US Pushes Back on Italy Counting Sicily Bridge as NATO Asset

10 comments

1. The US said it disapproves of any creative accounting by European allies to reach a new NATO spending target, putting Italy on the spot as the government weighs whether to count the construction of the world’s longest suspension bridge as military expenditure.

   “I have had conversations even today with some countries that are taking a very expanded view of defense related spending,” US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said in an interview at the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia on Tuesday.

   It was “very important” that the 5% target referred specifically to defense and defense-related spending and that the commitment was taken “with a straight face,” according to the envoy.

   “It wasn’t bridges that have no military strategic value,” he said. “It was not schools that somehow, in some imaginary fantasy land, would be used for some other military reason.”

2. This is the ‘Is It Cake’ for European NATO Allies, let’s call it ‘Is It 5%’

3. Stunts like this are why nobody takes much of Europe seriously in terms of defense or geopoltics. I would be embarrassed if my country tried to claim a bridge or a school as a military investment.

4. Bro why can’t the USA just leave Europe already. It’s clear most of Europe is not serious about anything and need to just be left to their own decline at this point. They don’t even like Americans.

5. The irony of this particular bridge being written off as a military expense, is that it actually *bypasses* one of Italy’s greatest *natural* military defenses against invasion from the south: the dangerous and nearly unnavigable Straits of Messina, home to the ship-devouring sea monsters Priscilla and Charybdis in Greek nautical lore. Making landfall on Sicily’s southern coast wouldn’t be all that treacherous for an invading army (and best defended against by the Navy and Coast Guard — no tanks driven to Sicily required! But after that, any invading army is kind of stuck on Sicily, without any easy logistical access to the European Mainland. Until now!

6. Isn’t the inherent problem that there is no defined list about what constitutes the appropriate spending? I’m sure I’ve read before one difference between some states is that some will consider pensions for ex service people as part of the spending, whilst for others those pensions are just part of normal state opex, so without spending a penny more some states could “increase” their spending just by changing budget ledgers.

   Whilst I’m sceptical about US interests on this in the Trump era being more to do with getting Europe to spend more money on US defence companies/products, the general point remains a fair one – Europe is far too dependent on US military protection and not doing enough for it’s own self interests. Really tenuous at best supposed beneficial programs like this are just taking the piss. I’m actually laughing at imagining the outbreak of WW3 and NATO convening a meeting to discuss what military assets they need to urgently get onto Sicily.

7. Italy needs to rename it Trump Golden bridge, and it’ll be a-ok

8. If anything, can the US start considering bridges and infrastructure as military spending?

   Would be the only way to get anything useful built

9. Tempest in a teapot.

   Nobody really wanted the 5% target except Trump (and not even the US spends that much), but other countries agreed to it to appease him, with the proviso that 1.5% of the 5% could be spent on infrastructure projects which countries would have wide discretion to classify as “defence related”. As long as Italy spends 3.5% on the actual military – which, to be clear, would a major achievement in itself, in fact if I was NATO I’d count anything above 3% as a win, given Italy’s constrained finances and historically low defence spending – it should be able to spend the remaining 1.5% on pretty much whatever it wants.

   Matthew Whitaker, who like most Trump officials is doing a job for which he has no actual qualifications, is pouring salt on an open wound by disrespecting the 1.5% fudge factor that was included in the 5% target to get agreement on it.

   Read the room Matt, the US isn’t particularly popular in Europe right now, this isn’t the time to be nitpicking the small stuff.

10. The US counts its interstate highway system as a military project….

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