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IPFS News Link • Government Debt & Financing

US Alliances: Trump Is Not So Stupid After All

• AntiWar.com

At a recent news conference, President Obama called into question Donald Trump's fitness for office by criticizing his policy stances on ceding living space to Russia as another great power and pushing wealthy U.S. allies to do more to defend themselves, so the United States wouldn't need to continue to bear most of that burden. Although Obama may be right that Trump is generally unready to be president, Trump's thinking on these specific issues is surprisingly insightful.

Facing nearly $19 trillion debt, which has been accumulated in part by fighting expensive and unneeded brushfire wars overseas, an overstretched superpower now needs more help from rich friends to defend themselves; based on prior US failed pleas for its allies to do more, it will not happen unless the United States does less.

In Europe, the NATO alliance, an arrangement left over from the Cold War that requires the United States to defend well-to-do European nations against a much poorer Russia, has expanded to the Russian border – resulting in the rise of a nationalist Vladimir Putin and his aggressive actions in Ukraine to prevent that nation, so critical to Russia, from entering the hostile organization.