Is the United States Killing NATO?

Russia is never castigated by the Trump administration for interfering in our elections, excusing such actions with wildly inaccurate conspiracy theories blaming mild-mannered Ukraine. Congress and every governmental intelligence agency strongly disagree with Trump on that issue. That Ukraine is suing Russia in the International Court of Justice for providing disguised Russian soldiers and providing arms to “rebels” in the east produces the real story – Russia as a global menace. 

As Donald Trump seems to build a bromance with Vladimir Putin, praising his efforts in the Middle East, which supported and implemented Syrian genocide, America’s stature in the world plunges. He treats European allies like enemies and brutal dictators as friends. He abhors international agreements, which he breaches with wanton fervor, and it seems to most of the world, especially Russia, that Trump is hell-bent on taking down NATO.

There’s another body of nations – Europe – that also believe that Trump is pulling American support from one of the most important military alliances since World War II: NATO. Some leaders are still willing to pretend, at least in public, that Donald is still in their corner. Others, like French President Emmanuel Macron, are more willing to discuss what other heads of state talk about behind closed doors.

“‘What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,’ Macron told the Economist magazine. He said the United States under Trump appears to be ‘turning its back on us,’ notably by pulling troops out of northeast Syria without notice.

“Trump surprised his NATO partners with last month’s troop withdrawal. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization plays no role in Syria, apart from helping the coalition fighting Islamic State. But the move was seen by Turkey, another NATO ally, as a green light to invade the region… ‘So as soon as you have a member who feels they have a right to head off on their own, granted by the United States of America, they do it. And that’s what happened,’ Macron said.

“Trump also wrong-footed the allies by announcing a troop drawdown in Afghanistan and then declaring that peace talks with the Taliban were canceled after a bomb attack killed a U.S. soldier. NATO has played a major security role in the country since 2003, but its future there is now unclear.

“Beyond that, Trump publicly berated other leaders at a May 2017 summit for failing to boost their military budgets. Trump’s preoccupation with defense spending has been a constant theme since he came to office in 2016 and is expected to feature at the Dec. 3-4 summit in London.

“The United States is the biggest and most influential member of NATO. It spends more on its defense budget than all the other members combined… [Yet] Macron said the European members of the 29-nation alliance ‘should reassess the reality of what NATO is in the light of the commitment of the United States.’

“But after talks with [NATO Secretary-General Jens] Stoltenberg in Berlin, [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel said: ‘The French president chose drastic words. That is not my view of cooperation in NATO, and I think that such a sweeping blow is not necessary, even if we do have problems, even if we must pull together.’

“More broadly, Trump’s trade tariffs against the EU have also rankled European members of NATO and have appeared to target Germany. His decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement particularly annoyed Macron.

“In the interview, Macron said Trump ‘doesn’t share our idea of the European project.’ He added that Europe stands on ‘the edge of a precipice’ and must start thinking like a geopolitical power, otherwise it will ‘no longer be in control of our destiny.’

“Merkel, however, said that ‘we in Europe certainly must take our fate in our hands a bit more, but the trans-Atlantic alliance is indispensable for us and I think there are many areas in which NATO works well.’

“Agreeing with Merkel, Stoltenberg said: ‘We have to remember that any attempt to distance Europe from North America risks not only {weakening} the alliance, the trans-Atlantic bond, but also {dividing} Europe, so therefore we have to stand together… I welcome European unity, I welcome efforts to strengthen European defense, but European unity cannot replace trans-Atlantic unity,’ he added.” The Associated Press, November 8^th.

As Iran reinjects uranium-enriched gasses into its sidelined centrifuges in response to the US abrogation of the six-party UN nuclear accord with immediate US-imposed sanctions, as Turkish forces continue to exterminate Kurdish fighters, soldiers who once fought side-by-side with US troops against ISIS, and as the US formalizes its departure from the Paris climate change accord, there is little faith that if the going got tough, if NATO were truly called upon to act, that the United States would completely honor its NATO commitments.

Unloved, disrespected and isolated, the United States also watches as Trump’s only seeming traditional ally, Israel, is looking at the harsh support and strange almost sycophantic nexus that anchored recent US-Israeli relations: Trump’s bromance with a disgraced Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is no longer able to hold a ruling coalition together and faces a highly probably indictment for corruption. See my November 2^nd Friends with Benefits blog for details.

Meanwhile, with all the pomp and pageantry in Trump’s bromance with North Korea’s tyrant-leader, Kim Jong-un, absolutely nothing has moved that menace one iota closer to nuclear disarmament. Yet even with each of these very un-Republican results, the GOP still stands behind their mercurial president, a man who randomizes and often trivializes major policy decisions, doing serious harm to long-term American values, commitments, influence and prestige. 

              I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder if there is a path for us to become “America” again.