Time for the United States to Leave NATO (flashback - from NYT) Posted: Jul 11th, 2018 - 12:37 pm In Reply to: Donald Trump is right. Germany imports 70 per cent of its gas from - Russia.
In Lord Ismay's classic formulation, NATO's founding purpose back in 1949 was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."
Sixty-some years later, the verdict is in: mission accomplished. The united and democratic Germany of the 21st century poses no security threat whatsoever. Meanwhile, the implosion of the Soviet empire has yielded a Russia that no longer possesses the military or ideological wherewithal to threaten Europe.
NATO accomplished its mission. Let it be owned and operated by Europe, and let Washington focus on more important priorities.
The achievement of these two great objectives renders redundant the remaining item in Ismay's triad. The United States has done its job and ought to go home. Convert NATO into a European partnership, wholly owned and operated by Europeans, thereby allowing Washington to focus its attention and resources on more important priorities.
The devolution of NATO into a European alliance should occur in phases, but the place to begin is with this basic proposition: In 2023, the United States will withdraw from the alliance. That will give Europe an entire decade to figure out how to defend itself from the nearly non-existent threats that it faces and to get used to the fact that the Cold War has, in fact, ended. Somehow or other I think they'll be able to manage.
But wait! The "new" NATO has long since shed its identity as a defensive alliance. Over the past two decades, it has become an instrument for intervention "out of area," not only within Europe, but also further afield. Surely, one might argue, the U.S. departure from the alliance would reduce NATO's ability to project power. It would indeed. Without the participation of U.S. forces, today's interventionist NATO possesses only a negligible capacity to intervene. Or to put it another way, whether in Kosovo or Afghanistan, NATO serves chiefly to camouflage and thereby legitimate what is substantively a unilateral action by the United States.
Americans keen to see Washington exercising "global leadership," also known as., imperial policing without end, may wish to preserve that camouflage. Americans persuaded that it's time to rethink U.S. foreign policy may wish to expose that camouflage for what it is.
LINK/URL: Time for the United States to Leave NATO (flashback
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