Pentagon chief to push U.S. allies to ditch 'Cold War playbook'

[bemildred]

All the way down the rabbit hole.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter will urge NATO allies to "dispose of the Cold War playbook" during a trip to Europe this week, as the alliance adapts to a new kind of threat from Russia in the east and Islamic State to the south, U.S. officials said.

Carter heads first to Berlin, where he is expected to call for a more muscular global security role from Germany, Europe's largest economy. Germany remains hesitant to deploy troops abroad, seven decades after the end of World War Two.

"He will encourage Germany, under the firm leadership of the minister of defense, to increase their security role in the world, commensurate with their political and economic weight," a senior U.S. defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Relations between Moscow and the West have plunged to a post-Cold War low since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region. NATO says Russian is still actively providing military support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, despite Moscow's denials.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/21/us-usa-europe-defense-idUSKBN0P10F920150621

[jakeXT]

1. The last time Germany tried to invade Russia

it didn't work out so well for them.

But maybe it was a success by Truman's standards.

Whereas Roosevelt tended to be flexible in coping with the Russians, Truman held sterner views. "If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible. . . ." he said as a Senator in 1941. This basic attitude prepared him to adopt, from the start of his Presidency, a firm policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0508.html

[bemildred]

2. You have to understand what the "Cold War Playbook" he is referencing is.

What he means is the habit of depending on us to pay for their "defense", which entails them paying to be glassed or bombed to rubble the first thing in any war we gin up. He wants them to pay for it now, because we are not in a position to any more, having lost the many advantages we enjoyed after WWII through fecklessness and over-reaching.

The same people who claim Russia is going to collapse any day now also say it's an existential threat to Europe.

I don't think our enemies have to lift a finger to bring us down, our own government is doing the job through greed and corruption.

[jakeXT]

3. Good times, the US Government bailed out a company, which then bribed foreigners to buy their junk

Background

The U.S. Government had bailed out Lockheed in 1971, guaranteeing repayment of $195 million in bank loans to the company. The Government Emergency Loan Guarantee Board, set up to oversee the program, investigated whether Lockheed violated its obligations by failing to tell the board about foreign payments.[2]

In late 1975 and early 1976, a sub-committee of the U.S. Senate led by Senator Frank Church concluded that members of the Lockheed board had paid members of friendly governments to guarantee contracts for military aircraft.[3] In 1976, it was publicly revealed that Lockheed had paid $22 million in bribes to foreign officials[2] in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft including the F-104 Starfighter, the so-called "Deal of the Century".[4][5]


...

Lockheed executives admitted paying millions in bribes over more than a decade to the Dutch (Prince Bernhard, husband of Queen Juliana, in particular), to key Japanese and West German politicians, to Italian officials and generals, and to other highly placed figures from Hong Kong to Saudi Arabia, in order to get them to buy our airplanes. Kelly (Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, first team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works) was so sickened by these revelations that he had almost quit, even though the top Lockheed management implicated in the scandal resigned in disgrace.[19]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals