During the campaigns their was much mentioned about NATO by candidate Trump….mush of it I could agree with in principle….but now that he was won the coveted “Big Enchilada” by becoming the 45th president of the United States…we will see just how he manages the organization.
For me, it has outlasted its usefulness….it was a creation of the Cold War and has become an excuse for waging war….if there is any confusion I am antiwar all the way….especially when it does not mean a defense of the homeland but is a tool employed by the M-IC to maximize profits….
The latest entrant into the NATO alliance, Montenegro, underscores both the absurdity of this archaic cold war relic and the dangers it poses to the United States.
Yes, Montenegro is a real country, kind of: with a little over 600,000 citizens, and around 5,000 square miles, it has an army of under 2,000 soldiers and sailors. During the medieval era it was divided into warring clans who were unified only by their fierce opposition to Ottoman rule: the boundaries, and the rulers who presided over what became a duchy, were fluid, like the boundaries of neighboring Balkan states whose instability and propensity for conflict gave rise to the phrase “balkanization” as a synonym for volatility. Once the ancient bastion of Serbian nationalism – the country was bombed by the US during the Kosovo war – Montenegro’s demographics underwent a transformation and now the country is pretty evenly split between Serbs and other nationalities: the country’s politics, too, are polarized, with the pro-Serb pro-Russian opposition parties and the pro-EU pro-NATO parties almost evenly matched, although the latter have tenuous control of the government at present.
Source: The Uselessness of NATO – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com
It will be interesting, at least for me, to see just how Trump handles this campaign promise….so far he has been a disappointment, at least for me, his promises in foreign policy are being flush down the crapper almost daily.
This would be a bigger deal if Americans had a shared experience with the troops and the military….as it is now they could care less about foreign policy or for that matter the fate of our troops that must defend those policies.
I feel exactly the same way about The United Nations. It has become as bloated with corruption and is fully as ineffective as the failed League Of Nations ever was and needs to be disassembled, dispersed and the property in New York turned into a shopping mall or luxury high-rise apartments.
Unlike the UN NATO is dedicated to war…and that will not make the world a better place…..the UN could if we could rid the dominance of 5 countries…
I thought the NATO thing was originally meant to be protection for nations in the North Atlantic against aggression from enemies. Wasn’t there a kind of sister organization that was meant to protect America and Allies from Asian incursions too? I guess they disbanded that one a long time ago. — You are right! If NATO has lost sight of its original mission then it is time for it to go.
I believe the one you are thinking of is “SEATO” or something like that….and maybe ASEAN….not sure…Asia has not been on my radar since I left Vietnam…
Yes, The South East Asian Treaty Organization — that was it. Once the rats were tamed in the theater it was no longer needed.
I think it was replaced with something else…not sure what….maybe ASEAN? Like I said not sure lost interests in the region after Vietnam…..
I, likewise!
But it looks like it may be a hot spot yet again…..with China and all….
Yes, China. I wish Truman had left MacArthur alone.
If he had we might not be here to bitch about it…LOL
Things might have changed for “Them” too– you know? Hard to tell. We might have been exporting stuff to China and they might have been sending their jobs over here instead of the opposite that is happening today.
For the times…I do not see that….it was more about the ideology than the consumerism…
Should’ve kicked butt when we had the chance. We will pay for that mistake somewhere down the road.
We already are paying…but in those days the Russians were friends with the Chinese and we were not about to engage them at that time….
Our mistake.
John this is a piece that could shed some light on this subject……http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2016/11/30/looking-ahead-in-asia-with-our-allies/?cid=soc-twitter-in-Looking_ahead-asia_with_allies-120516
There seems to be some logical thinking in this piece but I stopped reading when I ran into: ” . . . The Trans-Pacific Partnership demonstrated a U.S. interest in creating the economic playing field of the future, and remains the best (bipartisan) idea the United States has had in Asia. . . .”
If that is the best idea The United States has had in Asia then somebody had better be going back to the drawing board because this thing is a Jobs killer for American labor.
Something has to be devised to level the international trade field for sure, but in the doing of it somebody also needs to take into considerations the economic needs those who will be offering their blood and brawn to make it work and so far it seems the whole thing has been advantaged toward the Industrial Complex more so than the workers.
There needs to be balance or we will end up with what we have now… poor nations getting poorer … and Richer nations lording it over more and more of the poorer nations until nothing is left but an economic slave-master relationship all over the entirety of the globe.
You should read it all do not let one thing taint the thoughts….or if you do not like that one….https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/04/picking-a-war-with-china/
Nobody cares about the workers….never have….it is how much cash that can be milked out of the situation.
Somebody has got to care about the workers.
It will not be the people in power….
Hasn’t been the People in power since 1964.
If then….depends how you look at the term
Passing on this one, but to say, all war is useless, so,how could any such organization be otherwise?
gigoid, the dubious
Agreed