John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY IAN BOND IN THE INDEPENDENT
“As a former diplomat to the US, I know how Britain needs to respond to Trump after his Iran deal decision with realism
“European leaders have to deal with the president they have, not the one they wish they had”
The piece starts off well, but then goes downhill.
Europe should start to pull its weight in NATO? That sounds like Trump.
In fact, Europe should work towards its own defense and saying good-bye to NATO. It would be the most adult thing that it could do, as well as being something very much in its own long-term interests.
NATO was created in 1949. That was literally in another era. It offered defense to a war-weakened Europe against legitimately-feared possible aggression by the USSR still led by Stalin and with its massive war-winning Red Army intact.
In normal life and in government – yes, government can be quite a different thing from normal life – it is not often that a special-purpose costly institution still operates nearly three-quarters of a century later. Everything you can name has changed dramatically in that time. The nature of Russia. The nature of Europe. And certainly, the nature of America. Computers. The Internet. Satellites. The very nature of weapons.
NATO in its original role has been obsolete for a very long time, even in the later years of the USSR when it certainly had ceased being an imminent threat and focused on trying to live compatibly with “the West.” That phrase, “the West,” is one I do not especially like because it was fixed in Cold war thinking, but it is still sometimes used.
It almost reminds of something from the early days of one of America’s Neocon Wars of recent years. I think it was during the invasion of Iraq, when the sometimes very silly New York Times started using the WWII expression “GIs” to try sentimentalizing the fact that non-conscript, professional American armies were busy with an illegal invasion and a great deal of killing.
With America’s new Russophobia, its efforts at firing up Cold War 2.0, there has been an effort to re-spark the old purpose, but it is welcomed not even half-heartedly. Europeans understand the situation. Many of the leaders know Putin personally and get on well with him. They know also the feeble ineffective and remarkably corrupt government America installed in Ukraine with its five-billion-dollar coup there. So, while Europe plays along with the American game of rolling tanks up to the border, its heart is very much not in it.
Well, America quite some time ago “re-purposed” NATO, rather than see such a large organization fade naturally as it should, it now serves new American purposes.
One, something never discussed in public but an implicit fact, NATO represents a kind of peaceful occupation of Europe, which is, after all, a potential world rival in trade and other matters. Europe’s political tone is definitely affected, its outspokenness muted, by this de facto occupation.
Two, America now uses NATO as a kind of elaborate theatrical convenience with much of its imperial dirty work abroad. Newspaper headlines, back home, no longer read, "US jets bomb such and such." They read instead, "NATO jets bomb such and such." This creates an implicit sense of “Western” consensus. “Hey, folks, this is not just another squalid little American imperial war, it’s the ‘West’ taking action against bad guys, various swarthy third-world nasties.”
Three, Europe is pressured to buy costly American weapons systems such as the Trident submarine or the F-35 fighter. This provides the Pentagon with subsidies for some of its sinfully expensive projects. Arguments include notions like we should have standardized and interchangeable weapons, but also arguments along the lines of if we’re defending you, you should buy from us. Of course, this only more tightly binds Europe to America. In effect, Europe is at least partially removed as a competitor in the huge world arms market that America literally dominates.
Overlooked is the fact of an organization long ago created for Europe being bent out of shape in places like Libya or Afghanistan. Overlooked also is the fact that what was a defensive organization has been turned into one for aggression.
None of this is in Europe's long-term interest, to say nothing of the entire world’s interests.
Trump's ugly bullying - in everything from who you may buy natural gas from and whom you should trade and do deals with to how much you should spend in your budgets - hopefully may create a European backlash that may see work towards a new more appropriate order.
Remarkably, Mrs. Merkel herself has suggested something along these lines, and she is not known for opposing American policies. She has stated more than once Europe cannot now see America as a dependable partner, and she is right. The destruction of the Iran nuclear agreement is just one major recent example pointing to the truth of the assessment.
It was an act which can only bring instability and danger and which reduces the readiness of anyone to take America’s promises seriously. Here was a perfectly-operating agreement, a fact with which all experts agreed, serving peace and non-proliferation just wantonly destroyed, as by an angry child.
And when America starts pressuring its new unfair sanctions against a peaceful Iran upon European governments and companies, there is going to be some unholy arguments. Of course, in effect, when America plays these ugly games with sanctions, it is effectively being protectionist for its own industries.
