Hillary Clinton's warning to Britain over cuts in defence budget

[The Northerner]

Barack Obama’s government has delivered a stark public warning against major cuts in the British defence budget, suggesting that they would undermine Nato and strain the Special Relationship.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Robert Gates, the secretary of defence, both said they were worried about deep reductions in Britain’s Armed Forces and the consequences for international security.

The unusual public intervention came as talks on the defence budget went down to the wire, with defence chiefs making 11th-hour personal appeals to David Cameron against cuts last night.

The Daily Telegraph disclosed last month that US officials were privately concerned that British defence spending was about to fall below 2 per cent of gross domestic product, the minimum standard expected of Nato members. Mrs Clinton and Mr Gates, America’s two most senior figures on international relations and security, made those fears public in separate remarks.

In a BBC interview to be broadcast today, Mrs Clinton was asked whether defence cuts being made in Europe, and specifically in Britain, worried the US administration.

She replied: “It does. The reason it does is because I think we do have to have an alliance where there is a commitment to the common defence.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8065363/Hillary-Clintons-warning-to-Britain-over-cuts-in-defence-budget.html

[DCKit]

1. If our defense spending were only 2% we'd be swimming in Federal money.

Taxes in the U.K. are far higher than ours and they're not spending it all on healthcare, so where's the money going?

[TheBigotBasher]

10. They are not "far higher" than the US

especially when you take in to account local taxation levels and tax credits.

There is now a 50% top rate (it was 40% for yeas) but that rate was only introduced after the crash.

[gateley]

2. I dare say we wouldn't be so worried had Bush & Friends not gotten us into

this mess where the world is licking its chops at the thought of taking us down.

[maxsolomon]

4. what? 'take us down' militarily or economically?

please clarify this confusing statement.

we are the largest economy in the world. we go down, the rest of the planet goes down.

do you mean radical islam?

[gateley]

7. Yeah, that's what I meant. That if they hadn't jumped at the chance afforded by

9/11 to swoop into Iraq with all the resulting nightmares, we wouldn't be stretched so thin militarily, I don't believe there would been such an exponential explosion of jihadists, we wouldn't have felt so vulnerable.

Maybe "take us down" by taking away our sense of security. But Bush, et al, already did that job for them.

[maxsolomon]

9. You should check out "My Trip to Al Quaeda"

its a play/documentary being shown on HBO by Lawrence Wright who wrote "The Looming Tower"

Basically, Wright thesis is that OBL's plan with 9/11 was to lure us into Afghanistan, exhaust us militarily and financially, and force us to withdraw from the Middle East entirely. Iraq was just a bonus for them. That plan's working pretty well, I'd say.

Wright says that only Americans can destroy America. We're doing well on that account, too.

Most of the planet, though, desparately does NOT want to take us down. Prop us up, more likely.

[maxsolomon]

5. double post

[maxsolomon]

3. keep pimping for the MIC, hillary!

i don't think it even occurs to anyone in DC that we are spending twice that 2% of GDP we expect from NATO members, and 6x what china does.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

The 2009 U.S. military budget accounts for approximately 40% of global arms spending and is over six times larger than the military budget of China (compared at the nominal US dollar / Renminbi rate, not the PPP rate). The United States and its close allies are responsible for two-thirds to three-quarters of the world's military spending (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for the majority).<25><26><27>

In 2005, the United States spent 4.06% of its GDP on its military (considering only basic Department of Defense budget spending), more than France's 2.6% and less than Saudi Arabia's 10%.<28> This is historically low for the United States since it peaked in 1944 at 37.8% of GDP (it reached the lowest point of 3.0% in 1999–2001). Even during the peak of the Vietnam War the percentage reached a high of 9.4% in 1968.<29>

[villager]

6. "If you cut military spending and shore up your society, then our people will want it, too!"

And we can't have that!

[Warpy]

8. Catch a clue, Madame Secretary

We need to do that here, 10% per year until our spending is in line with the rest of the world's spending.

Empires destroy the countries that create them unless those countries are willing to cede them more gracefully.

Hillary Clinton is DEAD WRONG on this issue.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Hmm: Canada 1.1%. Spain 1.2%, Belgium 1.3%. Germany 1.5%, Netherlands 1.6%

Italy 1.8%, Norway 1.9%.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html?countryName=United%20States&countryCode=us®ionCode=na&rank=25#us

Oh, I forgot Poland - 1.71%. :)

Seems to me that most NATO countries have been spending less than 2% for quite some time.

[KansasVoter]

12. They should tell us to kiss their ass!