben or the County Barn.

As so often, it does look as though the Colonel Blimps of the UK military and MOD have been talking up the threats while investing in the wrong sort of defences.

Lots of shiny kit such as aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines - too expensive to use, or risk being sunk.
And not the weft and weave of realistic defences such as Cyberwarfare (UK nuclear submarines surfacing to reboot Windows XP or nearly nuking Trump's Florida summer house?).

Or P8 maritime planes to hunt down submarines.

Even the armoured ambulances and personnel carriers that Denmark manages to deploy in Helmand to prevent its troops marching home without their legs.

Or a lack of helicopters, and ones that can't dustoff when it's dusty.

### Blimps for Blimps or drones? ###

While the F35 jets to eventually fly from the aircraft carriers without aircraft have already been surpassed by drone technology without being used. Two UK aircraft sunk in minutes off Singapore in 1942 worth remembering for any drone strikes around the Spratlys and Paracels.

Apt for the 100 Years of the RAF that the last year of manned flight may already be upon us. Why bother with F35 jets - or talking up the new Typhoon - if a drone surveillance and missile can be used more cheaply instead.

BA may be short of a few pilots but that's all.

While the flypast of the most Typhoons ever at just 22 planes suggests that there is no real need for jets anyway.

Perhaps the best route is to bite the bullet and fold the RAF into the Army Air Corps.

Even sack a few dozen of the 40 Admirals for 20 warships, and fold the Navy into an Army Command.

Less brass hats and silly parades and clearer lines of command and reduced inter-service rivalry.

Few would suggest even a 1% chance of war with Russia - certainly less if Putin can agree with Trump reduced nuclear weapons from the Helsinki Summit. And which president or soldier or sailor with a UN ban now in place would want to risk war crimes trials for manufacturing or deploying or even using nukes?

Look at the mess Putin and Kim Jongun and Assad have gotten themselves into with just a few banned chemical weapons. Or the Sarin cult of the Tokyo subway attacks being executed in Japan last week.

Rather, UK's likely military actions are Afghanistan, and reconstruction of Iraq, Syria and Libya - how did ISIS manage to take over almost all of Arabia so quickly from NATO?

And Afghanistan as NATO's first armed conflict has looked less than ideal for 70 years of training and funding.

And the Sahel, effectively Europe's southern frontier now, and the poverty and conflict through Chad, as the cornerstone of West Africa and with a new UK embassy, and USA Special Forces actions and deaths in Niger; French and UK troops in Mali and Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.

Or the Ebola pandemic crises of Liberia and DRC Congo - all the more important with the Lords committee on NTD Neglected Tropical Diseases and AMR antibiotic resistance vaccines stalled. Even the 1M affected by EU Rare Diseases.

Peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia one of the few bright spots in that region.

### Africa's World War One now ###

And UN Peacekeeping in DRC Congo: over 5M deaths in what is described as Africa's World War One.

And none of these conflicts require aircraft carriers or nuclear submarines or even the persistent drone strikes of the Obama years. B52 strikes in Afghanistan seem as excessive and expensive as the as-yet unknown RAF strikes in Syria and perpetuation of forever wars without an end in sight.

Except merely live-fire weapons testing for the next military-industrial weapons prototypes. Those admirals and generals need a revolving door into an arms company when they can no longer dig a ditch.

While farmers with nothing more than kalashnikovs and motorbikes and pickup trucks, coping with dirtpoor conditions and weak medical care, are perhaps also redolent of Trump supporters in heartland USA rather than the Sahel or Helmand.

Although Trump dining with Jim Cathcart of Ineos at the Blenheim Summit, as well as Johnson and Johnson and BlackRock, redolent of the #TrumpDavos15Friends, is positive for rebooting the iconic and much-loved Landrover Defender in UK. With Ford or Jeep again if Jaguar Landrover aren't interested or asleep at the wheel.
That Ford AR Braille window glass or Mitsubishi HUD windscreens would be cool too.

But Trump does have a point on the 2% NATO target even if he's already suggesting it should be 4%. Think of a number without any criteria of need. As with the ludicrous nonsense of UK already overspending at 2.3% and more military calls for 3% or 4%.

A 50% or 100% increase in UK military spend as wasteful as it is absurd given the more productive needs of the NHS.

As with the Royal Navy citing Russia cutting underseas cables in the Atlantic it's astonishing how these military threats suddenly appear at budget review time. Go tell it to the marines. Although they might be wondering why HMS Ocean the main amphibious landing ship has been sold off to Brazil on the cheap with Resilience support needed for Caribbean and Pacific islands of the Commonwealth, and Nigerian Delta.

While the US Marines must be wondering how long the Europeans are going to allow dead refugees to wash up on the shores of Tripoli before an imperfect peace and less than perfect democracy is imposed on the road to peace and prosperity.

As with American earmarks and new defence budget of $700BN (UK and France each c.$50BN so have a long way to go to realistically match USA funding - perhaps with worse medical care or schools), it might never be realistic - and almost all 1M USA troops are sat in barracks in the lower 48 states or watching their nuclear missiles corrode.

### Pass the SALT POTUS ###

Just 35k troops in Europe, 30k in Korea and 20k in Afghanistan. The American taxpayer must at some point be questioning what exactly its military is for and is doing.

General McMasters long ago citing the real issues of threats from endemic poverty in Arabia and Africa.

Perhaps the Pentagon is mainly a threat to the taxpayer. 900k troops sat in barracks in USA is a lot - perhaps more SALT talks needed.

Or for UK and EU, dictators such as Saddam and Gadaffi or Mugabe now gone and the last few in Kazakhastan (UK judges setting up a court on the UK rates?) and Azerbaijan or Equatorial Guinea. And why would the UK want to fund Royal Navy bases in the Gulf States to prop up less than democratic feudal royalty: Dubai and Brunei not allowing anyone the vote. Especially as the oil wells start to run dry.

Solar power, such as Desertec reboots, much nearer to home in the Sahara and Levant.

The lack of reconstruction in Afghanistan and Libya and Iraq beyond mere bombing is telling of strategic failure. UK and USA each with aid budgets of $20BN (USA or EU not yet reaching the 0.7% target) have the wherewithal to rapidly achieve the UNSDG30.

By 2025? Malaria nets and vaccines already exist. It's merely delivering them. It's not rocket science as DHL or Walmart or Tesco would attest.

NATO made up its 2% target itself - and there is no specification of what's included in that 2%. Hence the European nations all with differing percentages - and Germany criticised for just 1.24% and being that much nearer Russia. And relying on Russian oil and gas, and OBOR rail routes through to Siberia and Shanghai.

While Angela Merkel must no doubt be thinking of the potential of a NATO shift westward to Eastern Germany's poorest constituencies. The bierkellars of Bavaria hardly in need of American military dollars as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. Perhaps because of those troops.

Certainly the UK bases in Germany are closing fast, perhaps only 200 now in Paderborn, and being replaced with smaller troop tripwire contingents in the Baltic states and Poland.

Perhaps Chancellor Merkel and Martin Schulz should consider the potential of a Sarajevo Shift to the Balkans for the EU itself. The $1BN boondoggle of a NATO HQ vanity office block in Brussels hardly indicative of wise military spending. While the plethora of EU and UN agencies in Brussels and Bonn and Geneva and Vienna could be moved into the Southern Balkans of Albania, Montenegro and Romania and Bulgaria. Even Southern Italy.

Much as East Kent is overdue UK and EU and USA investment, such as elements of Pfizer and Janssen and offshoots of a Channel Four relocation to Liverpool.
It's astonishing that every UK public sector office in London hasn't already been allocated to a region, especially unemployment blackspots in the Whitehall Out Of Whitehall programme.

And USA bases to the east and south to Europe as relevant for the drugs war, as West African cocaine routes or the Caribbean or Helmand and Shan heroin. Scotland announcing last week its highest ever heroin deaths at 934, and the most heroin deaths in Europe. Extra security needed at Trump Turnberry golf courses to keep the junkies out not the demonstrators?

NATO less about keeping the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down and more a balanced and realistic European defence strategy.

And why didn't Boris Johnson resign a week earlier and save on the airfare to a mega-important and urgent meeting in Kabul. Now he has resigned perhaps he will be laying down in front of the bulldozers at Heathrow. With Trump flying into Stansted perhaps there's a more sensible rebalancing of airlines at existing half-empty UK airports in the Heathrow debate.

But beyond the NATO Summit budget wrangles or the meltdown of the May government, (for a moment there POTUS Trump might have been turning up to Downing St to find nobody there. PM May is still there? Maybe that's why he went to Blenheim instead) how special is the Special Relationship?

Better late than never as usual on some of the F35 jets - but a few bits of military metal on the rates can't just be the basis of UK-USA trade?

USA Sports with baseball and American football and the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team in London next year is positive. Maybe some ice hockey too. And certainly it's not too late to begin preparing for the LA Olympics and 2026 USA Soccer World Cup.

### Why has UK missed out on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics though? USA too? ###

Surely an expansion of that Channel Four activity too. Even a reconfiguration of BBC and ITV and BT Sport channels on Freeview and Sky. Just one Turner Movies channel for 100 years of Hollywood and 70 years of American television? POTUS Trump might even have a word with Fox News.

Pixar must surely be considering a variant of the Disney channels, much as Disney must be considering how best to deploy its new Star Wars franchises.
Surely Brand USA and Visit Britain are closely involved in extra tourism beyond just a POTUS visit?

While the fruit of the prairies in wheat and meat reduced to just chlorinated chicken makes a nonsense of American (or Kent) apple pie or Idaho potatos or Virginia craft beers and breakfast clubs, and Californian chardonnay.

And those cancers and diabetes and dementia and AMR aren't going to cure themselves without greater links between UK and USA universities and pharma research labs. Even pushing further ahead on AI and VR. The University of Texas still one of the few universities with substantial advertising courses. And questions being raised in Private Eye magazine on the £1M salary chancellor of Bolton University and links with State University of New York and plethora of honorary degrees.

But why not UK-USA cooperation on the Peace Corps concept now UK schools have longer terms? Gap Years and Gap Summers could be coordinated with DFID and USAid for example.

Just one $100M F35 could fund a dozen prototypes of say telemedicine bathroom mirrors and DNA databases and still upgrade that rusty Marine One helicopter.

Even seed funding for the Scotland-Eire Bridge. Easier access for those Trump golf courses if nothing else.

And UK-USA review of the Arctic Circle in terms of pollution and Climate Change.

$30BN over 5 years for schools for 65M Millennium goals children not in class is a small price to pay, whether with Surin Village School Charity or not, against that Pentagon $700BN budget for just one year.

And if POTUS Trump is near to a Nobel Peace Prize for North Korea and possibly Putin detente and DRC Congo expanded peacekeeping, then why not delivering on the Obama leftover of closing Guantanamo Bay prison. Even reconsidering Gitmo as a USA colony with a new post-Castro regime and Puerto Rico Resilience damage.

Mars 2030 with the first woman on Mars under a UN flag, would surely be the work of moments for NASA and UK Space Agency and European Space Agency at Houston and Cayenne. Even Putin and Star City. And perhaps more viable than a Scotland Spaceport - UK's last satellite launch way back in 1971(!) from the wide open spaces of Australia's Woomera rocket range. Perhaps again with the new Australian Space Agency picking up steam in The New Space Race.

Even refloat the Lincoln Center adrift with four leaders in five years (or is that UK?) with arts links such as the Turner Contemporary and Rijksmuseum and Tracey Emin and Vincent Van Gogh in East Kent.

Seeing as East Kent invented USA, a celebration of Tom Paine or Pocahontas might be fun too, even Leeds Castle as the design basis for the Oval Office again.

Time for Change
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