Would getting the US out of NATO be a good thing for us? NATO has been such a fixture that I've never given it much thought. It could save us a lot of money, at least in the short term with base closures, withdrawing troops deployed to Europe, etc. Also, given most of Western Europe's insistence on being colonized by Islamist settlers, having lax immigration requirements for travelers and immigrants from Europe may well be a security risk. On the other hand, I've generally assumed that allies are helpful at least in intel sharing and that they maintain a certain stability that is good for us. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe Trump doesn't care about that anymore.
I can see how NATO may have harmed Europe, allowing them to ignore their own defense and their own people and instead to go crazy with their globalist dreams, but I don't know that that's the case. It would seem to fit a common conservative critique of welfare undermining independence and work ethic, though.
What do y'all think? Is Trump trying to get us out of NATO? Would that be a good thing? Or am I just way off base with this?
InfantryDort has one take: https://x.com/infantrydort/status/2013591409748512877
ReplyDeleteI have a slightly different one:
Eisenhower had it backward. NATO, to succeed, needed us there for far longer than 10 years. Where we went wrong was in continuing the underwriting past the point where Europe’s nations could pay their own way, which is their “fair share” (to coin a phrase) of the still needed collective defense.
Absent nuclear weapons and a willingness to use them–and we’re the only nation to have demonstrated the willingness, although not for a long time–Europe’s nations could not, alone or collectively among themselves–have stood against the Russian Soviet Union.
Loss of Europe would have bad for our own security, which was the motivation for the Marshall Plan beyond simple humanitarianism, and it still would be bad.
The only thing that’s changed is the necessity of moving the front–the core of an operational (rather than the current sort-of aspirational) mutual defense arrangement–farther east. Russia still needs to be contained.
I don’t agree that we trapped Europe in adolescence, although InfantryDort is right that we contributed to that. Western history is rife with nations overcoming the “trap” their “upbringing” to achieve a measure of adulthood. It’s how we, the US, came to exist, it’s the history of the UK, until it aged into its current senescence. It’s the history of Germany as it unified from the several principalities into one nation. It’s the history of France and its successive Republics. Regardless, though, whether we trapped Europe in adolescence or not, that’s the state of Europe today. That’s what we must deal with, and that’s the need to move the front east. Western and Central Europe need to be cut loose; it will be protected by the farther east front, at least militarily. Whether they grow up, in InfantryDort’s terms, or they start taking their own defense and their defense commitments to each other seriously, in my terms, the only way they’ll do that, is if we walk away from them in favor of the better.
More on my blog: http://aplebessite.com/2026/01/20/a-couple-of-points/#comments
The upshot of that is that we don't need NATO; we can't trust much of NATO members' intentions, they never have trusted us, and they have no capability to support us, except in words (which is all the NATO treaty requires) anyway.
It's time to stand up a mutual defense arrangement (I do not say "treaty," but I don't rule one out) with the Three Seas Initiative nations, and when that's gone operational (as opposed to NATO's aspirational (sort of) condition), it'll be time to walk away from NATO.
Eric Hines
My view of the issue is a variation on the old 'Russians out, US in, Germans down' formula for NATO. The EU would like to have a foreign policy independent of the United States but it has no military forces outside the NATO framework which therefore demands US participation, or at least acceptance aka 'leading from behind' in its foreign operations. That worked tolerably well when we had an obvious common enemy with global reach, and when we had just as much interest in constraining European policies as they had in constraining ours. It is working far less well in an era with multiple powerful antagonists when it is hard to come to agreement on joint policy. As a purely military alliance it is certainly beneficial to both us and the Euros but the close connection to the EU where we have no voice makes it problematic. I don't think that DJT is trying to get us out but he's certainly forcing the contradictions to sime resolution.
ReplyDeleteI mostly agree with Mr. Hines. NATO is probably not helpful in most respects at this time; it's a kind of entangling alliance of the sort President Washington warned about. It's allowed our 'allies' to try to lead us around by the nose without actually contributing anything, and it's become highly provocative vs. Russia since we expanded it to their doorstep.
ReplyDeleteThere have been other negative effects. The French were never honestly committed to the thing anyway, and have only used it as a way of controlling or guiding us, Germany, and the UK. The Germans have been psychologically infantilized by the decades of occupation. It would be genuinely better for them, and the Scandinavian nations, to have a military that wasn't just a fringe but an active part of their society.
I still think the Eastern European powers -- Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Romania -- are worth protecting, and willing to pay their share in blood and treasure. They are still serious people worth taking seriously. We might prefer bilateral agreements instead of an overarching alliance.
You hit on Trump's main theme: BI-LATERAL. Same with the tariff schemes. Soon, the Canada-Mexico-US treaty will expire and become a couple of BI-LATERALs.
DeleteAs to Russia 'needing containment'? For what? Until the end of WWII, Russia was relatively docile--far more so than Germany or England (which set the standard for colonizing/raping spots around the world.
I don't think that DJT is trying to get us out but he's certainly forcing the contradictions to sime resolution.
ReplyDeleteI think Trump has been genuinely trying to get non-US NATO members to strengthen their own defense establishments for their own good as well as the alliance's. His threats to leave if they didn't or to not protect the shirkers has had some beneficial effect after 50+ years of Pretty Please by prior Presidents. Trump is, though, coming to the conclusion that the non-NATO members--including Canada--just don't care, so why should we.
...it's become highly provocative vs. Russia since we expanded it to their doorstep.
I don't care about provoking Russia. The barbarian badly needs containing. The louder Putin screams about it, the more he confirms the need for containment. What does trouble me is that no Western politician, from eastern Europe through farther west, is pointing out to Putin that no one in Europe or North America is a threat to Russia. Russia has nothing any of us want that can't be gotten far more cheaply and beneficially to both Russia and us through free trade than through conquering and occupying.
The threat from Europe, et al., is manufactured by Putin. The real threat to Russia is from the PRC: its growing control through development and export of Russia's Siberian oil, natural gas, timber, and ores, and its expanding colonization of Siberia through Chinese work crews and families.
Eric Hines
There's nothing we can say to Putin that would make him believe we aren't a threat. Before Peter Zeihan went round the bend with TDS he made what to me was a very reasonable evaluation of the problem Russia has. The Hordelands of the eastern steppes are indefensible given the Russian population without controlling the gaps on the perimeter such as the Baltics, the Polish plains, the Black Sea, etc. Controlling these gaps has been a Russian project since the Czars emerged. Anybody ruling from Moscow looks at a map and sees the same invasion routes and comes up with the same defensive strategy of pushing out until they control them. Part of the reason for stability in the Cold War was that Russia plugged all those gaps via the WarPac.
DeleteThere's nothing we can say to Putin that would make him believe we aren't a threat.
ReplyDeleteThat's probably true. The rest of what you've posted is certainly true.
The first is irrelevant. The rest is all the more reason why the barbarian needs to be contained, and the rest of us need to press onto (but no farther) the Russian border.
Eric Hines
The recent US-Russia history gives Putin VERY solid reason to distrust the US.
DeleteHe asked--twice--to join NATO. Both Clinton and Bush the Dumber effectively told him to sit down and shut up. Then, the US double-crossed him vis-a-vis the Ukraine treaty.
He can take a hint. So if Europe sees Russia as a threat, they should man up (if possible) and be prepared.
We have Greenland to conquer!!!
With the Baltic nations, the Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Slovaks, and the Romanians all in NATO and Ukraine possibly waiting in the wings we've already blown far past all them. This of course doesn't justify Putin's aggressions but more indicates the West should have been a little more circumspect with how the security of those nations against Russia was assured.
DeleteHe asked--twice--to join NATO. Both Clinton and Bush the Dumber effectively told him to sit down and shut up.
ReplyDeleteAs was entirely appropriate. Putin had already undone the progress (however minimal) his post-Soviet predecessors had made on liberalizing Russia. And, as a KGB agent and leader of KGB successors, he couldn't be counted on to do anything other than spy on NATO and the member nations. His position and Clinton's and Bush the Elder's decisions were promptly corroborated by Putin's claim that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical catastrophe of historic proportions and his announced goal of reconstituting the Russian empire, which necessarily included overrunning and functionally occupying NATO members the Balkan States, Poland, eastern Germany, et al.
Then, the US double-crossed him vis-a-vis the Ukraine treaty.
No, the US, UK, and Russia all double-crossed Ukraine by walking away from their Budapest Memorandum commitments when Putin began his invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and subsequent occupation of Crimea. This, after Putin already had shown his hand by his invasion and partition of Georgia.
Eric Hines
...the West should have been a little more circumspect with how the security of those nations against Russia was assured.
ReplyDeleteOne of the ways (not necessarily suggested by you) is to be Pretty Please about security. There are other circumspections. However, the only way to even try to assure security against an openly acquisitive nation like Russia is to be open about effecting security moves.
None of the NATO's expansion moves involved penetrating Russian borders, only seeking to secure bordering nations against the barbarian's acquisition efforts. That those moves failed vis-a-vis Ukraine is solely from the West's timidity in following through--a failure that began long before NATO's expansion to the east.
Eric Hines