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Is NATO Worth Preserving?
Townhall.com ^ | April 14, 2016 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 04/14/2016 5:17:57 AM PDT by Kaslin

Donald Trump recently ignited another controversy when he mused that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was obsolete. He hinted that it might no longer be worth the huge American investment.

In typical Trump style, he hit a nerve, but he then offered few details about the consequences of either staying in or leaving NATO.

NATO is certainly no longer aimed at keeping a huge Soviet land army out of democratic Western Europe, as was envisioned in 1949.

The alliance has been unwisely expanded from its original 12-nation membership to include 28 countries, absorbing many of the old communist Warsaw Pact nations and some former Soviet republics. NATO may have meant well to offer security to these vulnerable new alliance members. Yet it is hard to imagine Belgians and Italians dying on the battlefield to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces out of Lithuania or Estonia.

Today's NATO pledges to many of its newer participants are about as believable as British and French rhetorical guarantees in August 1939 to protect a far-away Poland from its Nazi and Soviet neighbors.

No NATO member during the 40-year Cold War invoked Article 4 of the treaty, requiring consultation of the entire alliance by a supposedly threatened member. Turkey has called for it four times since 2003.

(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: defensespending; donaldtrump; election2016; europe; nato; vdh; victordavishanson
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To: Kaslin

Might as well ask the question - Is UN worth preserving?

H3LL NO!


21 posted on 04/14/2016 6:16:38 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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To: Kaslin

No.

Because NATO is Turkey, and Turkey is NATO.


22 posted on 04/14/2016 6:18:19 AM PDT by Kriggerel ("All great truths are hard and bitter, but lies... are sweeter than wild honey" (Ragnar Redbeard))
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To: Lurker
he US will be stronger with allies who actually blow the dust off their checkbooks once or twice a century.

Any names come to mind?

23 posted on 04/14/2016 6:26:01 AM PDT by Lower Deck
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To: pgkdan
As currently constructed the US doesn't have allies...

So the U.S. will be better off without Europe, without Japan, without Korea?

24 posted on 04/14/2016 6:27:12 AM PDT by Lower Deck
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To: baltimorepoet
Britain is an ally.

Will she be if you walk out of NATO?

25 posted on 04/14/2016 6:28:01 AM PDT by Lower Deck
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To: euram

Quite right!


26 posted on 04/14/2016 6:28:38 AM PDT by doberville
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To: Lower Deck

We can always sign a defense pact specifically with Britain. They have long had a special relationship with the US.

Heck, Britain is even considering an exit from the EU.


27 posted on 04/14/2016 6:30:39 AM PDT by baltimorepoet
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To: Lower Deck

Any names come to you?


28 posted on 04/14/2016 6:30:48 AM PDT by doberville
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To: Lower Deck
"...Russia will always have to be watched....Germany will always have to be integrated into some sort of military alliance....the United States will always have a natural self-interest in preemptively keeping kindred Europeans from killing each other."

Great synopsis.
It does, though, need the adult to enforce the NATO rules - 2% GDP military expenditures and no autocracies allowed (Turkey).

29 posted on 04/14/2016 6:33:39 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room".)
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To: Lower Deck
So the U.S. will be better off without Europe, without Japan, without Korea?

In what way does our military relationship with any of those countries benefit us anymore? They're all triggers to involve us in a war with Russia and/or China at some point in the future.

I believe we should should have a level of engagement with them but the entire cost structure needs to be reworked at every level. Money, manpower, materiel. Those countries should all be carrying the bulk of the burden required for their defense, without the presence of huge numbers of US troops who serve as cannon fodder to stir the American people to war in the event of an attack.

30 posted on 04/14/2016 6:38:43 AM PDT by pgkdan (The Silent Majority Stands With TRUMP!)
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To: Kaslin

NATO has become a cold war relic. It could have survived if it could have changed scope and remained small as in 1970’s type small.

Now it’s just a Bureaucracy of armed politically correct global multiculturalists.

If it’s not reigned in now, the Muslims will eventually co-opt them like they’re doing all of Europe.


31 posted on 04/14/2016 6:41:07 AM PDT by Fhios (Going Donald Trump is as close to going John Galt as we'll get.)
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To: Lower Deck

If they were truly our allies they’d at least make an attempt to carry their own weight.

Every dollar we spend protecting them is another dollar they spend on welfare.

Why are we subsidizing the world’s welfare programs?


32 posted on 04/14/2016 6:47:35 AM PDT by thoughtomator
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To: Fhios

“NATO has become a cold war relic. It could have survived if it could have changed scope and remained small as in 1970’s type small.

Now it’s just a Bureaucracy of armed politically correct global multiculturalists.

If it’s not reigned in now, the Muslims will eventually co-opt them like they’re doing all of Europe.”

I think that is precisely the plan. The misfeasances of the EU and other European elites, including but by no means limited to Merkel, are rank lunacy otherwise. This is all a transnational putsh against traditional cultures and national identities.

There is hope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqybsUqkOWs


33 posted on 04/14/2016 6:57:41 AM PDT by Psalm 144 (What are mere facts to a Dominionist Constitutionalist, small government-globalist tool?)
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To: Lower Deck

“Because the U.S. without allies is stronger than the U.S. with allies? “

Yes, because we pay for those allies to belong to NATO. NATO is the US and whenever we need their support we get lukewarm responses.


34 posted on 04/14/2016 7:00:04 AM PDT by CodeToad (Islam should be banned and treated as a criminal enterprise!)
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To: Psalm 73

Germany is really the problem with NATO. 1% of GDP and Obama has let them dictate policy. Germany actually deployed broomsticks to a NATO training event a while back because they had no weapons!


35 posted on 04/14/2016 7:02:49 AM PDT by lodi90 (Clear choice for Conservatives now: TRUMP or lose)
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To: Psalm 144

I read something and saw their first video a several years back. I tried contacting them several times, but they never responded.

I even wrote them each time in French.


36 posted on 04/14/2016 7:11:53 AM PDT by Fhios (Going Donald Trump is as close to going John Galt as we'll get.)
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To: Fhios

I think they hold their cards close. Remember how Marie Le Pen was defending bogus criminal charges just a few months ago for daring to speak her mind about de facto Moslem occupation. I see similar emerging trends in other European nations too. The post WWII order, including NATO, is crumbling. That is on balance probably a very good thing.


37 posted on 04/14/2016 8:02:58 AM PDT by Psalm 144 (Vote Tom! He gets the fence whitewashed and the other kids pay for it too!)
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To: Lower Deck

“Any names come to mind?”

As a matter of fact, yes:

Britain.
France
Germany
Belgium
Norway
Denmark
Sweden

None of which even come close to spending the agreed upon percentage of their GDP on defense.

L


38 posted on 04/14/2016 11:02:05 AM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: Kaslin

NO!!!!


39 posted on 04/14/2016 11:25:16 AM PDT by mongo141 (Revolution ver. 2.0, just a matter of when, not a matter of if!)
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