Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Sh*t NATO leaders say

I see Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary general of NATO, is urging European members to spend more on defense. This is something that NATO secretary generals have been saying for at least 20 years. I covered a lot of their press conferences, knowing that what they said was meaningless, or worse. Then I went out ...

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Wikimedia
Wikimedia

I see Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary general of NATO, is urging European members to spend more on defense. This is something that NATO secretary generals have been saying for at least 20 years. I covered a lot of their press conferences, knowing that what they said was meaningless, or worse. Then I went out for a good dinner in Brussels, feeling a bit guilty and glad the food was on an expense account.

I see Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary general of NATO, is urging European members to spend more on defense. This is something that NATO secretary generals have been saying for at least 20 years. I covered a lot of their press conferences, knowing that what they said was meaningless, or worse. Then I went out for a good dinner in Brussels, feeling a bit guilty and glad the food was on an expense account.

Just for fun, why not have a NATO secretary try calling for the organization’s members to spend less on defense? It couldn’t hurt.

Meanwhile, speaking of NATO, Canadians like Steve Saideman (a sometime reader of this blog, and a likely fan of that definitive new book on Bush and Cheney) are getting suspicious about the Americans peddling them overpriced fighter planes.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1
Tags: Department of Defense, Europe, Foreign & Public Diplomacy, Military, National Security Agency

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