"One of Trump's stance on NATO is to put pressure on nations like canada who enjoy the collective security afforded by NATO and benefit from it greatly, but consistently, budget after budget, has never met our commitments to ensure said security. "
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)