"The brain death of NATO"
 

https://www.economist.com/europe/201...-is-brain-dead


For once, I must agree with him. Well flown, Macronman. Myself, I do not give much for article 5 anymore. I also do not have faith in the US anymore. Which means: NATO is only little more than a memory of the past, an echo, an empty hull. I do not put trust into it anymore. As I see it, Europe currently is posing as an exposed prey: militarily, cyberspace-wise, economically, fiscally. Ironically pushed there not by rivals from the outside, but by he ever-hungry maggots within.

I think many in Europe would agree, he is the first to come out publicly.

It isn't that the U.S. can no longer be counted on to come to Europe's aid or that we are turning our back on NATO. That IMO is just political hay meant to make raising a European army more appealing to the European masses. It is, I think, because we provide most of the money and military might to NATO. The U.S. tends to use that as a tool to throw its weight around influencing European foreign affairs and often times contrary to Macron and Merkel would like. As Macron has said: Europe needs to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power; otherwise we will “no longer be in control of our destiny.” That right there is the crux of the matter.

If only Europe had some credible external threat (Baltics trying to invent it do not count).
I think Macron is just a European federalist.

I think this is either about out of region deployments or about the federal nation-state building.

You don't prepare for a war to lose a war ... :o

Could NATO hold it's own till help from surely a friendly country like USA came to their aid?

There are regions inside NATO-Europe's geographical borders and there are scenarios where I would doubt this. Still, NATO wants to geographically grow, like the EU as well. Recently France has blocked Albania and Macedonia from starting negotiations about EU membership, and all other EU countries were shocked and pissed, but I think France is right there. You do not form stronger alliances by adding more and more weak members. You strengthen the overall alliance by adding stronger members, and you keep the overall strength if adding members whose individual strength is at least on the level of the alliance's strength. By adding weaker members you weaken the alliance, like adding water in your drink: it doe snot become more plentiful oin taste and intensity,l but it gets watered down. That is true for the EU. And that is true for NATO. Problem is that politicians live in a bubble and are immune to unwanted realities, they do not understand that symbolic acting is not the same like strength in the real world. A claim is not the substance of things - a claim is just sound waves, or ink on paper.

German wannabe defence ministress AKK talks about Germany now needing to face more military international actvities. Its not the first time this woman intellectually implodes over things she suggests. She has no word lost on getting Germany first into a shape where it could actually support and sustain such raises in international engagements. Heck, AKK even mentioned a German military stand in the Far East, against China. With what, stupid woman - with what...??? One frigate (with a broken down helicopter aboard)? A flight of recce tornados? Two weeks ago she tried herself on resolving Syria. The joke-ful result from her ambition already is legend now. Putin, Erdoghan, Assad - they all shoke their heads about so much dilletancy, and even at NATO HQ they were highly amused, and just too polite to laugh out loud while the cameras still were running.

Thats what you get when you leave dealing with hard realities to novices and laymen not having a clue of matters and things. You become the laugh of the day, week and month. Personally I think the job of a defence minister should be reserved to somebody with a minimum of several years of own serving experience in the armed forces. Instead we get the second clueless but over-ambitious barrack Barbie in a row who sees the defence ministry only as a starting block for her own run for the chancellory. God have mercy with us.

Merkel has just criticised Macronman's "choice of words" as being "unneeded", and said that NATO was "indispensable". And by that she shows again that she just puts her head into the sand: Because Macronman did not say that NATO was not needed, he criticised instead that although we should understand it is needed, we let it down so that it cannot fulfill its indispensable function anymore.



Denial of reality.

Well NATO was specifically bought about to counter the Soviet Union which no longer exists.
Current Russian forces are a shadow of their former selves and some of the Warsaw pact countries now belong to NATO, so it has bee a turn about.

The fact that Europe is reliant on the USA for some of its defense is to me some what draconian, NATO should be disbanded as we have a network of alliances in place inside Europe that if Russia for example wanted to step over the border it would be countered.

The Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) should be the successor to NATO, but then we have another issue, what do we do with Canada and the USA which are members of NATO but not part of European Union countries.
Well it is quite simple (in a way) make a separate alliance with them and also have them work along side us just like they do with NATO.

The thing that is going most wrong in NATO is the spending gaps, each nation made a pledge to commit 2% gdp to defense regardless of its GDP, now i understand it was a pledge and not an enforced limit but when you have countries like Canada (1.2% gdp defense budget) Spain (0.92% gdp) Germany (1.36% gdp)for example to are a lot wealthier than others that commit less percentage than poorer nations Greece (2.24%gdp) Estonia (2.13%gdp) and others that through creative accounting attain the 2% target UK (2.13% gdp) for example, i can see why it would upset the heavy spender USA (3.42% gdp).

Now the USA has a multitude of commitments as do many other countries but NATO is focused solely around defense of Europe, while the USA is split between Europe and the far east mainly with the rise of China.

NATO is currently shackling the USA to the European theater and as such it cant focus on more pressing matters, this means its now relying heavily on its allies in that region, The USA knows as does the EU Russia is not interested in coming across the border into the Baltics nor into Ukraine.
And Jointly the entire EU countries can counter the forces of Russia right now without assistance of the USA.

I think we need to re think our strategy and re-purpose NATO or get rid of it, this would also force the slack European countries to man up and man up their budgets accordingly, we also should court Russia instead of hindering her, after all what did the sanctions achieve? nothing the Russian economy continues to grow and the EU is still reliant on 25% of its LNG from Russia.

Source for NATO spending: https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2...019-069-EN.pdf

Source for CDSP : https://eeas.europa.eu/topics/common...policy-csdp_en

I think Europe particularly Germans need to stop living in the past and get over their innate fear of Russians. And accept the idea of supporting a budget to raise an effective fighting force to defend their borders.

"Germans' innate fear of Russia"...? Sorryy you are totally on the wrong track there. Germans tradittionally are not "afraid of Russia", but quite the opposite: they are quite russophile, and tend to downplay the risks and threats regarding Russia, or the questionable morals of its acting on certain issue. The sympathy for Russia is the stronger the more you move to the left in the political spectrum, and the more you move towards the East in the German geography. But it is deeper than that. The Germans felt a deep admiration for Russia already before WW1, and even durign the Russian revolution and the times of mass starvations in Russia. The terrible price for the revolution was ignored by political circles in Germany at that time. The overall image of Russia remained intact, and over-glorified.



The German image of Russia is quite transfigured. The origins for this root deeper than just the cold war or WW2, reach back into the times of the Czars, maybe even deal with migration movements that were earlier than even the uof a formal German nation 1871 (Deutsches Reich). Peter the Great positvely fed back on Germans as well in his ambition to lead Russia closer to Europe. Twenty years ago or so, after Yeltzin, the new in office president Putin was compared in Germany to Peter the Great! Migration movements at times were quite intense between German and Russian/Slavic territories. Both people'S willingness to submit to state authority is something that Germans and Russians seem to have in common, taught in Russia by the Czars, in Germany since Prussia. Also, there is immense econoimic lobbying by big business on German govenrment to bypass or end the sanctions on Russia so that German businessmen can do deals with russia again.



Myself, I once again sit between all seats. I am not as Russia-friendly as the pltlical left in Germany is, but then I am also thinkling that Russia is not that bad as especially America paints it to be. I try to see Russia through the eyes of Russia's legitimate, vital self interests - and then many of the things it does suddenly make sense to me. In the eyes of Western hawks, that makes me a russophile already. In the eyes of Putin fans, I am irrationally paranoid of Russia. Well. Thats how it is when you sit between all chairs.



Think tanks in the US tend to conclude that Germany and Europe will sooner or later fall under the influence of either Islam, or Russia. A durable relation between the anglosaxon world and the Germanic European world, is seen as unlikely. I tend to agree there. Unfortunately. The French favour the influence on Europe from the southern , mediterranean region and north Africa, since they think they can dominate there and thus regain the status of a regional hegemon again, and Turkey now is increasingly pressing into Europe again in Erdoghan's bid for rebuilding the Osman sphere of influence. It is these players: France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, that will decide and form the shape of European culture and civilization by the end of this century. Of thes,e Russia is probably the most realstic and sober player, Germany the most dreamlike and romanticising player. France is driven by ambitions it cannot support by its own economy alone, and Turkey is driven both by megalomania and missionary spirit. Ironcially, both germany and France allow contradicting self-influence there. france is traditonally ignorrant of Eastern Europe and tends to directly adress Russia diplomatically and over the heads of the Eastern Europeans between France and Russia, while it wants a close alliance with Muslim North Africa as well, while Germany also eyes Russia all the time, but allows Turkey to heavily meddle with inner German politics and European politics as well. One cannot say that Germany is only Russophile and France is only Islmaophile and so these two nations "clashing" will decide what Europe will look like: pro Russian or even more pro Islamic. One can only say that on a meta level the clash between Russian dominance and Islam will decide Europe's future face.



For America, I see no long termed role anymore in Europe. Not that I welcome that or like it. Its just my sober strategic conclusion. The alienation already has started, and won in pace tremendously in past years. The anglosaxons just are a sphere of their own: and Europe - excluding the islands of the UK of course - is no part of that. Since this is so, I tend to think that Europe will approach Russia all by itself, due to the need to appease this strong neighbour whom one cannot militarily contain without the US. Look at Syria: France just learned that the grand nation was unable to alter in any way the American ways. The US did what they want, and what Britain or France thought of it, was not even asked for.