Trump backs Nato really but watch out penny-pinching allies

For the last few months, as Donald Trump marched ever rapidly towards the Republican nomination for the presidency, Nato allies have been fretting about what he might do to the alliance if he returned to the White House. Would he take the US out of Nato and abandon Europe to the war-threatening Russian president? But actually, as with most things said by Trump, there was never any real danger of Trump leaving the alliance. He just likes to frighten what he sees as scrounging members of the alliance to spend more on defence and to relieve the US of the mighty burden of propping up the whole of Europe. He has now told Nigel Farage in a TV interview that he would keep the US in Nato ("100 per cent") provided the rest of the alliance paid their way properly. Trump did exactly the same when he won the presidency in 2016 and got the whole of Nato's knickers in a twist. But it did work because many more alliance members raised their spending to the required two per cent of GDP. So if Trump wins in November, Nato can expect to survive but at a cost. What worries me is that defence spending is too often about wasting money. Vast sums are spent on major programmes that either don't work properly or overrun in both cost and time. The UK is as bad as any of the Nato countries. We now have two 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers but more often than not they are back at port after some breakdown, and they still don't carry the number of fighter jets for which they were designed. Armoured vehicles that should be in service have had nothing but trouble. If, as the current UK defence secretary is demanding, our defence spending rises to three per cent of GDP, it will probably lead to even more money-wasting projects that don't work. What we do need is more manpower. Men and women in uniform can be guaranteed to work properly.