President Donald Trump’s remarks, delivered at the alliance’s summit in Brussels this week, were long overdue. The unreformed establishment structures of NATO’s post-communist Central European and Balkan members have lived for decades above the law, neglecting terrorism, porous borders and contribution of their fair share for defense. The rule of law has been a prerequisite of NATO’s accession and it has been consistently disregarded to the detriment of the North Atlantic Alliance.
“NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations, for 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they’re supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States. And many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years and not paying in those past years. Over the last eight years, the United States spent more on defense than all other NATO countries combined.” President Donald Trump’s Remarks at NATO Headquarters, May 25, 2017
Twenty-three out of the twenty-eight NATO members do not contribute the required 2% of their GDP for defense spending. The last two waves of NATO’s accessions embraced nations which do not uphold the rule of law and thus did not qualify to become NATO members in the first place. Balkan NATO members, including Croatia, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania have not dismantled the symbiotic relationships between political corruption and organized crime, which eroded national security of those countries and aided terrorism. The questionable mafia state Montenegro’s NATO accession, has been feeding the NATO (Draining the Swamp - Part I | The NATO Swamp) and Washington, D.C. swamps (Draining the Swamp - Part II | America’s Fake Freedom Lovers and Transnational Criminal Networks) . Balkan NATO members’ porous borders contributed to the terrorists attacks on the European continent.
Corrupt Eastern European politicians have been using NATO accession and membership to buy legitimacy. Corrupt establishments of NATO members continue to siphon off taxpayers’ funds through illicit financial outflows via crime, corruption and tax evasion, robbing treasuries and hemorrhaging economies.
In Croatia, over $35 billion left the country in illicit financial outflows via crime, corruption and tax evasion during the years 2005-2014. This amounts to 73% of Croatia’s 2015 GDP. On average, Croatia lost 7.3% of its annual GDP every year (2005-2014) to crime, corruption and tax evasion, while it consistently contributed less than 2% for collective NATO defense spending.
“If all NATO members had spent just 2 percent of GDP on defense last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defense," said Trump.
The amount for collective defense would even be higher than $119 billion, if we take into account the loss of respective nations’ GDPs, caused by the huge theft orchestrated by NATO members’ corrupt establishments. Much of the illicit financial outflows which left NATO member countries via crime, corruption and tax evasion ended up in non-NATO members including Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and off-shore centers which do not contribute for the collective defense of the North Atlantic Alliance.