Wow.
Could you be anymore a victim of propaganda?
NATO expansion map. (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
Pelosi and McConnell Crank Up NATO Madness
Pelosi and McConnell Crank Up NATO Madness
There is nothing wrong with NATO expansion. It was important for NATO to take in as many countries as it could since the collapse of the Soviet Union, since it would be only a matter of time before the Russian Federation would recover and start up its aggressive policies towards the west and the world again. Europe, especially western Europe is much safer now that the line Russian tanks are not allowed to cross is hundreds of miles further to the east.
Notice, every country that joins NATO does so because they volunteer freely to do it. They also have to meet a number of conditions in terms of Democracy, government, human rights, stability etc.
"since it would be only a matter of time before the Russian Federation would recover and start up its aggressive policies towards the west and the world again."
The Soviet Union only ever had a defensive posture. Can you blame them after what happened to them after WWII? Or are you that dumb you don't know the history?
What makes you so sure Russia would be aggressive.
Who has a more aggressive stance? Who has whom encircled with bases and a global military presence?
Who spends the most on military expenditures?
You make a lot of unqualified and unsupported statements that are completely meaningless.
Do not these nations get some benefit from joining NATO?
Hasn't the president even carped on the free rider problem? If these nations actually had to contribute the same share of GDP that the US spends on defense, are you really so dumb as to believe they would still join?
Seriously?

Wow, your whole post was just nothing but parroting the false paradigm and propaganda of the CFR and the military industrial complex. HELLLO? D.C. is calling, the Mueller Report even said the whole Russiagate thing was a hOaX. . . . didn't you hear? They do not have an aggressive posture. GET OVER IT.
The Soviet Union NEVER had a defensive posture!
01. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union crushed attempts at Democracy in the countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and East Germany.
02. They imposed communist dictatorships in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and East Germany. These were puppet governments directly controlled by the Soviet Union.
03. When these countries or governments did not bend to the will of the Soviet Union, they would invade them and arrest or kill anyone that got in their way. They did this in 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia, and came close to doing it in Poland in 1981.
04. They put up walls around West Berlin to keep people from East Germany from escaping there. They tried multiple times to starve West Berlin into submission.
05. The Soviet Union supported communist revolution and take over all over the world from nearly half a century. They supported Mao's rise to power in China. Influenced North Korea into invading South Korea. Supported the Communist take over of Vietnam. In each case were talking about crushing democracy, killing freedom of religion, and imposing communist dictatorship and Atheism everywhere they could. The EVIL EMPIRE indeed.
06. The Soviet Union supported the Arab countries invasion of Israel and attempt to wipe Israel off the map in 1948. After that, they supported the Arabs action in every war against Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East.
07. Terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Humas were armed and equipped by the Soviet Union.
08. The Soviet Union followed by China were the biggest Supporters of SADDAM who invaded and attacked four different countries while he was in power.
09. If all that were not enough, the Soviets maintained a massive military force of over 5 million men under arms and often over 200 armored and mechanized divisions in its army alone.
10. In 1990, near the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had over 60,000 main battle tanks, while its client states in the Warsaw Pact had another 20,000. Main Battle Tanks are offensive weapons used for invasions. The Soviet and Warsaw Pact had nearly 4 times as many main battle tanks in their inventories than did NATO.
11. In terms of being able to defend Western Europe from a Warsaw Pact attack, nearly ever scenario run in their early days saw the Soviets and Warsaw Pact forces overrunning Western Europe in a matter of weeks unless NATO used nuclear weapons. But the use of nuclear weapons could bring about uncontrolled escalation and the destruction of the planet.
12. It was only in the 1980s that the United States and NATO were barley able to cobble together a conventional defense of Western Europe that might succeed in defending against a Soviet/Warsaw Pact attack without resorting to the use of Nuclear Weapons.
13. By the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had stockpiled more weapons of any kind than any country EVER in history. The Soviet Union had 220 total Divisions in its ground forces compared to only 44 divisions for the United States. Plus more than half of the United States divisions were reserves and stationed in the United States, a whole ocean away from where the front line would be in Europe. The Soviets had the advantage of being able to support a potential war effort only a few hundred miles from some of its major cities.
14. The Soviet Union was an aggressive communist dictatorship guilty of the worst human rights abuses, murdering millions of its own citizens. They were dedicated to imposing this communist dictatorship all over the world as well as destroying religion and imposing ATHEISM on the entire planet. You really don't get more evil than that.
Thankfully, the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s thanks to the weight of its cold war military spending and Saudi Arabia's pumping as much oil as possible to cut the price of oil in the 1980s crushing Soviet attempts to survive its economic troubles.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, countries that had long be controlled by first the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union, like Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia and others finally became independent states. In Ukraine, the Soviets had attempted to wipe out Ukrainian language and culture. Luckily they failed.
The Russian Federations much weaker position in the 1990s and into the early 2000s allowed countries normally controlled or dominated by Moscow to escape and come under the protection of the western military alliance in NATO. A military alliance dedicated to democracy and freedom! Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all joined NATO because they NEVER wanted to experience the horror of occupation and control by Moscow ever again. Given what they had experienced previously, they wanted to be apart of the west and protected by its military alliance in NATO. They joined NATO because they no longer wanted to be controlled and raped repeatedly by Moscow.
But as Russia became stronger in the late 00s and into the 10s, they began to become more aggressive in their foreign policy. They invaded Georgia in 2008. Then in 2014, Russia invaded and then annexed Crimea from the Ukraine.
This was the first invasion and annexation of another country, or part of another country, in Europe, since Adolf Hitler did it in the 1940s.
The Russians have launched a vast military build up of its armed forces over the last 10 years developing the most modern Tanks, armored personal carriers, Artillery and Air Defense Artillery the world has ever seen.
As far as current military spending is concerned, what you do not understand is that
military spending does not equal military capability. Countries with highly developed economies naturally have higher defense budgets because they cost of competitively paying and training their forces is greater. But when you look at the actual forces these countries can put on the battle field, they are dwarfed by countries who only spend a tenth of what they do on defense at least In nominal terms.
So military spending does not equate to raw military capability.
As for most of the NATO countries being under the proposed idea of spending at least 2% of GDP on the military, NATO countries in Europe still make up the vast majority of the ground troops, and combat aircraft that would be immediately available to respond to a Russian invasion of NATO territory. The United States has only recently started to deploy more ground combat units in Europe since cutting way back on them after the end of the cold war. United States troops stationed in Europe are still, as of today heavily outnumbered, by their NATO allies.
The current fear in Europe is that that NATO does not have currently enough ground combat forces stationed in Eastern Europe, specifically Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in order to deter or defeat a Russian invasion of the Baltic States. The fear that Russia would invade Estonia or Latvia has been increased by the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. Countries like Estonia and Latvia fear that they are next. It was a shock to see Russia invade Ukraine and annex Crimea. Given that event, it makes it far more likely now that a similar Russian incursion could take place in the Baltic states leading to a war between NATO and Russia. It is Russian actions, Russian aggression that have created the current hostile environment. Its why Eastern Europe pushed hard to get into NATO back in the 1990s and 00s. They knew a day would come when Russia would rebuild itself from the Collapse of the Soviet Union and feared being overrun again by the Soviets as they had just after World War II.