Comment by toss1941 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toss1941 | Hacker News Reader

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I'll be honest I haven't been following a lot of his positions on things other than what spills over into the tech/security folks I follow on twitter and various other sites. I didn't know about the NATO comments but here's what I learned about him just today [0]:

(edit: talking about whether Trump would defend Turkey if Russia invaded unprovoked): Trump said he would have to think about whether those countries “have fulfilled their obligations to us.” Trump clarified, “If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes.”

It seems pretty rational to me; he's saying that if a country like Turkey wants to acquire the benefits of a military alliance they need to pay their fair share. On the surface that seems reasonable to me and honestly, from reading here if Erdrogan got attacked by Russia I doubt most of Trump's enemies would shed any tears about his stance on NATO anyway.

[0] http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/21/trump-doesnt-care-about-er...

This is not some business deal where you can change terms later on and let the courts decide. Turkey needs to know if NATO will be there for them or not. He can call for larger contributions of course and tell them upfront that NATO won't help them until conditions are met. But he can't decide at the time Russia invades. Then he may as well leave NATO.

Trump was also a "birther". That alone shows to me that he doesn't take politics seriously.

> Turkey needs to know if NATO will be there for them or not. He can call for larger contributions of course and tell them upfront that NATO won't help them until conditions are met.

Question, have you heard or read Trump's foreign policy speech?

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...

He lays out many criticism of our current foreign policy, including that we don't negotiate our deals properly, and this results in us not being reliable among our friends, and respected among our enemies. I recommend reading it.

Maybe this will help https://i.sli.mg/TIAoq1.png

Enforcing the obligation means NATO doesn't exist. Only the US and Estonia would be left. Advocating for them to meet the pledge is one thing, but refusing to defend them under the treaty because of it would be catastrophic.

http://www.businessinsider.com/only-us-and-estonia-meeting-n...

But people hate it when the United States police the world. Why should the United States holds its end of the deal and defends those if they don't hold their end of the deal? People want the United States to stop policing the world. Well, under Trump, the United States will stop policing the world. Isn't that what people want?

People hate it when the US doesn't, too. I don't think a world without NATO is likely to make many in the West all that happy.

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