E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Europe is battling ISIS (and Russia) with wimpy defense budgets
To win a war you need both the will and the means to do so. It isn't clear that Europe has the will to defeat the Islamists -- the elites certainly do not, but the average Euro citizen might be rallied. But without the means it won't matter. As this op-ed piece demonstrates, Europe doesn't have the means.
Odds are rising that France and other European nations could end up in a Middle East ground war. That’s worrisome in itself, but there are also concerns that years of cutbacks in European defense budgets could leave the continent’s militaries unprepared for a wily battlefield foe like the Islamic State terror group that recently killed 129 people in a spate of Paris attacks.

The 28 nations that comprise the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed last year that every member’s defense spending should total at least 2% of that nation’s GDP. But only five NATO members are likely to hit that threshold this year: The United States, United Kingdom, Greece, Estonia and Poland. A few of Europe’s biggest nations are far below that target. Germany spends just 1.2% of GDP on defense; Italy, 1%; Spain, a paltry 0.9%.

“These are countries that have enormous shared responsibility with the United States and their NATO partners,” says Jeff Rathke, deputy director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We all agree they need to redress their low defense spending.”
Posted by: Steve White 2015-11-23
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=436453