NATO, Foreign Policy, Human Nature and HISTORY’S LESSONS

January 1950, the National Press Club, the speaker, Dean Acheson, a great Secretary of State, and one of the greatest cold warriors we ever had, as he proved down through the years.

the American “defensive perimeter” in the Pacific as a line running through Japan, the Ryukyus, and the Philippines. This denied a guarantee of US military protection to the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan.

June 25, 1950, North Korea invades SOuth Korea.

July 25, 1990, Baghdad, Iraq, US Ambassador April Glaspie to Saddam Hussein

We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960′s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.

The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had ‘no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.’

August 2, 1990, Iraq invades Kuwait

Now NATO was formed at a time when Europe lay in physical, economic and to some moderate to large degree military ruins. EXCEPT for the USA, and economically endangered Britain, and the USSR.

The USSR, having taken eastern europe has TENS OF THOUSANDS of the world’s best tank (T-34/85) and the largest army in the world.

NATO was born to stop that army from overrunning all of Europe as Italy and Greece both lurched towards communist takeovers. France actually LEFT NATO. The mission grew firmly through the 1980’s as  highly mobile, highly outnumbered US force with a few Brits and some Germans, and a scattering of others sought techniques to defend Europe. There were SCORES of Army strategy and tactics games which escaped into the real world surrounding the defense of the Fulda Gap from 2-3 Soviet armies.

That threat, that mission simply does not exist. There IS no WARSAW PACT abutting Germany. Many of those nations are now actually NATO members.

So what is NATO for? We UNDERSTAND asking this makes some people nervous and it should. For THREE GENERATIONS the US has stood guard over Europe for good reasons, and done so largely at our own expense, and to our own sacrifice (but not selflessly either).

We are NOT without nations inimical to the way we live. But neither are the large NATO members, like Germany in synch with us. We have elected EXTREME VETTING, Germany has elected open borders, and we all see the result but they persist. The Baltic States, the most tiny of the NATO member and by far the most vulnerable to Russian hegemony and desire to reclaim 1945’s land would not last a week under an overland invasion. NATO could support them only though a relatively narrow slice of Poland and the Baltic (no place for an American fleet).

So we have a serious gap between NATO’s loss of original mission, and new threats, and sense of purpose, AND the American desire to STOP things from just going on as before for a raft of reasons.

NATO needs to exist or the lessons of the USA STUPIDITY at the top WILL BE REPEATED.

So President Trump is LITERALLY correct in that NATO is obsolete, but neither can we do without it. We NEED to have it redefine it’s goals, and its mission. But while this is going on, we, as HISTORY COMPELS, had better make certain Mr. Putin or WHOEVER has a clear understanding of our responses to the taking of the Baltics, or threats against Poland or any other NATO state, INCLUDING the outbreak of sudden, non uniformed revolutionaries, such as what happened in the eastern Ukraine.

Let the negotiations begin.