SYDNEY, Australia — Responding to the military challenge from China, the Australian government on Thursday announced a robust increase in military spending, including the biggest expansion to its navy since World War II.

A defense white paper issued by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government said 12 new submarines, 12 combat patrol vessels and nine antisubmarine frigates would be added to the current fleet.

Over all, 5,000 more personnel would be recruited for the Australian military and military spending would be increased to 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product by 2021, in keeping with a pledge that Australia made to the United States as part of its commitment to share defense responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific region.

As America’s closest ally in the region, Australia works with Washington on military operations and intelligence matters, and it has promised the Obama administration that it will invest in a stronger military.

Mr. Turnbull called the assessment in the document a “cleareyed and unsentimental appraisal of our strategic environment.”

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/world/australia/australia-announces-rise-in-spending-for-military.html?_r=0

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Strong words — that fit right in line with what Obama said in his speech to Europeans last week in Hanover, Germany (emphasis added):

“We need to stay nimble, and make sure our forces are interoperable, and invest in new capabilities like cyber defense and missile defense. And that’s why every NATO member should be contributing its full share — 2 percent of GDP — toward our common security, something that doesn’t always happen. And I’ll be honest, sometimes Europe has been complacent about its own defense.”

Which might appear like it was meant to preempt some of Trump’s recent statements on the subject of NATO, going back to The Washington Post editorial board’s interview with him last month. Except it’s something Obama — and the foreign policy “elites” Trump often disparages — has been saying since long before Trump sought the White House. In 2014, the president went out of his way to praise Estonia, one of the newest and least powerful members of the alliance, for ponying up its fair share of the costs of defense (emphasis added):

“To its great credit, Estonia stands out as an ally that contributes its full share — its full 2 percent of GDP to the defense of our alliance. And Latvia and Lithuania have pledged to do the same. So this week (applause). That’s worth applause (applause). So this week’s summit is the moment for every NATO nation to step up and commit to meeting its responsibilities to our alliance. Estonia does it. Every ally must do it.”

More broadly, Obama has said it going all the way back to his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, when he lectured European allies about the realities of war and pointed out that “the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”

read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/28/trump-says-our-allies-have-to-pay-up-obamas-been-saying-the-same-thing-for-years/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-posteverything%3Ahomepage%2Fcard