'The beginning of the end' of NATO?

Washington Examiner ^ | 10/19/15 | Charles Hoskinson

[markomalley]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken the Obama administration's idea of a "reset" in relations and turned it into a wedge, which experts say he's using to try to break the NATO alliance.

It's no secret: Since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in March 2014, the Kremlin has ramped up the pressure on NATO as well, especially in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which used to be part of the Soviet Union. And alliance leaders have scrambled to find ways to react to the Kremlin's more aggressive posture and reassure members of its relevance to their security.

But in recent weeks, a number of current and former officials, along with several Russia experts, have warned that Putin's gambit to split the transatlantic compact and redefine international security relationships to Russia's advantage appear to be working.

"Before us is emerging one of the premiere strategic challenges of the post-Cold War period," said retired Marine Gen. James Jones, a former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe who also served as White House national security adviser from 2009-2010.

"I think it's possibly the beginning of the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I think it's that serious. We just can't sit back and let this happen."

Russia has been building an "arc of steel," a network of bases on the country's outer flanks from the Baltic to the Black Sea aimed at hemming NATO countries in, Adm. Mark Ferguson, chief of NATO's Allied Joint Forces Command Naples and U.S. Navy commander for Europe and Africa, said in an Oct. 6 speech.

Russian ships and aircraft also have dramatically increased their testing of NATO defenses, even along U.S. borders.

One of the alliance's key challenges in meeting the new Russian threat is convincing member states to ramp up defense spending after two decades of a post-Cold War holiday from the Eastern threat that had initially brought its members together.

In an Oct. 12 speech to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Norway, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned members that "once there was a time to collect the peace dividend. But now is the time to invest in our defense.

"Deterrence is often seen as some kind of old-fashioned, Cold War concept," he added. "But being strong enough to stop others from attacking you is not old-fashioned. Being strong enough so that your people can go about their business without the fear of war is not old-fashioned. We have strong forces not because we want to fight a war, but because we want to prevent war."

Another major threat to the alliance's stability is a massive state-run and state-sponsored global media campaign to push the Kremlin's point of view, to which NATO officials have not yet managed an effective response.

This information and psychological warfare campaign has even reached into NATO countries. A June poll by the Pew Research Center found that majorities in France, Germany and Italy opposed the idea of using military force to defend another NATO country against Russia. The results pose a grave threat to the principle of collective self-defense that forms the cornerstone of the alliance, and were not seen as reassuring to Eastern European members under Russia's shadow.

"We need to employ a much more effective strategy," said Heather Conley, a former State Department official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This is the great challenge of our time and we don't have an effective answer."

[pepsionice]

There are five state-level elections in Germany for 2016. Because of the refugee crisis and Merkel’s handling...there’s some weird voting and outcomes expected....so the national election in the fall of 2017 is going to be a radical election where some minor-league German political party might appear out of thin-air with twenty-five percent of the vote, and shock people by being anti-immigrant, and later becoming anti-NATO.

If you look around Europe today, it’s a different environment and a different view of the US. NATO might be safe for another three to five years but it’s probably not going to last out past 2020.

[momincombatboots]

It sounds like NATO just admitted they haven’t been at the maps, and Woke up one day surrounded by Russia. Sounds like they are already irrelevant if they can’t even read a map.

[Iron Munro]

NATO is a big part of the problem and has been since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Not having the USA on call as NATO’s 911 will doom it to shuffling papers and issuing empty warnings.

[Jim Noble]

“NATO might be safe for another three to five years but it’s probably not going to last out past 2020.”

NATO hasn’t been “safe” in the way you mean it for 25 years.

[pepsionice]

Since the Wall came down....NATO hasn’t been safe. It’s hard to go back and look at what existed in Germany for the US military before the Wall, and now today. I was around in the 70s and 80s and remember US military structure in Germany. Today, I live in Germany and look at the buildings and posts that have been flipped over for German usage. It’s a very different atmosphere.

[goldstategop]

NATO is a Cold War relic that should be dissolved.

NATO leaders know Russia will never allow Ukraine to become part of an anti-Russian military alliance encircling Russia.

The only way NATO maintains continued relevance is if it abandons its Cold War mindset.

And its been a quarter century since the Iron Curtain collapsed and Communism vanished.

NATO raison d’etre disappeared along with it.

[ReaganGeneration2]

Our debt-to-GNP ratio is over 100%. Can’t afford to defend NATO in the same way anymore.

[goldstategop]

Yup.

European countries need to take responsibility for their own defense.

As long as they look to us, they will never stand up to Russia.

America is not capable of defending Europe.

I see no real use for NATO since Europeans want Americans to die for them so they don’t have to make a contribution to their own security.

[MarchonDC09122009]

How has NATO been a big part of the problem?
Do you mean having militarily weak members and not recognizing Russia ‘ threat?
Or, do you mean the other point of view that Nato expansion to Warsaw countries has provoked russia into their currently aggressive stance?

As for me, I see Russia’s 98 years of blood thirsty communist aggression and military influence peddling as the nucleus of all too many instances of human misery and murder of MILLIONS.
Today, Russia is still proud of their once Great murderous might and damned unapologetic about their crimes.

“NATO is a big part of the problem and has been since the fall of the Iron Curtain.”

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Our debt-to-GNP ratio is over 100%. Can’t afford to defend NATO in the same way anymore.

Then let's require the other members to pay for armed forces that can defend them, even if it means cutting their government funded freebie programs. Let them learn what we at FR already know, Freedom isn't Free.

[SatinDoll]

You’re very fortunate to have those personal and professional experiences in Germany. It gives weight to the credibility of your statements.

“...majorities in France, Germany and Italy opposed the idea of using military force to defend another NATO country against Russia...”

Is the above claim made in the source article have anything to do with Turkey, do you think? I know that Catholic and Orthodox Christian sects have quietly identified Erdogan as the Antichrist, and Russia has moved to defend Christians in the Near East. Catching Turkey between pincers, the northern pincer being Crimea and the southern one being in Syrian, the Turks must feel very uneasy.

Turkey was involved in the conspiracy to send “Syrian refugees” into Europe. Being in Germany, how does that scenario play into NATO defending, say Turkey, against a country dedicated to protecting a religious minority?

[pepsionice]

Turkey has tended to almost two million Syrian refugees, so I wouldn’t use the phrase ‘send onto’ Europe. They just didn’t stand in their way or prevent them from exiting to Greece or the Balkins.

Here’s the thing...once you create the refugee camp-scenario for Syrians....then what?

For six months, it’s nice and workable, but eventually anybody (not just Syrians) would ask stupid questions and ask where a permanent life would start back up. In Turkey, there’s 10-percent unemployment and no real love for Syrians (a shocker but it’s what Turks will tell you....so don’t buy into the Muslims love Muslims routine).

Everyone in NATO has this enormous fear that some trump-card will be put down and they have to respond. This means a meeting in everyone’s parliament, harsh relations with the news media in each country, and then they all worry how the US will screw them over...like those interrogation centers that popped up in Europe after 9-11.

When the Ukraine episode overflowed...everyone got worried that the US would overreact. Then the threat by the US to put more troops or aircraft into Poland...that got Europeans worried. If they were dealing with Reagan, they’d be fairly confident about real leadership and competence coming from the WH....that’s something they haven’t seen in years.

As for the Turks...you’ve got at least three different versions of the Turk walking around and trying to blend into Europe or against Europe. You can’t really be sure of what strategy is on the table or what it really means in the end. Erdogan has spent billions on infrastructure and there’s literally dozens of projects accomplished or on the books for the future...which make Turkey look great. About half of all Turks hate Erdogan for various reasons...so he’s not that popular. If he hadn’t arrested those dozen odd generals from around five years ago, there would have been likely another coup deal like they did in the 1970s. So Turkey is propelling itself along to be a major player in regional politics for the next decade...but you just don’t know how it will be done or if it’s a wise case.

[ScottWalkerForPresident2016]

I wouldn't be heartbroken if NATO dissolved, though I doubt it will happen anytime in the foreseeable future (should have after the Soviet empire collapsed, frankly).

I don't like the idea of guaranteeing U.S. soldiers' lives for crapholes such as Latvia and Estonia.

[Jim Noble]

no real love for Syrians

Well, Johnny Turk knew how to sort out those Sunni tribes, and did it successfully for nigh-on 1000 years.

[SatinDoll]

Thanks.

[pepsionice]

I’ve been to Turkey five or six times in my life...even did a two-week vacation to the south coast. Turks are interesting people and the bulk of them just want the infrastructure to function like a westernized country...which means you have to accept more western values than Islamic values. Erdogan might have slipped some weird strategy into the past decade...but Turks are a different crowd overall.

[ETL]

"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...

"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'..."

"The more I see and read about Mr. Putin, in power since 1999, and his 'managed democracy,' the more apprehensive I become about the future of Russia and the safety of its neighbors.

If Putin believes that the dissolution of the Soviet Union into 15 independent states represents the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,' then it follows that Putin might well believe he should do something to repair the loss..."

http://web.archive.org/web/20090415000000*/http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html
______________________________________

“The demise of the Soviet Union was the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century',” Putin said in 2005.

http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11102.30640.0.0/asia/moscow-puts-the-soviet-squeeze-on-neighbor-nations
______________________________________

"Putin said Stalin deserves statues in his honor "

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131219/185734707/Putin-Says-Stalin-No-Worse-Than-Cunning-Oliver-Cromwell.html

[ETL]

From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
______________________________________________________________

"Joint war games are a logical outcome of the Sino-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Treaty signed in 2001, and reflect the shared worldview and growing economic ties between the two Eastern Hemisphere giants."

http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2005/09/war-games-russia-china-grow-alliance

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170287,00.html
______________________________________________________________

Sept 11, 2014

China and Russia to build major seaport: report

China and Russia will build one of the largest ports in north-east Asia on Russia’s Sea of Japan coast, reports say, in a further sign of the powerhouses’ growing alliance.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-11/china-and-russia-to-build-major-seaport-report/5738036
______________________________________________________________

Obama: "We Welcome China's Rise"
CBS News ^ | January 19, 2011 | Stephanie Condon
______________________________________________________________

[mac_truck]

NATO is a Cold War relic that should be dissolved.

I'm not so sure NATO should be dissolved as much as the Americans should exit the alliance and allow Europe to decide how to defend itself.

Once it's clear to the Europeans that the United States is no longer going to subsidize their economic, social and political interests, they can decide for themselves whether to dissolve NATO or keep it going on their own.