Donald Trump knew what he was doing with his threat not to defend NATO if the alliance refused to spend more on defense, asserting he would tell Russia they “can do whatever the hell they want.”

On both sides of the Atlantic, a double-figure reaction on the political Richter scale was triggered. NATO officials pressed allies that were not meeting the 2 percent of GDP commitment to defense to do so.

But reality must intervene. Counterintuitively, the more that is spent on defense, certainly in the U.S. and United Kingdom, the more their forces have shrunk. The reasons lie in the cost growth of every item from people to precision weapons and even pencils. That annual uncontrolled real cost growth for NATO states, depending on the country, runs between 3-7 percent. Add inflation and the problem worsens.

In the U.S., its Navy is struggling to reach 300 ships, the number set by Congress. The Department of Defense faces dramatic recruiting shortfalls. The British Army is just over 72,000 and will be cut to 148 tanks. And the Royal Navy that once ruled the seas now can only manage 16 destroyers and frigates.

Of course those........

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