Yves here. Keep in mind that the “end of NATO” trope, as is currently bandied about, including by those who ought to know better, inaccurately conflates a de facto end of NATO with a de jure one:
Rubio: If now we’ve reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can’t use those bases to defend America’s interests, then NATO is a one-way street…then why are we NATO? We’re going to have to reexamine that relationship. That’s a decision for the president. pic.twitter.com/JM1pKgrlqF
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 1, 2026
However, a divorce or separation is not going to be easy.
Even though NATO, as we have repeatedly said, is legally a weak alliance, member states have put a lot of weight on it. One reason for the Trump/Rubio hissy is not simply the American elevated sense of entitlement bur also that the US has tasked certain key types of expertise and equipment to particular NATO members. Importantly, with the Iran conflict, the NATO Pacific friend (Japan formally is a “NATO partner”) that normally takes the lead in minesweeping is Japan, because it has the most and best vessels. But unlike most US allies, Japan had kept up ties with Iran, which enabled them to run smartly to Iran and seal an oil transit deal. Do you think Japan will annoy Iran given the current givens by supplying minesweepers?
On the other side of the ledger, as Stanislav Krapivnik explained long-form in a recent talk, Europeans are hopelessly dependent on the US for weapons. Nominally European systems include multiple essential components made by US arms dealers. He estimated it would be a 20 year project for the Europeans to become independent (keep in mind US defense contractors could be expected to be agressive in asserting intellectual property claims if any EU manufacturers were to try to make copies of US tech).
By Anatol Lieven, a Professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Qatar, visiting professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London, and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. He is the author of Pakistan: A Hard Country. Anatol spent the first part of his career as a journalist in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the former USSR. Originally published at Common Dreams
n the view of General de Gaulle, “Treaties are like young girls and roses; they last while they last.” By that standard, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization seems to be wilting pretty fast. The Israeli-US war on Iran has opened up (or revealed) divisions that may prove fatal.
This week, in the first call of its kind from the European right, Tino Chrupalla, federal spokesman of Germany’s Alternative For Germany (AFD) party, declared, “Let’s begin to put into practice what our party manifesto says: the withdrawal of all US troops from Germany.” He said that Germany cannot call itself a truly sovereign country while it hosts foreign bases over which it has no real control.
Chrupalla praised the Spanish government’s action in closing US bases and Spanish airspace to participation in the Iran War: “Ships under the Spanish flag are allowed to pass the Strait [of Hormuz]. Why are the Spaniards allowed to cross? Because Spain has closed its bases for the Iran war. And that is totally right.”
This is an obvious riposte to President Trump’s latest remark that “countries like the United Kingdom”, that refused to get involved in the Iran War“ should ”Go get your own oil.“ Iran has in fact allowed ships with oil destined for neutral countries to pass the Strait of Hormuz.
Understandably however, Tehran does not consider European countries that host bases from which the US is attacking Iran to be truly “neutral.” If the war continues and energy shortages in Europe worsen, calls for other European countries to follow Spain are bound to intensify. The fate of the Gulf Arab states in this war has underlined the risks of hosting foreign military forces that you do not control.
France and Italy are indeed beginning to head in this direction. Italy has denied permission for US planes headed to the war to refuel in Italy. France has closed its airspace to US flights linked to the war. Trump’s response has been predictably furious, posting that “The US will remember” France’s lack of help, and warning Britain and France that, “You’ll have to learn how to fight for yourself, the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.”
This is despite the fact that Britain has allowed the US to use its bases for strikes on Iran — officially, only ones “defending” the Strait of Hormuz, but who is checking?
In a more measured but therefore perhaps even more menacing way, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, “If NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement. That’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States. So all of that is going to have to be reexamined.”
NATO has of course been through crises before. President Eisenhower brought the Anglo-French seizure of Suez in 1956 to an end through economic pressure. President Johnson was furious with the British refusal to send troops to Vietnam. The US strongly opposed the creation of the network of gas pipelines from Siberia to Europe in the 1970s. France and Germany attracted great anger from the Bush administration by refusing to take part in the attack on Iraq in 2003.
This crisis does however look significantly worse. Apart from Suez (where it was the US that brought the war to an end) none of these cases touched on the vital interests of Europe or the US On the US side, Washington was well aware that European participation in the wars in Vietnam and Iraq would in any case have been almost entirely symbolic. By contrast, a united European move to close airspace to US flights would critically undermine the US campaign against Iran.
On the European side, none of the previous clashes with the US had direct and obvious consequences for European economies and political systems. The Iran War risks creating an economic depression leading in turn to increased radicalization and polarization in Europe.
Finally, in the case of the Iraq War there was at least a facade of consultation and reasoned justification by the Bush administration. The Trump administration launched the attack on Iran without any consultation at all with NATO allies, and on the basis of justifications that are both incoherent and transparently false.
In their refusal to participate in the Iran War, West European governments have solid support from their own populations, where large majorities in every country oppose the Israeli-US campaign. European public opposition to the war has been greatly increased by Trump’s deep personal unpopularity in Europe, and his crude insults against European countries. This has been a key factor in shifting right-wing populist movements like AfD into distance from or opposition to the war.
As self-styled patriotic movements, they cannot be seen to be siding with attacks on their nations. In the case of Britain, the most instinctively pro-US of all the NATO countries, Trump caused outrage by his insults to the British armed forces, and forced even the opposition parties to come to the defense of Prime Minister Keir Starmer when Trump insulted him personally. Almost 60% of British respondents to a poll oppose the US using British bases for the war.
In the background to these European responses also lies the growing unpopularity of Israel in European populations, and especially in the younger generation. Even before the attack on Iran, Israeli atrocities in Gaza had led 63-70% percent of European respondents to take an unfavorable view of Israel. Significantly for the future of European policy, these figures are considerably higher in the younger generation.
One massive barrier to European distancing from Washington has been the Ukraine War, European fears of an attack by Russia, and consequent desire for continued US military support. However, as both Russian interests and the grindingly slow and appallingly costly progress of the Russian ground war against Ukraine both indicate, this alleged Russian threat is both completely hypothetical and grossly exaggerated; whereas the threat of the Iran War to European economies is all too real and imminent.
The longer the Iran war goes on, the greater will be the pressure in Europe to cut a deal with Iran — especially if European establishments have come to believe that the NATO guarantee of US military protection no longer holds.
Lastly, there is the question of what Trump does after the Iran War. It has been suggested — let us hope wrongly — that one way in which he could distract attention from failure in Iran, and gain some compensation for it, might be by seizing Greenland. This would end NATO, for no alliance can survive an open attack by its leading member on another one; and after all, Russia has not claimed a single inch of NATO territory.
If the US no longer defends and instead attacks Europe, and Europe no longer acts as an airstrip for US force projection elsewhere in the world, then the basic rationales for NATO’s existence will have vanished.
59 comments
Comments are closed.
Not sure which talk it was I was listening to today but they made the point that Trump just can’t leave NATO but would need a two thirds majority vote in the Senate alone. But what Trump can do as Commander in Chief is pull troops and equipment out of Europe leaving their bases near empty.
Yes, that is in the “Reader Added Context” in the Rubio tweet embedded, citing the relevant statute. Can you not see that?
Bugger. I missed that one as I was going through the text. Sorry.
Lieven is letting some of his regular tendencies show, which, I suppose, is what we all do.
The idea that “rightwing” movements are increasingly anti-NATO doesn’t align with the situation here in Italy. First, I am seeing skepticism and sharp criticism of NATO from across the political spectrum. In fact, the most quiescent parties are Berlù-fiefdom Forza Italia and the Fratelli d’Italia, who are supposedly tending the flame of La Nazione.
Second: From the Italian point of view, NATO is failing in several areas: (1) NATO drags Italy into wars that jeopardize the country geographically and make it suffer unintended consequences, that is, Yugoslavia, Libya, and, now, the Levant. (2) Italy has an arms industry, arguably too large and rambunctious, so the potential for euro-wide armaments is there. (3) The Italians don’t want to be forced by Washington or Ursula to spend a certain percentage of GDP on defense. (4) And maybe the most important, Italy has no enemies. This is something I’ve seen repeated more than once. Italy has longstanding ties with Russia, China, and Iran — hundreds of years, for that matter. The neighborhood is not all that dangerous. Who is going to invade? Slovenia? Mighty Malta? Tunisia?
The following is a northern European self-created problem: “this alleged Russian threat is both completely hypothetical and grossly exaggerated.” Dragging Italy into this panic goes against Italian geography and strategy. Why bother with Englishmen and their fantasies and their fainting couches?
In short, as we say here, NATO is ciaparat.
This reaction is inevitable and is not unique to Italy (resident of another NATO country here). The leading power of the alliance has reframed it as a sort of militia or even feudal chain where the big man will defend the rest of us but we must provide military service when called upon.
There isn’t a single country in the alliance that signed up for that or would sign up for it. They can’t. You could find a portion of at least the Canadian and maybe British foreign offices that would glumly sign on it, but even those countries can’t, because they’re democracies, and any political party signing that kind of overt surrender would be destroyed.
DJG, Reality Czar:
> This is something I’ve seen repeated more than once. Italy has longstanding ties with Russia, China, and Iran — hundreds of years, for that matter. The neighborhood is not all that dangerous. Who is going to invade?
Your best ally, the US, is … that’s who.
Your “neighborhood” metaphor got me thinking … America is like that one toxic person/family that can move onto the block, and suddenly everything goes from chill to non-stop drama. This is also why even beyond NATO, I’m wondering if this is the (beginning of the) end of the EU/EZ as well. PS: Is there a movie with a plot like this where one person moves in and everything goes to hell? I can only think of “With A Friend Like Harry …” (via imDB).
> The Italians don’t want to be forced by [ … ]Ursula to spend a certain percentage of GDP on defense.
Easy way to get rid of Ursula … :)
I always wished that the GIIPS countries would have jettisoned the EZ for their own SURO (southern Euro) zone. If only Yanis had managed to put together his alt currency before Wolfgang dropped the hammer.
Maybe one day we’ll see the SURO zone rise from the ashes of the EU/EZ. Spain has a spine, and the Italians are figuring out that the EU/US are
sussospetto. Portugal will go the way of Spain, which leaves just Ireland and Greece to sort out. I dunno … I think we can get a band together … and Italy’s arms industry can find honest work in securing the SURO zone … :)… a man can dream.
Russia should offer an Eastern European Zone to all the former Warsaw Pact countries that withdraw from NATO and the EU and enter into a new compact that rejects US bases, maintains reasonable size militaries (sufficient for border defense only), and is open to trade with Russia (for gas and other resources). Obviously Germany and Poland would not be interested in that, but I think with some diplomatic effort the others might welcome it, at least Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia and maybe Romania. The three Baltic nations and Moldova would need to be brought in by military overrun or other regime change operations. NATO had no legitimate reason to continue existence once the Warsaw Pact dissolved, so if NATO is going to persist maybe the Warsaw Pact should be reconstituted, but as an economic zone for Eastern Europe.
I’d like to see a certain group of South East European countries, who all speak very similar dialects of southern Slavic languages, form a federal union, based on universal co-operative values and non alignment. I’m sure they’d benefit economically and socially from freedom of movement and a common fiscal area. They could even choose an historic capital on the Danube for the seat of the federal government. It could be a stabilizing factor in a reshuffling of Europe.
Just a thought.
That looks to me like definition of Yugoslavia, and it didn’t end well. I lived there until 2002 and I highly doubt it will work better second (third) time. There is to much baggage and bad blood there.
> Russia should offer an Eastern European Zone to all the former Warsaw Pact countries that withdraw from NATO
Ooooooooh …#meLikey
It would be akin to a USSR wolf in western neoliberal sheep’s clothing.
Make it so. I think Moldova comes in from the get-go, BTW. The Baltics will fall apart from internal strife over the compounding effects of jacked up energy prices (boiling a frog).
That is not going to happen. The vast majority, if not all, Eastern European countries have a healthy scepticism about Russian hegemony, and this has been guiding their foreign policy with regards to NATO. After all, nowadays Eastern European countries are the biggest proponents of NATO. Some have willingly become strategic outposts/bastions of the US with all the positive and negative implications and have certain geopolitical designs about recreating their own spheres of influence to the East (Poland). Some wish they could become strategic outposts (Baltic states) but are too irelevant. Others view NATO as a hedge against potential Russian hegemony, just in case, but would prefer to be able to retain more sovereignty with regards to their dealings with Russia (Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia). It is important to understand that the hedge vs. Russia that NATO represents for Eastern European states is not necessarily a function of current Russian hegemonic projection potential but a reflection of past as well as future fears. NATO is a perfect salve for these fears, and it’s very unlikely any of these states will willingly leave it, unless it becames too much of a burden for them.
The Omen franchise has spawned 6 movies, involving the White House and the Antichrist.
Indeed. This made me chuckle – “You’ll have to learn how to fight for yourself, the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.”
Well, if they distance themselves from the US, they likely won’t have to fight at all. I don’t remember any recent wars that a European country started on its own – they’ve all been “coalitions of the willing” prodded by the US.
Pretty clear which country is always looking for a fight and the biggest obstacle to actual peace.
Re: Japan.
Saw this tweet and while it’s unconfirmed reporting, jibes with my understanding of the Japanese PM as an unhinged aggro idiot sock puppet.
The extraordinary takeaway from this (taking it all at face value) is that the leader of a major Western democracy has such poor judgement that they would have ordered their navy into the Gulf and that their aides had to stand their ground this firmly to talk them off the ledge.
> that their aides had to stand their ground this firmly to talk them off the ledge
If only there were such an aide for Trump-San …
ChrisRUEcon:
And yet Takaichi is giving me a Hillary Clinton vibe:
“What on earth are you thinking? Do you have any idea what will happen?!”
Hillary at Munich 2026, Inflict pain on the Russians, inflict pain, inflict pain.
Some people are seriously out of their depth.
But perhaps there are. Perhaps what we see is a diluted and dressed up version of what was brewing.
It’s entirely believable: Japanese weekly tabloids are strange things with absolutely insightful articles on hidden depths of politics and other matters combined with utter and absolute trash–but you can usually tell the tradh from insights very easily and the Takaichi story seems very clearly legit. Also makes sense in context of Japanese politics where prominent nominal leaders are quite weak and various hidden “staffers/deputies/mid level officials/power brokers” wield vast powers. I’d been out of touch for a while, but very little seems to have changed.
Japan still has institutions to prevent the executive from wreaking disaster on its own.
Yes, I commented on this matter last week. Not only Imai but former minister of Foreign Affairs Iwaya Takeshi has stated that is it “legally impossible” for the SDF to be dispatched to the Strait of Hormuz. The clash with Imai is more significant, though, as he has been an important ally for Takaichi. I take it as a good sign they are now apparently at each others’ throats.
For an interesting analysis of the present state of the Japanese Peace Constitution, I can recommend Karatani Kojin’s essay in the late Frederic Jameson’s provocative collection An American Utopia: Dual Power and the Universal Army.
I had been posting about the Iran War-that’s-Not-A-War on another site, but gave up (not possible to discuss with barely literate MAGA Kool-Aid drinkers).
However, one thing I noticed though in the last week was someone posting a claim from CENTCOM that we’ve hit “over 11,000 targets” in Iran since hostilities began as evidence that we’re “winning” (never mind the disconnect between winning and Trump’s claims we already won). That’s one claim I thought merited closer examination.
Doing the math on the number of strikes comes out to ~360 targets in Iran hit per day (assuming CENTCOM’s claim is accurate). And that made me wonder: what are we hitting them with? are these mostly airstrikes? I thought we burned through the Tomahawks we had in stock pretty quickly. Are these a mix of airstrikes and surface-to-surface missiles?
If mostly airstrikes, what is Iran doing? I thought they had more advanced Russian SAMs now; how can we hit them with that many strikes/day without losing a critical number of planes? Do we have that many strike aircraft in the region? I can’t imagine we can keep up that pace.
I’m asking because I’m trying to keep an even perspective on things, although my gut has been to completely discount the information from our side… apparently we are still pounding them though, and they can’t stop it.
The figure has to include both US and Israeli, since otherwise, the numbers can’t make sense. I also imagine that quite a few of those hits are taking place in Iraq, where more conventional air assets are operating (eg A10s from Jordan.) Several hundred strikes a day actually fits with claims by Israelis (they claim on average 60-70 sorties daily). I have no idea what to think about this: yes, this is easily doable in the short term, but can they sustain it, for how long, with what weapons, without casualties?
I assume they’re minimizing emissions, staying passive, to prevent targeting or mapping of the Iranian EM space. Let the enemy expend their assets shooting in the dark, only turn on the lights when assets expended. Serious Sun Tzu stuff here.
That makes no sense at all. Wait until the Americans and Israelis run out of missiles and bombs for their aircraft before trying to shoot down their aircraft?
What they might possibly be doing is saving air defences to use against any ground invasion, as that will rewuire a lot of direct air support and also air lifting of material.
The other possibility is rhat their air defences have largely been destroyed.
Haven’t seen any count (and it’s probably classified?) of the number of missiles and bombs fired by the USA for since the beginning of this century.
There are things like this:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/how-many-countries-has-the-us-bombed-since-2001-and-how-much-has-it-cost/
And throw Israel into the mix. It’s mind-boggling. Just since Oct 2023, has there been a week that’s passed without Israel firing a bomb or missile somewhere?
And they still have Ukraine limping along.
We had a glass lecture at university by a colonel from the US Air Force, i think about 2000. It wasn’t hte topic, but as an aside he mentioned that since Desert Storm there was barely a day there had not been at least one air strike carried out against Iraq. Thousands of air strikes during a time of supposed peace.
I’m going to speculate by the liberal use of “target” that the majority or significant plurality of things that were destroyed under that definition consist of successful interceptions of missiles and drones. In the first 10 days of the war Iran launched over 2400 missiles and 3500 drones, most of which were intended to exhaust air defense systems in other gulf states. This could easily provide 5000-6000 “destroyed targets” for an administration desperately trying to justify the war and itself with “We’re winning!” messaging.
Someone analyst probably argued “Well, if we count it as a destroyed target when its on the ground pre-launch, we should be able to count it as a destroyed target post-launch if we blow it up before it lands somewhere.” Especially if it pumps up a number that Hegseth or someone else from the administration was obsessed with. A prime example of the deficiencies in Western leadership explained in Aurelien’s article featured in yesterday’s links: analytical thinking is severed from, and overrides, visionary thinking.
That wouldn’t explain ground targets but if there are any strafing of ground targets going on, and you count every round fired, you could hit 11,000 real quick.
I know this sounds like no way to run a railroad but we are already in strategic la-la land, this is even dumber than the Vietnam body count reports.
You should not even consider these #s.
Both Chas Freeman and Scott Ritter discussed that in Desert Storm and the Iraq War, pilots claimed in total hitting more the 3x the Scuds launchers than existed.
Ritter said in Desert Storm they actually got 0.
That is before getting to the fact that Hezbollah got to be very good at creating decoys and I suspect Iran is even better.
Even intelligent people have trouble sometimes grappling with life-altering change. Your conclusion is correct but the media framing of this as a “crisis” is wrong. It is an obvious “rupture” (to use Carney’s go-to word). In the past year the United States has adopted as stated policy the coerced annexation of two NATO members, threatened the acquisition of one member by force, and other members of the alliance took the statement seriously enough that they mustered armed defences.
Under these circumstances the notion that an alliance exists in any sense except the strictest, de jure, scrap-of-paper sense is obviously absurd on its face.
If we were looking from the outside upon some other alliance, elsewhere in the world, we would appreciate all of that within seconds. People are only reluctant to accept the obvious because then it would have implications for the rest of their lives.
This is my take as well. Trump’s unhinged threats to forcibly annex Canada and Danish-administered Greenland effectively ended NATO as an alliance. The failure of Canada and Denmark to withdraw from NATO appears to be down to their Atlanticist leadership laboring under the delusion that Mad King Trump is an aberration. However, it’s not simply down to Trump’s evident madness.
Clinton and Bush’s perfidious and foolish expansion of NATO to the former Soviet-occupied territories in Eastern Europe and the Baltics transformed NATO from a defensive alliance against the USSR into a threat to the Russian Federation — especially to its extraterritorial oblast of Kaliningrad/Königsberg. The Baltic republics are less populous than many U.S. counties and produce little other than emigrant workers for the EU. The Russian Federation would see little benefit from invading them other than opening a land corridor to Kaliningrad, which could be just as easily negotiated as the tens of thousands of Mexican trucks that criss-cross the U.S. border on a daily basis.
Biden’s addled and corrupt provocation of a war in “Ukraine” and destruction of Nordstream 2 took a while to sink in for the NED Atlanticists running EU and Canadian governments that turning NATO into an offensive threat to the Russian source of their cheap oil, gas, and fertilizer was not necessarily to the economic advantage of their citizenry.
The unprovoked attack on Iran has nothing but downside for Europe and Canada. I’ve searched and searched — even enlisting Google A.I. — but I can’t find a single credible “terrorist” incident attributable to Iranians or their government. The only threat to European and Canadian sovereignty comes from America. They should abandon NATO before their economies are devastated.
Some good points. However, but what right genuine claim should Russia have to Kaliningrad? A teritory that had never been a part of Russia (Russia occupied it during the Seven years war bu that is it). They took administrative control of the region following WW2, then decided to expell the entirety of the existing German population before annexing it, all so they could have an ice free Baltic port.
Basically the only right they have to it is the right of might.
By these criteria, what right does Poland have to modern day Poland? It moved several hundred kilometres west after 1945, absorbing large parts of Prussian territory and displacing millions of Germans. Or the Ukraine, which acquired historically Polish territory? Or Hungary, which is two thirds of its pre-WW1 size? The only European states with a claim to their current borders that is not through force are probably Iceland and Malta!
Iceland was part of the Kingdom of Denmark, until it was militarily occupied by UK, then by ostensibly neutral US during World War II (first deployment of USMC during WW2, when US was officially not at war.) to deny access to it to Nazi Germany after Denmark surrendered. If people were finicky, they can make noise about whether creation of Iceland under potentially illegal military occupation was the product of armed aggression
Incorrect conclusion. The genuine claim Russia has to Kaliningrad, as arbitrary as it is, is that Soviet administration was recognized under the Potsdam agreement and Russia was the successor state that kept Kaliningrad.
Losing wars have consequences.
So if Israel wins this war (big if) and succesfully occupies a chink of Lebanon befire expelling the population that would be ok, because losing wars has consequences?
I suppose that the same argument could be made about the “right” of persons of European ancestry to live in the Americas or of self-governing German-speakers to live in the Italian Tirol.
Antony Beevor estimated that the population of East Prussia had already been reduced from 2.2M in 1940 to 193,000 by the end of 1945, mostly by voluntary flight from an advancing Red Army bent on avenging Nazi atrocities. The remaining German population was involuntarily expelled by 1947. There were many tens of thousands of civilian deaths throughout the period; estimates are all over the place due to the chaotic and suicidal collapse of the Third Reich.
Only Russians have lived in Kaliningrad oblast for the past 80 years. It would be both a grave injustice and insane to attempt to ethnically cleanse the population at this point. I concede that people such as Kaja Kallas and Donald Tusk come by their Russophobia honestly but there is little for them to gain other than revenge against a regime that no longer exists.
NATO’s usefulness lies in the past. Its sole raison d’etre as an explicitly anti-Russian alliance makes impossible a rapprochement over the disorderly break-up of the USSR and the future creation of a more stable “Ukraine” west of the Dneiper.
Strongly agreed with your third paragraph. As far as I’m concerned, we are in Kaliningrad by right of conquest, more than anything else – plus, of course, we managed to stay there long enough to put down roots. (The political agreement that validated it is legally important, I suppose, but let’s not pretend it did not come about as a result of armed conquest and a willingness to redraw borders for our profit – facts on the ground plus political will.) The same, of course, can be said for Israel, established at around the same time and in a similar fashion, but also for all countries around the world if you are willing to go back far enough. Germans didn’t always live in East Prussia, for that matter. What ought to matter is what is being done – or what is proposed to be done – to people who live in a certain area now, regardless of how they came to be there.
I mean, we could debate the precise evolution of NATO from supposedly defensive alliance to basically offensive alliance. But even as an offensive alliance it is clearly a dead letter — even more so — because otherwise, where are all the supposed “allies”? As an offensive alliance NATO is now even deader than as a defensive alliance.
Compare the benefits of the NATO alliance with the mostly negative aspects of the US relationship with Israel. Iran, with its oil and regional influence, would be a far better strategic ally for the US than Israel, which brings only war and enemies.
Good point Andrew T Taylor ,the building of a new state called Israel and the GCC countries constructed to suit the extraction of middle east oil by the USA should all be reversed , send the jews back to from whence they came they are after all just a religion , not a nationality , the idea that a country could completely be a religion was always nonsense , being jewish is a religion its not a nationality .
The GCC countries that were formerly part of Arabia should go back to being part of Arabia , the Saud family should go back to being a family there is no legality in them being forever royalty ruling Arabia and its a fact that if the USA had not armed them in the early years of oil exploration they would not have taken control of Arabia and named it Saud Arabia.
They had a distinct culture and language before they were even a religion, and even if we trace them from their origins in Ur (ancient Sumerian city now located in present day Iraq), they wandered, like everyone wandered, all over the middle east. Apart from 100 years of the seven tribes, they never had their own kingdom or country, and even then it was stolen, if we’re to believe the Tanakh, by practicing genocide against the natives. But Sephardic Jews, the true Hebrews, like every other ethnic group from the region, were always a part of the middle east, so “send the Jews back” strikes me as a bit of an odd statement.
Granted, Israel is a modern fabrication and its boundaries artificial (and expanding) but the group known as Ashkenazi Jews, not Hebrews, who ressurected the liturgical Hebrew language and claimed it for themselves and their cultural identity, do have a branch of distant relations, the Sephardics, which always had a home in this area. They just spoke the predominant language of whatever area they found themselves in.
The Ibn Saud family were an important ruling family in various parts of Arabia from the late 18th century (with ups and downs, particularly when tangling with the Ottomans.) I may be wrong but as far as I can remember the USA had noting to do with Abdulaziz Ibn Saud becoming King of Saudi Arabia.
I believe the British helped an already rising power consolidate his grip. He was a natural ally against the Ottoman Empire.
You’re assuming that the US doesn’t want war and enemies…
Trump would truly deserve the Nobel Peace Prize if he dismantled NATO. That is precisely why it will never happen. Both the United States and Europe benefit from NATO as a tool of imperialism, so it’s unlikely they would dissolve it over temporary disagreements.
NATO should’ve been disbanded in 1992 after the Warsaw Pact ended, and let the “peace dividend” that everybody was hoping for in the 30 years prior materialize. Of course that was not allowed to happen because nobody in the swamp makes money when there aren’t phat defense contracts.
If NATO disintegrates because of Trump, well that’s at least one good thing that came out of Trump’s disastrous failure of a presidency.
Or, Russia should have been allowed to join when Putin enquired.
NATO was and is the root cause for there not being a Europe-wide security arrangement, as was agreed on at Yalta and Potsdam.
Paahleez — Trump will be endogenously removed from this mortal coil before the generals voluntarily give up the private club memberships in Deutschland https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/pentagon-military-golf-courses-map/
According to British media, when Charles Mountbatten-Windsor heads to meet Trump in late April, he will warn the Donald about the threat Putin poses to Europe and implore him not to leave Nato. Charles once described Putin as another Hitler, but then again, that must have been the view of whoever spoke to him last. Apparently Trump was a big fan of Charles’s late mother Elizabeth and will therefore listen to Charles. Desperate times for the Natoites.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/king-charles-warn-trump-putins-threat-europe-4329809?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-gb
It may finally be dawning on European elites that becoming dependent on US protection for their fossil fuel supply is not such an outstanding idea after all. They barely whimpered before accepting the destruction of Nordstream and its promise of cheap oil and gas to keep powering their economies. And they submissively accepted the need for sanctions on Russian oil and gas which got replaced by expensive American LNG. But disruption of oil and gas supplies may finally be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
It’s a truly sad and amazing indication of the utter stupidity of European elites that they failed to recognize the need for a diversified supply of what amounts to their economies’ life blood. And now it’s grimly amusing to watch these idiotic stooges having to beg Iran to let oil and gas pass. As such, it’s makes you wonder if the Europeans are too stupid to have learned anything or if they will just humbly return to the status quo ante at the first opportunity.
If Trump does leave, the us MIC will lose trillions over the next decades in sales. Because the Europeans will start to build their own equipment. They already are just not in scale. And no it won’t happen right away.
I don’t see it happening it’s standard Trump fill the news with noise to keep people guessing, confused and not sure where to look or focus attention on. And could be standard Trump fair to scare NATO so they offer up more to keep the US.
The amount of chaos is so high, it’s insane right now.
I think it’s time to question NATO especially the claim that it is a defensive alliance. Prof, Richard Sakwa said, “NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence.”
But while we’re at it, it’s time to create new institutions rather than sit and watch the old ones like NATO collapse or struggle to make them relevant.
Undoubtedly, the UN is unable to prevent a small country from committing genocide. An institution where the WW2 victors have veto power over the rest of the world is proving ineffective. We need a new UN with a new role and expanded powers.
Is the WTO really concerned with trade or is there a bias for large multi-nation corporations over smaller countries? Should the whole world be held hostage by one person; Trump and his tariffs? And what about the IMF, World Bank, and on?
I think with some effort we can think of new institutions better suited for the 21st century.
“create new institutions”
Fascinating question and perhaps even more difficult to find a solution for.
Or maybe it´s as simple as abandon any comparable body like the Security Council?
Because as long as you offer the biggest powers veto rights, they will always try to use them for their own advantage.
On the other hand, the failure of the General Assembly when condemning Iran, not the US/ISR, shows you that even the more democratic body is vulnerable to corruption.
In fact GA has been undermined all the time since it existed.
So how do you create a body that enables the world to stop an Israeli genocide, but react to Donbas crises in a constructive way or handle Iran in an adequate manner, or stop the US attacking Afghanistan on factually illegal grounds – only possible because the Taliban in 2001 had no Allies in the Security Council.
Some people said the UN proved itself considering all the wars which did not happen.
Is this still valid since 2022/2023?
And then for others who know this better than me:
How good is the actual track record of Blue Helmet missions? As in not just being tools of dark forces, doing more harm than good. Since imho one should be very very cautious towards any R2P concepts. As mostly they were only the follow-ups to crises and wars that had been instigated and perpetuated in secret by the same parties who would then come as “negotiators”.
re: Russia vs. EU
recommended
Andrei Martyanov in a very good interview by The Cradle´s Sharmine Narwani shared much military and economic background on Iran/Azerbaijdan etc. (e.g. Aliyevs having most of their investment in EU and thus the blackmailing / Moscow has hit hard on Azerbaijani community in Russia including it´s crime syndicates / Turkey is overestimating its real power)…
But: In TC 18:00-18:15 Martyanov says one remarkable phrase just in between, which Narwani must have kind of missed:
“Russians will just go on and kill more, destroy more of NATO infrastructure including in Europe now, probably”
including in Europe now
Hm. Anybody?
https://thecradle.co/podcast?playing=227
A striking phenomenon is emerging from China as the Middle East conflict presses on: technically skilled civilians are volunteering their expertise online to help Iran counter US military might, without seeking payment or official backing.
https://archive.ph/3do6L
Altruistic punishment.