You said:
“They know that anti-globalism means abandoning allies, appeasing potential enemies, and reneging on solemn promises is the new norm.”
What allies, specifically, have been abandoned, and how, exactly?
If a country is a “potential enemy,” it is not, by definition and by your own words, an “enemy.” President Reagan has a quote you may remember about that. He said, “My eighty-percent friend is not my twenty-percent enemy.” A quote that's been attributed to Mark Twain, an emperor, and even President Lincoln said something even more radical, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
Also, what “reneging on solemn promises” has been done? Please give us the details. I will attempt to guess at your target, however.
We promised Ukraine cash and weapons—and gave it. We are still in NATO, but shouldn't be, per President Eisenhower, a Republican, who specifically “thought that NATO would become a truly European alliance, with the American and Canadian commitments ending after about ten years.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower). Eisenhower was the “Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and he was given operational command of NATO forces in Europe.”
The fact that Europe still has absolutely no ability to have viable militaries to defend or help others is only on Europe. You want to give the drunk more US support, when it is far larger than the US and has had 80 years to get itself figured out. Europe is far larger in population than the US and is far, FAR larger in population than Russia.
You appear to maintain that the US cannot view the EU as an equal or more with its responsibilities and long-standing promises, simply because “Europeans are not perfect…they are democratic, the birthplace of Western civilization.” (Nathanbedford, Free Republic, https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4318216/posts?page=105#105). However, you instead castigate Trump and the US for these obvious failures of Europe and for Trump's “chaotic” foreign policy toward the EU.
You appear to believe the US must be the primary provider of military services and spending for the entire world.
You say, “I assure you the Europeans do not want to live under US rule and they most certainly do not want to live under the boot of Vladimir Putin.” Well, Europeans, I assure you, don't want to live under the belief they need to have their own cohesive spending and staffing of a military, either. It is obvious Europeans are lazy and irresponsible allies amongst themselves—and with the United States.
Such a drunkard should never be given more alcohol and money. You maintain otherwise, using this reasoning:
“Then we shall congratulate ourselves and declare ourselves safer because we destroyed one of history's most successful alliances and left some part of 1/2 billion people in Europe dismayed and the rest despising us. No matter that we have incited Europe and the Pacific rim allies to act unilaterally as every nation for itself and consequently, no doubt, proliferating nuclear weapons.”
You fail to see the true enemy of Europe is itself. It was always required and expected to handle itself, nathanbedford, and you are defending their continued, irresponsible, failures.
I believe you have been psychologically captured by those you now live amongst—the Germans.
It is commonly accepted that the United States maintains approximately 800 "bases" in 80 countries around the world.
I think both you and I will readily agree that this number is entirely too high and that many of these installations should be closed. But what I fear we will not agree on is that these bases exist as part of a national security network that has been contrived to keep America safe.
I submit the many of these alliances are essential to the national security of the United States, I fear you disagree. My fear derives from your description of Europeans as "lazy and irresponsible" and "drunkard."
Small wonder you dismissed the very real and potentially great contribution to our security of half a billion people who share our commitment to democracy, who are modern, who share the basic tenants of the civilized world and who, potentially, have much to contribute, militarily and financially, to our security if properly approached.
If one rejoices at the damage done to NATO, if one despises Europeans as described, shouldn't we also believe that individual would also celebrate a dissolution of our worldwide security arrangement and rejoice at our isolation?
You failed to note that Europe, in the wake of the abandonment of America's commitment to Ukraine, has taken several significant steps to fund European defense and to actually arm and train military defense forces.
These are hardly the undertakings of irresponsible drunkards but, to the degree that they are regarded to be responsible, I have no doubt that the resulting credit will be awarded, characteristically, not to Europeans, but to Trump for rebuffing NATO.
Oh yes, Trump has clearly rebuffed NATO. He's said that United States' commitment under Article 5 to come to the defense of an invaded ally might not apply to those who have not paid up to their 2%.
A solemn promise, for decades the bedrock of NATO,-reneged. A continent dismayed, 80 nations insecure.
It is curious that Eisenhower, who has not been president for 64 years thought that the best defense of NATO, which significantly, he considered to be crucial to the defense of America, was best and cheapest done with a brinkmanship policy for nuclear war rather than with boots on the ground. No doubt the policy cost less, unless the Bluff were called. Eisenhower, no doubt, would have sought to reform rather than destroy today's NATO, but I doubt that at the same time he was diplomatically encouraging Europe to arm up and pay up, he would also have chosen this time to go to war with Europe on tariffs. Each goal is laudatory but the means of achieving it was just plain boorish an self-defeating.
Of the many who would affix blame on Europeans for their lack of resolve in defending themselves, they perhaps forget that that is exactly the way America wanted it. We get to effectively control the nuclear weapons and their use (apart from smaller arsenals maintained by Britain and France) and we get to dictate on the ground the when and where of any kinetic conventional war. We are hardly in a position to blame the Europeans for complying passively with the deal that we had contrived to serve our self-conceived active role as world policeman.
You appear to believe the US must be the primary provider of military services and spending for the entire world.
Yes, of course I do, there is no one else to do it until our diplomacy can invigorate our allies. I'm a rational man who can see existential danger when it exists.. That does not mean that the United States should engage indiscriminately in conflicts around the world such as Mogadishu, Libya, Syria Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam. It might mean that we might come to the defense of Taiwan or perhaps might bomb Iran to prevent it getting nuclear bombs. The decision on Taiwan and Iran must be made on facts present at the time and not on the axiomatic application of a shibboleth concluded from past ill-considered incursions. There are lessons to be drawn from these ill-conceived actions, but not dogma. The lesson is not that all incursions are wrong but that some actions, sometimes, are, on balance, necessary to our national interest.
Donald Trump is right in condemning our ill-considered wars, especially in the Middle East and he is also correct in condemning the excessive proliferation of American bases worldwide.
Yet, Trump believes that some bases apparently are essential to America's vital national security, hence, his blustering over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. So even Trump believes in kinetic national defense when necessary, at the right time and in the right place. Does that make him a globalist or a neocon? Or is he exempt from commitments to consistency incumbent upon mere mortals? Or is Trump properly freeing himself from dogma? Are we making foreign policy only because the man thus spoke or because circumstances warrant?
American promises, both specific and written, implicit in actions, and explicit in spoken words, have been made to Ukraine since the Budapest agreement, assuring Ukraine in writing that we would sustain their sovereignty. Still believed by the Ukrainians, the agreement was expanded orally at the time to include the defense of the country.
Believing that they had given up their nuclear arsenal at the behest of America and others in exchange for a verbal commitment of defense, Ukrainians were understandably reluctant to swallow Trump's dictate of the terms of a nonexistent peace settlement without an explicit guarantee of actual defense. When their understanding is conceded, the shameful confrontation of Zelinski in the Oval Office takes on a whole different light. Zelinski was not out of bounds in asking for that commitment but acting in the actual and ordinary course of a man trying to save his country whose history proves that "assurances" could be empty.
Before the war commenced in February 2022, Trump had since the first weapons to Ukraine and, after the war began, Trump bragged that he had done so, taking credit for the javelin contribution to Ukrainian successful defense, although not the first of many acts in support of Ukraine's defense.
Since then the United States Congress enacted a law, signed by the president, to grant aid to Ukraine. This is a promise in writing-a promise that is explicit.
Subsequently, the President of the United States, acting in his official capacity as Commander-In-Chief during his surprise visit to Ukraine, promised support for Ukraine in the war, "for as long as necessary" and on another occasion, "for as long as it takes," -explicit oral promises. As noted in other replies, Republicans as well as Democrats warmly welcomed Zelinski to a speech to the Joint Session of Congress and repeatedly rose to their feet and applauded his remarks. Individually, these representatives, on both sides of the aisle, made great promises of support to Ukraine.
We imposed sanctions on Russia and acted in concert with other allies to enforce those sanctions-promises implied.
The United States has supplied weapons, money and intelligence to Ukraine. It has trained Ukrainian forces in the United States and has, reportedly, inserted United States clandestine operatives in Ukraine to assist in the defense of that country.-promises implied.
When supplying weapons to Ukraine, the United States in fact exercised direct control and veto over the time and manner of the use of those weapons. For example, the range into Russia for which missiles could be used was controlled by us. In doing so, as with the insertion of clandestine operatives and the furnishing of intelligence, the United States effectively managed the defense of Ukraine and so bears participatory responsibility.
To list the participation and contribution by the United States on behalf of Ukraine in this war would require several pages to catalog. But the present administration's betrayal of Ukraine is clear.
Donald Trump, without authorization, undertook to enter into negotiations with Putin. He began negotiations by endorsing virtually every fundamental claim by Putin to the disadvantage of Ukraine. Trump inverted every tenet of successful negotiating strategy outlined in, The Art of the Deal, tactics commonly accepted by those with common sense, when he started the negotiation by granting the adversary everything. Can you imagine the shock in Ukraine when told Trump had given away the store?
What was left for Ukraine after that? Nothing but the hope of an American security guarantee?.
Worse, Trump turned on his ally and sought to personally destroy Zelinski, falsely claiming that Zelinski had "started the war." Trump further asserted that Zelinski had no "cards" meaning either that Ukraine had no support from the United States, or it had no chance of winning the war. Whose side in negotiations was Trump representing? Who was he appeasing? That this behavior is contrary to every negotiating strategy vis-à-vis Russia goes without saying, but it is also an indication that Trump's whole negotiating strategy was to appease Russia and sell out Ukraine. To neutralize Ukraine, get his deal, he had to destroy Zelinski and Ukraine's cause. That is the common understanding in Europe.
The Trump administration has consistently maintained that Russia's victory is inevitable, but that inevitable victory has yet to be demonstrated, especially in view of the history of this war in which Ukraine has so bravely and successfully defended its existence.
I reject any insinuation that I have been psychologically captured -I suppose some sort of analogy to the Stockholm syndrome- by Germans. I only tell you that every day involving every interaction with the German people, I have faithfully defended the United States in the face of their universal condemnation of Donald Trump. Given Trump's role in negotiation, culminating with the ambush in the Oval Office and topped by the withdrawal of intelligence and material for a period of time, who can blame Europeans? Their cynicism was only confirmed by the strong arm demand for Ukraine's minerals with an illusory promise of providing security-or should one say an illusory "assurance?"
Incidentally, but apropos to my interactions with people here, I strongly favor AFD and its struggle to save Germany from self-inflicted wounds. Many of those wounds are identical in character to the parallel policies that have brought America to the brink of fiscal ruin and demoralization. The AFD is explicitly supported by the Trump administration. The connection is that the AFD wants no part of the Ukraine defense, wants no part of America in Germany, wants a strong military defense to be built in Germany by Germans. It wants trade with Russia and trade with China but no truck with the EU, NATO or, evidently, with America.
The problem with AFD is that as and when it gets power in Germany it will very likely cease to be a friend of the United States.
It is not that I have been captured, the question is whether many back home have drunk the Kool-Aid and cease thinking for themselves when Donald Trump speaks.
More important than whether I have been captured by alien psychologies in Germany, the question stubbornly remains: is there anything left of our worldwide system of alliances e in those 80 countries after those allies witness the conduct I have described and much, much more?
