With Internal Squabbling on Vivid Display, What’s Next for NATO?

The subtext of this story is that European leaders (in past dependable allies) are both laughing at, and terrified by our president. Small wonder that Macron suggests NATO recalibrate the alliance. Mr Trump cannot be counted on. He flails about, with no consistency to his positions from day to day. He demeans elected leaders & praises the vilest autocrats. There is no policy, no strategy, no intent. It is obvious to our allies, if it isn’t to all of us, that Trump knows nothing about history, economics, loyalty, patriotism or empathy, and has zero interest in late learning. He speaks (or tweets) at whim - just verbal incontinence. How can they trust him? How could we?

Maybe NATO should change their name and become NETO (Northern Europe Treaty Organization) and throw the US out. All the big countries have their own defense industries. They have their own nukes, fighters, armies and navies.

The last statement in this article is kind of disappointing, because of what was it, we’re going to conduct another STUDY “in Nato speak” of forward-looking blah blah blah blah blah blah. Kind of reinforcing the old Mockingjay about conducting another STUDY! Although, I admit that it’s important to know what is happening to be able to do something about it.

These wealthy dead-beat countries have been milking the American taxpayers for so long that getting an overdue bill for their defense must be shock to their systems.

Going on three years of the Trump administration, and there is not one sign of thoughtful policy either domestically or with regard to other nations. Instead we have crumbling infrastructure, increasingly unaffordable medical costs, lack of creation of jobs (other than minimum wage positions), failure to tackle climate change, and a foreign policy that only supports the goal of the one country that attacked our presidential election in 2016 (that would be Russia/Putin). We are moving backwards with every day that passes, because we have an incompetent President and a spineless Republican Party that refuses to do anything other than his bidding.

Russia has always been aware that its geography puts them at risk from attack from the East, Mongols, or the West, countless countries over the centuries. So it is always trying to expand its defensive perimeter. This was best achieved in the years after WW2. Europe of course is very aware of these facts having lived through this history along with Russia. The question becomes what is Europe doing to protect itself? England and France have nuclear weapons but the hope has always been that Europe in NATO would have enough non nuclear deterrence to give Russia pause about expanding. In a way it is good that Trump has blundered and raged just enough to get Europe to examine its collective conscience about what life would be like without the USA to defend Europe. I do not know what their answer will be but I bet they are just going to hope as I do that Trump will be gone in January 2021. That should not be their default position.

Thinking people the world over have to be extremely concerned about how the American president will perform if there is a serious crisis. He’s obviously a man of shallow intellect and questionable ethics, and his fondness for Vladimir Putin should chill the bones of honorable people.

Before commenting or just venting, it's a good idea to read the NATO agreement issued on 5 September 2014 in its entirety. We all know and lament that reading isn't Trump's strong point, so it's sad that reading would also not appear to be the strong point of many of his noisiest critics. In particular (I would quote more but am defeated by the NYT 1500 character limit): * Allies currently meeting the NATO guideline to spend a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence will aim to continue to do so. Likewise, Allies spending more than 20% of their defence budgets on major equipment, including related Research & Development, will continue to do so. * Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level will: * halt any decline in defence expenditure; * aim to increase defence expenditure in real terms as GDP grows; * aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm

NATO will end of the U.S. retreats from that alliance. If the E.U. was strong, it might replace the role of the U.S. as a unifying entity but it’s not. Trump really is an ignorant man when it comes to international relations. His America First idea is not a reasonable one given world history. It will lead to contending alliances and new world wars. He has no idea what he’s doing.

This exclusively American meme that the rest of the world can't do without the great and powerful United Stated of America long ago lost any semblance of reality. If you don't like the way NATO is working, and you are obsessed with telling other countries how much they should spend on their military and want to throw insults and tantrums when you don't get your way, just get out of Europe, America. Withdraw your aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. Rent the bases out or sell the assets at wholesale prices. If you really want to be tribally isolationist, and you think that the future is to arm your country to the teeth in order to keep your economy afloat then do it and leave the rest of the world to take care of itself.

Once the current White House occupant is removed from office, it will be a long, slow process reclaiming the trust of our allies, including the NATO ones.

Does that 130 billion dollars represent the entire spending by other NATO countries over 3 years?

The video isn't an indication that NATO is having troubles. The video is an indication that world leaders are like the rest of us: if caught on a mic that we don't know is hot, we'd be caught saying things that we don't intend everyone to hear.

The US emerged from WWII as the world's leading military and economic power. Since that time, US hegemony has relied on: 1) military power, 2) control of world's energy reserves, 3) maintaining the dollar as the world's reserve currency. All of the pillars supporting US power are now breaking down, from decades of neoliberal economic policies and spending large sums of money on the military. NATO was formed (1949) to counter the Soviet Union. In 1991, the USSR disbanded and thus, the raison d'être for NATO disappeared. In 2008, the US experienced the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression. Since that time, equity markets and banks have been sustained with unlimited ultra-cheap money from the FED, ECB and BOJ. The entire post WWII economic order, largely US dominated, is now breaking down. 1) The US is faced with $22 trillion federal deficits and $10 trillion corporate debt and astronomically expensive strategic debacles in Afghanistan (longest war in US history), Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. 2) Russia and China have reached military and economic parity with the US. 3) The EU is becoming increasingly reliant on Russian energy, while China and Russia are becoming increasingly important trading partners for the EU. To quote Lord Palmerston (1784-1865) ‘Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests’. Unfortunately, trade disputes can evolve into military conflicts as we saw in WWI and WWII. Very dangerous times ahead.

The Alliance hasn’t lost it’s focus. Trump trashed it.

Trump has demonstrated that he is incapable of maintaining any sort of stable, predictable, relationship with partners, in his personal life, business life, and in his role as President. Long term strategic partners in an alliance that has been crucial to containing Russia and preserving European peace for 70 years, are publicly disrespected. America, under the leadership of Trump, and the Republican Party, has proven itself an erratic, unreliable partner. Time and time again, he has curried favor with murderous despots in Turkey, Russia, North Korea and Saudi Arabia, while maligning our long term allies. Putin must be very happy with his investment in him.

Score another point for Putin. As for the prospect of Russian tanks rolling over the landscape, ask the Ukranians and the Baltic states. The current US attitude toward the alliance is particularly harsh coming from the only member to ever benefit from the invocation of Article 5.

What is not really understood is that we do not want to defend Europe, we want the Europeans to defend Europe. The Soviet Union is gone. Let's reorganize Nato to meet the current world situation, The Iron Curtain is gone. Get our reduced military into a back up role, or at least out of the leading role.

The heart of the NATO issue has nothing to do with Trump’s erratic incompetence and churlish arrogance, and much to do with the unanticipated consequences of dramatic changes over the last generation. The rapid dissolution of the Soviet Union and the subsequent embrace of capitalism by Russia and China have essentially ended the prospect of traditional warfare between the major powers. So the prospect of Communist tanks rolling across Germany has pretty much disappeared, which was the primary reason for NATO’s existence to begin with. International rivalries now play out in regional “surrogate wars” (e.g. Ukraine, Syria). This situation has been exacerbated by the USA’s attempts to extend its sphere of influence by luring former USSR client states into joining NATO and by the EU’s expansionary initiatives over the last 30 years. NATO was and is a military alliance, but warfare has changed - attacks on other developed countries are now more often technological and economic than physical, and NATO is not structured to deal effectively with this change. NATO, as it exists, is an anachronism; restoring it to functional relevance will require serious rethinking of its role and purpose in world affairs and a major, fundamental restructuring.

It seems that Trump is critical - almost obsessed - with US spending where he cannot find a way to profit personally from that spending.

America's lack of leadership within NATO has everything to do with America's lack of leadership at home. We have a president who is incompetent at every level. Therefor, how can we expect anything other than an ignorant response to anything on the home or world stage? Not until there is a clear-out at the White House of Trump and his flunkies can we expect any form of coherence in American politics. That day can't come soon enough.

People matter. Our megalomanical President, though he has pushed NATO countries to spend more on defense (as have just about every US President) is in thrall to Vladimir Putin. Substitute Crimea for the Sudetenland. Trump is Chamberlain without the umbrella. To be q Gaullist is as natural to the French as great art. Mqcron was less Gaullist with Obama, an Atlanticist, in the Presidency. Now, events give him no choice. If Europe is to survive intact it will need a coherent defense strategy. They can hope for U.S.help in the event of Russian aggression but cannot count on it. Its new attention to Chinese imperialism. though belated, is welcome. If Americans decide to have a President who recognizes that in union with Europe, there is strength, NATO can be restored. If not, God have mercy on us for undoing the work of the Greatest Generation.

Rather than having the US stay competitive in 5G, Pompeo makes a shallow threat to NATO members about losing their ability to share in our intelligence if they use a China developed 5G system. Is the option to follow the USA into obsolescence? The bully tactics displayed by Pompeo shadow those of the presidency. Pompeo should know better. This is lazy, irresponsible diplomacy with no goal and only pushes our Allies closer to China. In a global economy world, staying relevant in technology is the new cornerstone to progress. If the USA does not embrace progress, then we will be joining the likes of failed countries that refused to invest in their future in order to prop up a stodgy elite that has lost its place in our communal vision.

How accurate are the public and political pronouncements of a NATO meeting? I can't imagine that security planning and preparedness are really so dependent on political winds. I have to hope this is mostly theater. My guess is that an enduring transnational set of professionals in each country proceeds as usual, tolerating political showmanship as needed. Russia and China do take advantage of the coordination costs. If country-A won't allow a port, country-B will, and take the profits therefrom. Same for telecommunications. Russia like a mosquito can poke and prod, trying to find the line of incursions that don't get a response and fatigue collaborators. NATO should have a rule that any country can inspect and disassemble any weaponry bought from outside the alliance. I'm sure the US would like to peep at Russia's missile defense systems.

The European have a plan that, they should run the world, that they know better than everyone else. What hubris.

Trump is willing, even eager, to undermine NATO and Amercan national security, to satisfy his own childish reasons.

No, not a changing America. A temporarily deranged American leadership. Trump clearly has no clue, not the slightest inkling, of the history or meaning of NATO, He sees it as a dues paying club—like Mar-a-Lago—and has only one goal: to make sure everyone is paid up on their annual accounts. It is an infantile understanding, characteristic of a boorish intellect. But it is temporary. NATO will recover the moment Trump leaves office and America regains its senses. If that happens in 2020 we will be fine, as will NATO. If it is not until 2024, all bets are off.

Erdogan is certainly an interesting world leader with more than a few facets. On the one side he massively restricts freedom of the press and opinion in his own country as well as his over-meddling in German attempts to have well-rounded in-country Imam schools for Muslims in Germany, which unveils his single-minded despotic nature but on the other side he uncovered the Saudi-Embassy-Bandsaw-Coverup for all of us, only for us western powers to squawk once and yawn twice after he did, ergo, business as usual — all quite on the western front. President Trump basically told the truth when he said that one man’s death was not worth losing all that economic prosperity, but the statement does come in conflict with our mantra of “Save one and you save all!” Since Hanukkah and Christmas are just around the corner, it at least gives us something to contemplate when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions: Must try to be better next year.

Until Mr. Trump leaves office one way or the other, NATO, an organization that has maintained the peace in Post World War II Europe, will continue to deteriorate. Vladimir Putin couldn’t be happier. A manboy who is beholden to him both financially and politically now pretends to lead the strongest nation in NATO. Trump has weakened the alliance that forced the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and will continue to do so as long as he remains in office. This is just one more reason trump needs to be removed from office as soon as possible.

After so many years of alliance, NATO needs to be redefined due to new threats and social changes. It also needs to rethink its dependence with the US. Collaboration is crucial, but the US cannot have always the last word because with Trump in the head -and it seems he’s staying for a while- the US is unreliable. However, while Russia is led by Mr. Putin, NATO cannot look that way. It is useful to have your enemies close, but not that close.