Macron signs French Military budget bill into law

It's fricking bullshite they get to slow roll their commitment 8 fricking years.


Broke mfers.

That will buy a lot of shitty Mirages.

Their biggest line item is laundry expenses to keep their battle flags white.

2025? What a joke. France is just trying to wait for a new US prez. Trump should tell them it's unacceptable.

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It's fricking bull shite they get to slow roll their commitment 8 fricking years.


Broke mfers.

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So disregarding Trump and all the controversy from a few weeks ago, I think the more important thing for a NATO with a solid foundation is capabilities, not necessarily GDP targets. France is already pretty close to the GDP target (relative to the other powerhouse countries in Europe besides the UK).

The thing that distinguishes France from everyone else on the other side of the Atlantic is that they have retained a lot of core capabilities necessary for a highly capable force. Their air force has some gaps (more on the back end than on the attacking end, though), the navy is solid if not spectacular, and the army is the best in NATO outside the US.

They have retained a good bit of that Gaullist streak of military and foreign policy independence, and thus, they still have quite solid capabilities all across the board. They can also, just as importantly, scale very quickly if shite hit the fan because they've retained the human capital and the technical knowhow (even if more towards the minimum than we'd otherwise like). They could scale their armor corps, their fighter and bomber fleets, their sub and carrier fleets, their special operators, their infantry units, etc. fairly quickly - their officers and NCO's are really good, and they've been fighting a good bit in some hairy places for more than a decade now.

They didn't scale down as quickly or cut core capabilities nearly as much after the Cold War as Spain, Italy, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, or even, arguably, the UK.

My guess is Macron is doing this to placate some American anger and to shore up some of their machinery, but France is already in a pretty good spot, and this isn't much growth. The same sure as shite can't be said about Germany.

Above a certain level, it turns to waste, and unless you're actually fighting a major war, the marginal dollars aren't anywhere near the necessary ROI.

The U.S. only cracked 4% of GDP at the very height of the GWOT with both Iraq and Afghanistan near peak troop levels.

Trump upping the ante to 4% is counter-productive, and these other countries need to field competency and capabilities (which the vast majority don't have at the moment), not hard GDP numbers.

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They will slow play until the next prog President is elected and he or she will let them all skate after apologizing for being asked to meet their commitments.

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Funny since Obama is the one that made them do it. He is the one who pushed for 2%

I thought Trump said 2% now not in 2025.

Its a step in the right direction, but he needs to get on 'em about getting it done faster.

Obama was a pushover, who used pretty words and said nice things about them. And that’s why they never took him seriously.