SecDef Gates on Afghanistan

Michael Dunn, President of the Air Force Association, sent an e-mail to the Association's members following up on the statements by Defense Secretary Robert Gates about support for the NATO action in Afghanistan. As President Dunn observed (with data for backup)

• NATO's (without the US) GDP is about $2T more than the US.
• Their population (without the US) is almost double the US.
• They have about one million more troops than the US.
• But they provide only about 1/3 as many troops for Afghanistan as the US.

He noted that "You can draw your own conclusions, but … it seems Sec Gates' points were supported by the data."

Meanwhile, the military forces our European NATO allies keep losing support and morale. The British military, for example, has been shrinking for years, and is losing many of its best officers, who are asking to leave the service as "voluntary redundancies".

Looks to me like there's more than one thing wrong with this picture.