Nah, nah. There's two things NATO is about: (a) keeping money flowing in these economic empires and involved countries; (b) protecting the security of them. Money first, citizen safety second. Always in that order. Otherwise, U.S., U.K., France, etc wouldn't have screwed with so many Middle Eastern, Latino, etc countries for their resources in bloody wars. So, that's the game.

Now, what of security? Wait, I know what you mean: U.S.-directed spending on military activities that profit U.S. defense contractors. The revolving door where defense contractors bribe Congress reps, hire Pentagon people for six digits, and get billions in contracts from same people. They build tons of stuff with no proven value on top of what has value. They have cost overruns due to mismanagement. They get involved in various forms of fraud and shoddy work. They pocket billions in process with tens of millions to their executives & Congress people's stock going up. America, with many starving and poorly educated, spends as much money as possible on these defense contractors' bottom lines... more than many others put together... while the other countries spend more on infrastructure, medical, school, etc.

In such a situation, it's 100% reasonable not to match the spending of the U.S.. Matter of fact, countries should brag on not running their defense so foolishly. Any money they spend will probably just make some American executives or legislators wealthier. The problem here is American corruption and defense spending. That industry needs to get their shit together. The corruption won't go away. So, I've just asked they create jobs and line pockets building stuff that's actually useful in modern warfare. If they want spare soldiers, have them fix our crumbling highways and stuff when they aren't killing foreigners for questionable reasons. Should just get something out of our tax dollars like, say, Canadians are.

"One commitment that Canada has met, and something we Canadians should be proud of, is our commitment via NATO to the taskforce in afghanistan. "

Wow. Thought you were American up to that comment as most countries are aware that was BS. Bush Sr and CIA funded terrorists in Afghanistan, training them to fight a superpower. U.S. govt also funded Sadaam in Iraq to tune of $600+ million in fight against Iran. We fought them since, as CIA admitted in 2013, we overthrew their government and installed dictator to help Britain steal their oil. Funded Sadaams war against them to punish their resistance. Slammed him when he resisted the meddling. Eventually, the Saudi terrorist they trained & supported brought a bunch of Saudi friends brainwashed by Saudi extremist religion into the U.S. to murder 3,000+ of us. U.S. response should've been to stop meddling, start some apologies w/ reconstruction money, and smash the hell out of Saudi Arabia until they stop promoting extremism. Instead, they convinced a bunch of people to smash Afghanistan and Iraq while walking hand-in-hand with Saudi king and training their military to be more effective.

Yeah, you shouldn't be proud of your country sacrificing its people to support American imperialism and mass-murder in the Middle East. Those countries you knocked just used their brains. They decided they shouldn't die to make American politicians happy or U.S. defense contractors richer ($300+ billion richer). Now, those countries are destabilized plus ISIS formed in the wake threatening to kill more of us. Great. (thumbs up)

Seriously, I know the subject of politics is very opinion base, but there are departments in universities across many lands that attempt to study these systems. Like, look how pathetically anti-war, super-simplified, black/white narrative fitting your perspective is: "war exist to fund defense contractors".

oh please, you aren't even responding to my comment or claims. You are just pulling stuff out of your crack. NATO own studies have shown over and over again that an issue it constantly faced is the uneven spending (as ratio to GPD) of its members and the reluctance of members to put their troops within joint commands.

You made that up yourself. I said most of our military actions were about pushing politics or capitalism. Which the evidence supports, including many declassified documents. I said military spending in U.S. is excessive, has tons of failed programs, is justified by bribes/votes, and mostly lines pockets of defense contractors and Congress reps. U.S. records give me proof of first two, Congress records have proof of next (i.e. lobbying), and annual reports + track records show proof of last. You're straight-up reciting propaganda of U.S. military connected outfits that contradict results in their own documents. Such contradictions are confusing until you realize they can lie in some places and it's a felony in others. ;)

"oh please, you aren't even responding to my comment or claims."

Sure I am. You implied the U.S. spending is actually about the security of us and NATO. It's provably not. It's a mix of profiteering, waste, and security expenses. Of the security expenses, it's a mix of useless stuff given modern battlefield and stuff that's actually useful which usually costs far less. Your whole spending claim is bogus if it relies on false belief that U.S. military spending is about security. It's partly false if it believes that the small portion spent on security actually improves security. Most is again about jobs (eg votes in key districts), campaign contributions to Congress, military heads getting promoted for appearing to improve something, and so on.

"NATO own studies have shown over and over again that an issue it constantly faced is the uneven spending (as ratio to GPD) of its members"

And since you're belief is false, those that correctly realize most U.S. military spending has no value shouldn't try to support or match that. They should instead just buy what has value in their country spending a tiny fraction on that. Your recent claim supports they are doing this. Smart.

"the reluctance of members to put their troops within joint commands."

Joint commands fighting the wrong people for the wrong reasons with the initiator of the war admitting in declassified documents they funded and created the enemies. Their newest war was projected to create even more. (It did.) That nations are reluctant to support those deployments is again the wise choice. Their citizens or targets shouldn't die for greed or politics.

Cool, so you are going to confuse Iraq with Afghanistan. clap

You are transparent and single dimension. In your narrative, you have erased any possibility that the cost borne by the American people in funding their military can contribute to global security. This is utterly utterly wrong and provenly so when allies who depend on US for security (but do not contribute back) place pressure on the US to develop and deploy technology and material for their defense. But then again, for someone who can only see THAAD is just a mix of profiteering,pork, cronyism, waste and other write offs, I am sure you know better than the false beliefs Korea holds for trying to acquire this useless development.

Again, your narrative isn't new. You haven't demonstrated my beliefs are false (again, if NATO is worthless, why does these nations make commitments they won't keep, why don't they simply leave NATO?) The only thing you have demonstrated is the ontogeny of your beliefs. It is one developed by someone who wants to understand the world through a very simplified lens, a black and white, war exist to fund defense contractors with the evil capitalist pulling some levers, and crony politicians patting each other's backs, not someone who wants to see security as is.