I thought the ancient miller's story was just in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

I'm sure the NW is the economic powerhouse of the UK too, obviously lol

I'm afraid Germany has outgrown the UK for quite a long period of time, and is likely to continue to do so for the immediate future.So much so, Trump has problems with the German trade surplus, and reportedly attempted numerous times to conclude an individual trade deal with Germany, failing to understand the EU. He must have forgotten about the UK deal obviously. 


Article 5 has only ever been invoked once, and that was after 9/11, when NATO forces came to the aid of the US and put troops on the ground and still have some there.It was a fairly generous interpretation of article 5 for the response required.
The US determines whats in their own best interests, as do most other states. There's little to suggest a nato component in their national outlook beyond whats good for the US is good for NATO.The idea that there is a collective joint fund of any size, and that if member states don't contribute enough, the US puts in more, is fantasy

A Large budget military doesn't always protect you from outside forces as 9/11 demonstrated so tragically despite hundreds of billions of $ expenditures 19 not very sophisticated terrorists defeated all that hardware and systems on an estimated budget of about $500k
Other countries also bear the cost of US policy in the middle east and elsewhere in terms of increased domestic security, intelligence and law enforcement, which don't come under military hardware spending, not to mention refugees .

The US also depend on the support of others as we all do, and not just NATO; especially to fight on the ground.In some cases in it's attempts to remove IS/daesh it relies on forrin female front line troops as young as 17, with basic two week training to defend it's interests, and for no pay.The US apart from advisers, have little to no ground forces there despite designating daesh it's number one world threat.Daesh are often better equipped including using US weapons from Iraq, after former Saddam military forces, removed under US policy and without jobs or pay, defected, equipment and all

I don't think NATO is collapsing, but concerns exists, certainly under Trump, and concerns exist over Russia under Putin
and it's consolidation and apparent expansionist aims
It's understandable and reasonable to express a need to want to review events and Merkel is probably right longer term

I find it interesting of nationalistic drum bangers that despite being an equal European partner, to which they seem to object, the best they can image for the UK is that of a fawning transatlantic lapdog, regardless of with administration or policy
I think it's a great pity Trump didn't manage to squeeze in a few hours in the UK - I can't imagine how or why he missed us out.Overall it was a good result for Putin, and currently all roads seem to lead there

an old joke doing the rounds sounds about right