Posted on 04/02/2019 4:26:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
When Donald Trump meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg today, the president should give him a direct message:
The roster of NATO membership is closed. For good. The United States will not hand out any more war guarantees to fight Russia to secure borders deep in Eastern Europe, when our own southern border is bleeding profusely.
And no one needs to hear this message more than Stoltenberg.
In Tblisi, Georgia, on March 25, Stoltenberg declared to the world: "The 29 allies have clearly stated that Georgia will become a member of NATO."
As for Moscow's objection to Georgia joining NATO, Stoltenberg gave Vladimir Putin the wet mitten across the face:
"We are not accepting that Russia, or any other power, can decide what (NATO) members can do."
Yet what would it mean for Georgia to be brought into NATO?
The U.S. would immediately be ensnared in a conflict with Russia that calls to mind the 1938 and 1939 clashes over the Sudetenland and Danzig that led straight to World War II.
In 2008, thinking it had U.S. backing, Georgia rashly ordered its army into South Ossetia, a tiny province that had broken away years before.
In that Georgian invasion, Russian peacekeepers were killed and Putin responded by sending the Russian army into South Ossetia to throw the Georgians out. Then he invaded Georgia itself.
"We are all Georgians now!" roared uber-interventionist John McCain. But George W. Bush, by now a wiser man, did nothing.
Had Georgia been a NATO nation in 2008, the U.S. could have been on the brink of war with Russia over the disputed and minuscule enclave of South Ossetia, which few Americans had ever heard of.
Why would we bring Georgia into NATO now, when Tblisi still claims the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which Moscow controls and defends?
Are we not in enough quarrels already that could lead to new wars -- with Iran in the Gulf, China in the South China Sea, North Korea, Russia in the Baltic and Black Sea, Venezuela in our own hemisphere -- in addition to Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia where we are already fighting?
Among neocon and GOP interventionists, there has also long been a vocal constituency for bringing Ukraine into NATO.
Indeed, changes in the GOP platform in Cleveland on U.S. policy toward Ukraine, it was said, were evidence of Trumpian collusion with the Kremlin.
But bringing Ukraine into NATO would be an even greater manifestation of madness than bringing in Georgia.
Russia has annexed Crimea. She has supported pro-Russian rebels in the Donbass who seceded when the elected president they backed was ousted in the Kiev coup five years ago.
Kiev's recent attempt to enter the Sea of Azov by sailing without formal notification under the Putin-built Kerch Strait Bridge between Russia and Crimea, proved a debacle. Ukrainian sailors are still being held.
No matter how supportive we are of Ukraine, we cannot commit this country to go to war with Russia over its territorial integrity. No Cold War president from Truman to George H. W. Bush would have dreamed of doing such a thing. Bush I thought Ukraine should remain tied to Russia and the Ukrainian independence movement was born of "suicidal nationalism."
Trump has rightly demanded that Europeans start paying their fair share of the cost of NATO. But a graver question than the money involved are the risks involved
Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has added 13 nations: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, and six Balkan countries -- Bulgaria, Rumania, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania and Montenegro.
Also attending the NATO gathering in Tblisi a week ago were Sweden, Finland and Azerbaijan. Are these three also candidates for U.S. war guarantees?
The larger NATO becomes, the further east it moves, the greater the probability of a military clash that could lead to World War III.
Yet none of the nations admitted to NATO in two decades was ever regarded as worth a war with Russia by any Cold War U.S. president.
When did insuring the sovereignty and borders of these nations suddenly become vital interests of the United States?
And if they are not vital interests, why are we committed to go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia over them, when avoidance of such a war was the highest priority of our eight Cold War presidents?
Putin's Russia, once hopeful about a new relationship under Trump, appears to be giving up on the Americans and shifting toward China.
Last week, 100 Russian troops arrived in Caracas. Whereupon, The Wall Street Journal lost it: Get them out of our "backyard." The Monroe Doctrine demands it.
Yet, who has been moving into Russia's front yard for 20 years?
As the Scotsman wrote, the greatest gift the gods can give us is to see ourselves as others see us.
The US should walk away from NATO entirely. Whatever happens to Europe happens. Life will go on. I feel no compulsion to protect Europe from Muslims or Russians.
Sounds good in theory; though the law of unintended consequences might have a say in how the results play put.
Early on the left was on board with the Peace dividend, but their leadership was bought off.
I agree. NATO was formed to defend against the USSR, which went away in the early 1990s. NATO should have been disbanded by 1999.
Trump was talking about Brazil joining NATO a week or two ago so I don’t think he would be believed if he threatened anyone over countries joining NATO.
Moscow is very bitter about their Evil Empire collapsing and wants a Soviet Reunion. They have already invaded Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine and made Belarus their puppet state. Mad Erdogan of Turkey is flirting with joining the Moscow’s block.
Russia has an economy the size of Italy. Europe can handle it if they want to. If they don’t care enough to defend themselves, we shouldn’t either.
“Russia has an economy the size of Italy. Europe can handle it if they want to. If they don’t care enough to defend themselves, we shouldn’t either.”
And in truth, NATO’s “umbrella of protection” financed to a very large degree by the US for all these years since the end of WWII, has allowed its “European members” to build Socialist countries with “other people’s money supplied indirectly through their “membership” in NATO by the United States. NATO is one of America’s biggest “kick me” signs that is firmly affixed to our wallet.
Soviet Union fed 80% of their GDP to military despite the people starving. Russia has most of that armament now and it still largely works. Things like tanks, APCs, howitzers or even rockets don’t expire that quickly.
“Russia has most of that armament now and it still largely works. Things like tanks, APCs, howitzers or even rockets don’t expire that quickly.”
What they don’t have is competent solders to use them. The worst thing we could do to Russia is ignore them completely. No place they’re sticking their noses into is worth a single drop of American blood.
The world would be a far more peaceful place if first world nations adopted the Swiss Model of national defense. Every swinging **** from 17 to 70 does 2 years of military service and then goes home with a rifle and a thousand rounds of ammunition.
German General to Swiss General in the 1940s: “What will you do if I send half a million men marching across your border?”
Swiss General to German General: “We will all shoot twice and then go home.”
L
Swiss model of a large conscript infantry works only in Switzerland. They have a very advantageous situation of being so mountainous that they can easily destroy the key roads, bridges and tunnels and force the enemy to be only infantry too ... with the Swiss guys knowing the terrain and their infantry being built knowing there is no armor or arty against them.
None of this works in the flatlands.
“None of this works in the flatlands.”
General Yamamoto would disagree.
L
I am familiar with what Yamamoto said and it is of course sweet sentiment describing different circumstances as the Japs couldn’t just have driven their hardware to America like Russia can to Poland.
What I believe is that Swiss infantry could do nothing against Russian military in flat Poland. They’d just be overran with heavy weapons.
They need their mountains, pre-placed explosives on bridges and tunnels and prepared stashes and ambush and defensive places in the mountains.
I tried to find the original source of the Yamamoto quote.
The best I could get was attributed to Yamamoto by the historian on MacArthur’s staff. I was trying to use it to shut down an anti-gunner. Since I couldn’t absolutely source the quote I decided not to use it. Maybe someone can do better? All of us would probably like an original source for future reference.
“What I believe is that Swiss infantry could do nothing against Russian military in flat Poland.“
Tell that to the Finns.
L
Finland. lots and lots of trees, lakes, marsh etc. Not at all good for armor & not like the plains of Poland or Germany!
No. We should not leave and dismiss ourselves from NATO.
It is better for the U.S., for maintaining our own alliances with whomever in Europe that does work (like Poland lately), that any military component of that is housed in NATO with us a part of that, instead of NATO replaced with a French-German dominated “European Army”, and us, for what friends in Europe we do have, on the outside looking in.
Inside NATO we have a right to complain when friends inside NATO let us down, let NATO down. Many of our friends in NATO want us in NATO because they now we have no imperial ambitions in Europe, which they know may not always be the case with some of their larger friends in Europe. We are the balance in Europe that keeps NATO working as a neutral force. With NATO done, finished, kaput whatever replaces it will be something that won’t be neutral. It will be weighted in favor to France and Germany, and everyone knows it. Many in Europe do not want that, and they have history on their side.
We are more effective, on the margins, as a partner within a military alliance with Europe, than history shows is possible if we are on the outside looking in.
There are some money comparisons, between the U.S. and our European partners in Europe, that make for apples versus oranges comparisons, and in SOME cases make for invalid comparisons.
Basically that error comes from not selecting out U.S. military expenditures directly related to NATO from the total U.S. military expenditures, that contain a lot of spending having nothing to do with NATO.
It is fair to complain when some NATO members do not live up to the level of military spending that, by consensus, NATO members in Europe have agreed to spend, as a percent of GDP. That target level is 2% of GDP. Most are not meeting it.
But two things need to be understood about that fact.
U.S. expenditures specifically for NATO do not and have not been increased to “cover” under spending by any NATO member. It is just meant NATO is not keeping up with agreed on levels of military preparedness. That “shortfall” will be noticed NOT on greater U.S. spending now, but on quick increases on military spending by NATO’s European members should some inter-Europe major hostility break out.
U.S. military spending is NATURALLY greater as a percent of GDP than our European alliance partners.
Why? We are not just alliance partners with NATO. We have a major military presence in Asia, with crucial military commitments in Korea, and the largest U.S. forces outside continental U.S. based on Okinawa in Japan. Then we have troops in Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East. Yes, we have asked for some NATO countries to help out in the Middle East, but that help has been on a nation by nation basis and not as a NATO-wide commitment.
Unless we were to ask all the NATO members to formally become our mutual allies with South Korea and Japan, and our Asian partners to formally join NATO and commit to the military alliance in Europe, it would not be a correct comparison to expect any of them to make military expenditures as large as ours as a percent of the their GDP.
The U.S. military expenditures are not what they are because our European partners spend too little (which they do, but that is a separate issue). Our military budget is what it is because we have military commitments beyond and outside of our NATO alliance.
Attacking the NATO alliance is not a solution. IF it is posed as a solution, then it only becomes valid as part of an overall retreat from all our military alliances. If we are to leave Europe to itself, then how do you not argue that we should leave Japan, the Philippines and South Korea to themselves (keep in mind where that leaves Australia).
The real solutions have no known likely time frame, for they depend on when it is the world, our partners, in Europe and Asia, will not feel threatened by bad actors in their own neighborhood - Russia, North Korea, China in particular, and Jihadists in the Middle East and Africa.
We can go back to the 1920s, become isolationists, and let our grandchildren spend to pick up the pieces later on. That’s the course we took between World War I and II, and it cost everyone a lot of pain to catch up when we had to.
NO. Inside NATO we can always be the good friend goading our friends to do better. Outside NATO and leaving Asia does not contain or remove threats that would eventually become ours to deal with, in time.
“Not at all good for armor & not like the plains of Poland or Germany!”
2,000,000 Poles with scoped rifles would turn the Russian Army into mincemeat. It wouldn’t come cheap or easy but it would happen.
L
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