Tag: Alliances

Is NATO Dying?

Since Trump became the leader, of whatever it is he thinks he is the leader of, NATO has had a PR problem……there have been several bad moves made by the organization plus the question whether it has out-lived it’s usefulness……I have written on the organization in the past year or so…..https://lobotero.com/2018/07/24/lets-look-at-nato/

Is the NATO we know out-dated?

When NATO was formed seven decades ago, the world was very different: The Soviet Union had advanced into Central Europe, and Western European nations were still recovering from World War II. NATO would help them, Secretary of State Dean Acheson warned, but it would not do so forever. When asked if the United States would need “to send substantial numbers of troops over there as a more or less permanent contribution,” he assured Congress that it wouldn’t. Even Dwight Eisenhower, NATO’s first commander and a future U.S. president, presciently warned that such an American garrison could “discourage the development of the necessary military strength Western European countries should provide themselves.”

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/outdated-alliance

Some say save the organization by re-purpose it……

NATO’s expansion under the Clinton administration, he observes in his Liberty Forum essay, did not strengthen the alliance that brought down the Soviet Empire, but rather transformed it into something different. The 1999 war against Serbia, which the Clinton administration forced upon Serbia in emulation of the 1914 Austrian ultimatum, provided “the chance to demonstrate NATO’s new agenda and ‘out of area’ operations,” as an instrument of the world’s natural evolution towards a “globalization[that]toppled all barriers to the flow of capital, goods, labor, and ideas, spreading democracy, human rights, peace and prosperity.” Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan was “NATO’s second war.” As McDougall observes, “Unanimity in the face of Al Qaeda was squandered, however, when President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq in a wider war that 70 to 80 percent of French and Germans opposed. It might even be said that the alliance fell into abeyance during the final six years of Bush’s tenure.”

https://www.lawliberty.org/liberty-forum/repurpose-it-or-it-dies/
 
Then there is the continuous war that NATO seems to embrace….and those that want a way out of the vicious cycle that NATO embraces…….

A strong engagement to find a way out of the war system is of vital importance. This raises the question of the affiliation of Italy and other European countries with NATO.

NATO is not an Alliance. It is an organisation under the command of the Pentagon, and its objective is the military control of Western and Eastern Europe.

US bases in the member countries of NATO serve to occupy these countries, by maintaining a permanent military presence which enables Washington to influence and control their policies and prevent genuine democratic choices.

NATO is a war machine which works for the interests of the United States, with the complicity of the major European power groups, staining itself with crimes against humanity.

 
Let me remind my readers……I am not a supporter of China in any way but look how far they have come without spending massive amounts of cash on war.
 
Just something to think about…..

Are We Headed For A Replay?

It is amazing just how many conflicts the US is involved in these days.  Plus all the rhetoric coming from the “leaders” in DC…..threats and words of war…….

Does anyone realize that 100 years ago last Sunday was the anniversary of the speech by Woodrow Wilson that landed the US ass deep in World War One?

I bring this up because of all the entanglements that the US is hanging onto….countries, many countries, are involved in these alliances…..it is starting to look like the international set-up just before the outbreak of WW1 in 1914.

Today [Sunday] marks the one-hundredth anniversary of Woodrow Wilson’s message to Congress asking for a declaration of war against the Central Powers. Thus the Great War began – a conflict that destroyed European civilization and set the stage for the rise of Bolshevism, Nazism, and the death of millions in World War II.

Wilson was the embodiment of the dominant ideological theme of the twentieth century: State-worship. In both the foreign and domestic realms, the great “progressive” President represented the twin aspects of statist ideology: war and the centralization of political authority. And his presidency was emblematic of the key link between these two aspects of the progressive ideology, as Murray Rothbard explained in a 1973 interview with Reason magazine. Every war in American history has been the occasion for a great leap forward in the power of the State to interfere in and regulate every aspect of our lives, he said, and a “huge increase in [government] power came out of World War I,” one that set the pattern up to the present day:

Source: Are We Headed for a Replay of World War I? by — Antiwar.com

All this could lead to another world conflict….and the American public is oblivious…..they do not care as long as they can check their credit score for free.

Today’s world was created on the battlefields of Europe beginning in 1914 and ending in 1918…..what have we learned from the war 100 years ago?

Today is a historical marker of immense importance in American history: it is the centenary of American entry into the Great War, later known as the First World War. One hundred years ago today, on April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany, following strong majority votes in both Houses of Congress and the impassioned speech of President Woodrow Wilson to a joint session on April 2, wherein he asserted that America must fight in the European war “to make the world safe for democracy.”

A century later, the ghosts of hallowed American war dead at Belleau Wood, the Second Battle of the Marne, and the Argonne Forest cry out to our political leaders of today with one searing question:  have you learned anything from our sacrifice?  From an objective perspective, a brief review of the historical context that led to war and its aftermath across time would appear to indicate that the answer to this seminal question is no.  However, in great humility and reverent remembrance for the fallen Americans of that war, the key lessons from the tragedy unleashed 100 years ago today are offered below, in hopes that their learnings can, in fact, be applied to the urgent problems presently confronting the Trump Administration.

Source: Lessons from the Tragedy of Woodrow Wilson’s War | RealClearDefense

This week is the 100th anniversary of President Woodrow Wilson’s speech to Congress seeking a declaration of war against Germany. Many people celebrate this centenary of America’s emergence as a world power. But, when the Trump administration is bombing or rattling sabers at half a dozen nations while many Democrats clamor to fight Russia, it is worth reviewing World War One’s high hopes and dire results.

Wilson was narrowly re-elected in 1916 based on a campaign slogan, “He kept us out of war.” But Wilson had massively violated neutrality by providing armaments and money to the Allied powers that had been fighting Germany since 1914. In his war speech to Congress, Wilson hailed the U.S. government as “one of the champions of the rights of mankind” and proclaimed that “the world must be made safe for democracy.”

Source: Woodrow Wilson made democracy unsafe for the world: James Bovard

The US is heading head long into a situation that could be as disastrous as WW1….we need to step back and look at what happened 100 years ago and try like Hell to avoid yet another destructive World War.