Britain cannot afford to elect a Labour leader ambivalent about Nato
sir – Since the Second World War, Nato has proved an effective guarantor of peace for Britain. Jeremy Corbyn’s ambivalent attitude towards Nato risks squandering this valuable alliance in the pursuit of hard-left ideology.
In 2012 he called for the organisation to be ended, and in 2014 he attributed Russian aggression to Nato’s expansion – an expansion due to vulnerable nations wanting Nato’s protection. If Mr Corbyn got into power, his reckless anti-war activism would have devastating consequences. Ian Jenkin
Coventry, Warwickshire
sir – I celebrate my joint birthday with Nato. As the alliance’s members gathered near London for the anniversary summit, I reflected on the security we have enjoyed over the past 70 years.
By contrast, I listened, aghast, to the suggestion from Barry Gardiner, the shadow trade secretary, interviewed on the BBC’S Today programme, that we should respond to the aggressive actions of Vladimir Putin’s Russia by seeking to “de-escalate” the situation. Yes, we should de-escalate, not Russia.
If this Labour regime gains power then I fear for the future freedom of my children and grandchildren while Mr Corbyn, Mr Gardiner and allies respond to threats with placards. Christopher Timbrell
Kington Langley, Wiltshire
sir – I hope that the public will see through the French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent depiction of Nato as “brain-dead” (report, December 4).
Economically, France is floundering, and the country is struggling to hit the target expenditure of 2 per cent of GDP on defence, as agreed by Nato members. Mr Macron’s outburst is designed to deflect attention from his own problems.
Smaller countries such as Greece, Latvia and Estonia have hit the 2 per cent target; so should the French. Jim Sokol
Minehead, Somerset sir – Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said that Nato is “a cornerstone of Germany’s security” and is as important, if not more so, as it was in the Soviet era until 1990.
It would be more accurate to say that Germany’s security has three cornerstones: America, Britain and France. Germany spends just 1.36 per cent of its GDP on defence; and despite Nato members agreeing in 2014 to increase their defence budgets to 2 per cent of GDP by 2024, Mrs Merkel now says that the aim is to meet that by the “early 2030s”.
Both that annual increase of only 0.05 per cent and the 12-year minimum time-frame are absurd. Considering the country’s own historic role in causing Western Europe’s need for such defence capabilities, and its economic recovery from about 1960, has Germany, or the former West Germany, ever paid its fair share even for its own security, let alone Western Europe’s? John Birkett
St Andrews, Fife