Category Archives: NATO

Donald Trump declared that he doesnt believe NATO would be there for the U.S. if the country were to be attacked.

At a Las Vegas rally on Saturday, the former president knocked Joe Bidens push for a bipartisan Senate deal on border security thats linked to Ukraine aid, claiming that its designed to continue the invasion of America while sending billions of dollars to other countries, according to a report from The Nevada Independent.

He went on to claim that the U.S. has provided $200 billion-plus to Ukraine while European nations are in for $20 billion, disregardingthe facts on aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February 2022.

Were spending were paying for NATO and we dont get so much out of it, said the Republican Party front-runner, who once called NATO obsolete and has campaigned on finishing the process of reevaluating the purpose and mission of NATO.

And you know, I hate to tell you this about NATO if we ever needed their help, lets say we were attacked, I dont believe theyd be there, trump continued. I dont believe. I know the people. I know them. I can tell you country by country who would be there and who but I dont believe theyd be there.

Journalist Aaron Rupar, who shared a clip of Trumps remarks on X, formerly Twitter, pointed out that NATO invoked Article 5 in its founding treaty for the first time following the 9/11 attacks. The article describes an armed attack against one member as an attack against them all.

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Trump Unleashes His Doubts On NATO: 'We Don't Get So Much Out Of It' - Yahoo News

After blocking Swedens bid to join NATO for nearly two years, the Turkish parliament ratified Stockholms accession on Jan. 23, reaffirming Ankaras commitment to the Western alliance. A parliamentary majority that included the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), its ally the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), and the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) ultimately rallied in support of Swedens NATO accession. Hungary, the last remaining NATO member left to ratify Swedens accession, is expected to follow suit in the coming weeks.

After blocking Swedens bid to join NATO for nearly two years, the Turkish parliament ratified Stockholms accession on Jan. 23, reaffirming Ankaras commitment to the Western alliance. A parliamentary majority that included the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), its ally the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), and the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) ultimately rallied in support of Swedens NATO accession. Hungary, the last remaining NATO member left to ratify Swedens accession, is expected to follow suit in the coming weeks.

Turkeys support for Swedens accession long looked unlikely. By standing in the way, Turkey had a broader goal: to exploit the opportunity to undermine Western support for Kurdish aspirations in the Middle East. Sweden has been a sanctuary for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey labels a terrorist organization; it has offered political and financial support to PKK-linked Kurdish groups in northern Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its military wing, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG). To get Turkeys backing to join NATO, Sweden agreed to cut these ties.

Still, a year ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lambasted Sweden, saying that the country should not expect goodwill from Turkey if it fails to show respect for the religious beliefs of Muslims and Turkish people. Last September, Erdogan said Sweden had failed to keep its promises to Turkey to receive the green light, citing demonstrations in Stockholm in support of the PKK. Erdogans political ally Devlet Bahceli, who leads the far-right MHP, last year described Sweden as a country that threatens our national existence, adding that if Sweden remained unwilling to extradite Kurdish activists convicted of terrorism in Turkey, the MHP wouldnt ratify its NATO accession.

Sweden refused this last demand, yet Erdogan and Bahceli still folded. This is welcome news for the United States and NATO, and it shows that nationalism and religious resentment ultimately take a back seat to Atlanticism in Turkey. However, Turkeys stance on the so-called Kurdish issue will continue to sap NATOs strength and credibility. The continued repression of the Kurds in Turkey is not in line with the democratic values that NATO purports to defend, and Turkeys antagonism toward the Syrian Kurds puts it at odds with the United States. Turkey has now shown that it can bend, and in NATOs strategic interests, it must do more than acquiesce to Swedenit must acquiesce to a democratic resolution of the Kurdish question.

Erdogans and Bahcelis statements about Sweden did reflect resentment among both the Turkish public and the governing elite. However, the target was never really Sweden but instead the United States, which many Turks now consider a hostile power because of its support for the Kurdish militants in Syria. Turkey sees the establishment of a de facto Kurdish state in Syria as the principal threat to its national security and resents that the United States arms and finances the PKK-linked Kurdish militants there. Turkey may have entertained the illusion that Washington would stop supporting the YPG in return for Turkey ratifying Swedens NATO membership.

Still, when it came to Swedens NATO accession, Turkeys strategic imperative to stay anchored to the West carried the day. NATO membership remains as crucial for Ankaras ruling elite today as it did when the country joined the alliance in 1952. Neither occasional clashes with Western powers nor Turkeys business relations with Russia signal any latent desire to alter Turkeys Western orientation. Geopolitical turmoil from Ukraine to the Red Sea makes it even more paramount for Turkey to maintain its ties to the West. Furthermore, Turkey depends on the United States to refurbish its air force and now expects that the U.S. Congress will lift its embargo on the $20 billion sale of F-16 aircraft and modernization kits to Turkey.

Turkey identifies as Western only in a military-strategic sense that does not imply belonging to the West in political-ideological termsand it never has. Turkey shows how leaders who stand in opposition to the liberal and democratic values that NATO supposedly upholds can still embrace Atlanticism. Turkey was a democracy when it joined the bloc, but its democratic rule was regularly suspended by military coups without its membership being called into question. On the contrary, the coups aligned with NATO interests, as the military was loyal to the Western alliance and suppressed left-wing calls for a nonaligned Turkey.

In fact, NATO resources were mobilized in the service of anti-democratic forces in Turkey in the past, notably under Bahcelis predecessor as MHP leader, Alparslan Turkes. A military officer, Turkes received counterinsurgency education in the United States in the 1950s. He played a leading role in Turkeys 1960 military coup and was later connected to the political killings of leftist activists in Turkey in the 1970s. The latter campaign, led by right-wing militias, was motivated by the fear of a communist takeover. The Turkish military, the police, and the intelligence community benefited from covert NATO support and advice in their anti-communist campaign. No NATO allies questioned the role that Turkish security forces played.

Both NATO adherence and authoritarianism remain salient in Turkey. The Turkish parliamentary majority that ratified Swedens NATO accession was the same group of parties that made it possible to imprison lawmakers in 2016 by stripping parliamentarians of their immunity. That November, the co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, and eight other HDP parliamentarians were arrested. They remain behind bars, in violation of fundamental democratic principles.

During the Cold War, anti-communism bound together liberal democracies and right-wing dictatorships, offering Atlanticism some ideological leeway. But NATO can no longer overlook violations of democratic principles among its members as lightly as it did back then, when the overriding goal of resisting communism conferred political legitimacy on authoritarian governments in Turkey, Greece, and Portugal. Today, as global forces pit Western democratic capitalism against Russian and Chinese authoritarian capitalism, the Wests claim to moral superiority relies exclusively on its pretention to represent democracy.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg rejoiced that completing Swedens accession to NATO makes us all stronger and safer. But democracy advocates in Turkey and beyond have reason to question an Atlanticism that is embraced by authoritarian and nationalist forces in Ankaraand in turn empowers them. The fact that a strategic imperative compels Turkeys authoritarian leaders to back Sweden undermines the Western narrative that equates Atlanticism and the defense of liberal values.

Unless Western democrats and U.S. lawmakers begin caring as much about the liberation of imprisoned elected officials in Turkey as they do about Sweden joining NATO, Atlanticism will appear to lose some of its liberal democratic purpose. Furthermore, domestic repression in Turkeyand specifically the governments refusal to accommodate the democratic demands of its Kurdish citizenswill have destabilizing regional effects. Ankaras standoff with the Kurds will in turn keep the United States and Turkey at odds in Syria, standing in the way of their strategic relationship.

That Turkey has demonstrated that it has no other option than to submit to the United States and its allies reveals the limits of Turkish nationalism. It also offers U.S. lawmakers an opportunity to reassert the democratic purpose of Atlanticism. Although U.S. President Joe Biden urged Congress to approve the F-16 sale between Washington and Ankara without delay after Turkey ratified Swedens NATO accession, U.S. lawmakers should consider making the sale conditional on the release of Demirtas and other imprisoned elected officials in Turkey. Otherwise, NATO stands to lose credibility.

After a U.S. aircraft shot down a Turkish drone targeting Kurdish positions in northern Syria last October, a furious Erdogan vowed to respond, saying that Turkey has a security problem with the United States. But as Turkeys capitulation over the ratification of Swedens NATO accession makes clear, the United States has little reason to worry. Washington should instead expect that increased pressure on Ankara to live up to NATOs democratic standards will eventually pay off. A fully democratic Turkey would strengthen the bloc as muchif not morethan Swedens accession.

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Turkey Acquiesced on Sweden Because It Needs the West - Foreign Policy

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg concluded his trip to the United States on Thursday, 1 February 2024, with a visit to the headquarters of the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Florida. Addressing troops, Mr Stoltenberg underscored that in a changing world with serious challenges, NATO Allies stand united around our core cause to protect and defend each other.

The Secretary General commended the troops for theirservice, noting that Special Operations Forces are vital to any military operation. And therefore, so important for the whole NATO Alliance. He also paid tribute to those who have fallen in the line of duty.

Mr Stoltenberghighlighted that Allies increased defence spending will not only result in boosting national capabilities, butwill also facilitatemore cooperation in NATO. Pointing to the increasingly global nature of security threats and challenges, the Secretary General stressed NATO is responding because we need to do that together. He underlined that together, NATO Allies make up half the worlds economic and military might, adding: NATO is a good deal for all Allies NATO is a good deal for the United States.

The visit to SOCOM wraps up a week of engagements in the U.S. by Mr Stoltenberg.

On Wednesday, at the Lockheed Martin facility in Troy, Alabama, the Secretary General emphasised NATOs crucial role in creating a vast market for defence sales and production.Earlierthat dayat the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C, he outlined that NATO Allies must ensure robust deterrence, prepare for enduring competition with China, and invest more in defence to keep societies safe and free.

On Tuesday, Mr Stoltenberg met with US Congressional leaders and highlighted that a strong NATO is in the strategic interest of the United States, and support for Ukraine remains decisive for Ukraines survival and Europes stability. Through NATO, the U.S.has more friends and allies than any other power, he said.

On Monday, the Secretary General had discussions with senior U.S. officials, and at a press conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he stressed that for a tiny fraction of annual defence spending, the United States has helped Ukraine destroy a major part of Russias combat capacity, without placing a single American soldier in harms way. He also met with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to discuss continuingthestrong support for Ukraine, as well aspreparations for NATOs Summit in Washington this July.

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Secretary General in Florida: NATO makes the United States stronger and more secure - European Interest

Fishing village on a sunset background in Kaliningrad, Russia. (iStock)

VILNIUS, Lithuania Train passengers traveling between Moscow and Kaliningrad, Russias militarized exclave, are confronted with the carnage Russia is inflicting on Ukraine every time they pass through this nations capital.

There, on both sides of the track on platform No. 5 of Vilnius central railway station, they are prompted to look at 24 large graphic photos from Russias war against its smaller neighbor.

Today Putin is killing peaceful civilians in Ukraine, the writing on the photos reads. Do you agree with this?

On a recent morning, a few passengers headed to Kaliningrad from Moscow looked out toward the display as the train paused for a 30-minute technical stop. One woman closed the curtains on her window.

From Vilnius, the train will pass through the so-called Suwaki Gap between Kaliningrad and Belarus, a 60-mile-long strip of land along the Lithuania-Poland border that has long inspired fear in the Baltics and among NATOs planners.

Belarus hosted war games near the area in August, offering an alarming reminder to some military strategists of how a revanchist Russia could partner with Belarus to cut off the three Baltic nations once under Moscows rule Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from the rest of NATO.

Train passengers traveling between Moscow and Kaliningrad pass through the central railway station in Vilnius, Lithuania, where they are greeted with a display of graphic photos from Russias war in Ukraine. The photo reads: Today Putin is killing peaceful civilians in Ukraine. Do you agree with this? (Svetlana Shkolnikova/Stars and Stripes)

But for now, the only connection between Russias pliant ally and Russias outpost on the Baltic Sea are train tracks carrying both Russian people and goods through European Union and NATO territory.

Kaliningrad, a former part of Germany that was taken by the Soviet Union as a spoil of World War II, finds itself increasingly isolated amid Russias war in Ukraine as neighboring countries restrict its residents movement, NATO adds members, and the Kremlin focuses its attention on waging war.

Those who live in Kaliningrad have always felt like theyre on an island and now its an even bigger feeling, said Alexei Chabounine, a 53-year-old journalist with the Kaliningrad-based news site Russian West. There is a general feeling of being locked in.

Britains defense ministry reported last month that Russia likely moved strategic air defenses from Kaliningrad to backfill recent losses on the Ukraine front, demonstrating the overstretch the war has caused for Russian capabilities.

Still, Kaliningrad remains a source of power projection for the Kremlin into NATOs northern flank and one of the most militarized places in Russia, home to the Baltic Fleet as well as nuclear-capable Iskander missiles and other powerful armaments.

The Ukraine war has left a mark on Kaliningrad, Chabounine said. About 5,000 of the regions population of 1 million have been mobilized to fight in Ukraine, and estimates by locals put the death toll at around 450 people. Their graves occupy not just military cemeteries, but civilian ones, too.

The exclaves authorities seldom speak about the dead, but they do talk about how Kaliningrad is helping the war effort, Chabounine said. The region is providing quadcopters, camouflage nets and clothes and allocating a significant portion of its 2024 budget to help finance the war. Soldiers who signed contracts with the army will be paid an additional 100,000 rubles, or about $1,111, he said.

(Noga Ami-rav/Stars and Stripes)

When asked if the people of Kaliningrad support the war, Chabounine said he could not answer without violating Russias war-time censorship laws.

People try to avoid the topic of the special military operation, they try to live like before, he said, using the Kremlins approved language for its invasion of Ukraine. People try to hold on and live a regular life.

Russia is pouring money into Kaliningrad to help blunt the impact of Western sanctions, and investment in the exclaves vast military infrastructure continues, Chabounine said. But there is no construction of fortifications or preparations for an expanded war that would bring Russia into conflict with NATO.

Even if Russia attacks the Baltics, there will be nothing left of Kaliningrad. Theres no way to defend it well be blockaded, he said. The authorities say they will defend us, but truth be told, I dont see that happening.

The threat from Kaliningrad has receded with Russia mired in Ukraine and NATO welcoming Finland, and likely Sweden, into its ranks, experts say. Russias goal of turning Kaliningrad into a launching pad to dominate the Baltics has effectively been canceled, according to a November report published by the French Institute of International Relations.

With the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, the Baltic theater is reconfigured so profoundly to Russias disadvantage that no amount of effort could make Fortress Kaliningrad defensible, the report states.

Eerik Purgel, head of the border and migration control service in Estonias northeastern region bordering Russia, said Estonia is thrilled to see brother nation Finland in the military alliance and is eagerly awaiting the accession of Sweden.

The Baltic Sea will become the NATO Sea, he said.

Russia has long been preparing for the eventuality of Kaliningrad getting cut off from the Russian mainland, said Tomas Jermalaviius, head of studies at the Estonia-based International Centre for Defence and Security think tank.

Moscow in recent years has tested Kaliningrads capacity to operate its own power grid and installed a floating gas terminal to lessen Kaliningrads dependence on pipelines that run through Lithuania, he said. The terminal has enough storage space to supply Kaliningrad for a month, according to Chabounine.

Obviously they have a sense that this might become a very isolated part of Russia in a major crisis, Jermalaviius said.

(Noga Ami-rav/Stars and Stripes)

The Kaliningrad exclave, located more than 200 miles from mainland Russia, has always stood a bit apart from the rest of the country, said Sergey Sukhankin, a Kaliningrad native and senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a defense think tank.

It was populated by a mix of people from across the Soviet Union after World War II, and its residents prided themselves on being not entirely Russian and a part of Russias Europe, he said. Cross-border travel, especially to neighboring Poland, became frequent after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

But ties to Europe began to fray with Russias first incursion into Ukraine in 2014. Authorities in Kaliningrad cracked down on German and Lithuanian cultural institutions, seeking to erase traces of the exclaves pre-Soviet past. Last summer, after a transit dispute with Lithuania, a Kaliningrad court shut down the Lithuanian Language Teachers Association, a prominent Lithuanian group in the region.

Today, if you ask the locals, the majority would say that the West poses an existential threat to Kaliningrad, Sukhankin said. How they think is very much in line with the rhetoric that is promoted by the Kremlin.

Not everyone agrees with that characterization. Polish politician Radosaw Sikorski last year advocated for the easing of travel limitations on the residents of Kaliningrad, calling the exclaves residents the most Putin-skeptic in Russia.

Baltic Russians are a hope for their countrys future, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

For years, there has been agitation among some fringe elements in Kaliningrad to form an autonomous Baltic Republic and possibly secede from Russia. The Baltic Republican Party was founded explicitly for that purpose in 1993 before being dissolved by Russia in 2003.

One of its members, Rustam Vasiliev, continues to champion the groups cause, even after immigrating from Kaliningrad to the United States nearly a decade ago. He envisions Kaliningrad as a Europe-leaning republic with Knigsberg, the citys former German name, as its capital.

Perhaps fallout from the Ukraine war could set the stage for such a split, he said.

The region is like a heavy suitcase without a handle for the Kremlin, Vasiliev said. It is inconvenient to carry, but the Kremlin is too greedy to drop it and walk away. What will be in the future only God knows.

People gather to watch a festive parade marking the 750th anniversary of Kaliningrad, Russias westernmost city, on July 1, 2005. (Sergey Ponomarev/AP)

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In Russia's Kaliningrad, isolation and diminished threat to NATO - Stars and Stripes

For 74 years, the NATO has been Americas most important military alliance. Presidents of both parties have seen NATO as a force multiplier enhancing the influence of the United States by uniting countries on both sides of the Atlantic in a vow to defend one another.

Donald Trump has made it clear that he sees NATO as a drain on U.S. resources by freeloaders. He has held that view for at least a quarter-century.

In his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, Trump wrote that pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually. As president, he repeatedly threatened a U.S. withdrawal from the alliance.

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Yet as he runs to regain the White House, Trump has said precious little about his intentions. His campaign website contains a single cryptic sentence: We have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATOs purpose and NATOs mission. He and his team refuse to elaborate.

That vague line has generated enormous uncertainty and anxiety among European allies and American supporters of the countrys traditional foreign policy role.

European ambassadors and think tank officials have been making pilgrimages to associates of Trump to inquire about his intentions. At least one ambassador, Finlands Mikko Hautala, has reached out directly to Trump and sought to convince him of his countrys value to NATO as a new member, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

In interviews over the past several months, more than a half-dozen current and former European diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from Trump should he win said alarm was rising on Embassy Row and among their home governments that Trumps return could mean not just the abandonment of Ukraine but a broader U.S. retreat from the continent and a gutting of the Atlantic alliance.

There is great fear in Europe that a second Trump presidency would result in an actual pullout of the United States from NATO, said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was NATOs supreme allied commander from 2009 to 2013. That would be an enormous strategic and historic failure on the part of our nation.

Formed after World War II to keep the peace in Europe and act as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, NATO evolved into an instrument through which the U.S. works with allies on military issues around the world. Its original purpose the heart of which is the collective-defense provision, known as Article V, that states that an armed attack on any member shall be considered an attack against them all lives on, especially for newer members like Poland and the Baltic States that were once dominated by the Soviet Union and continue to fear Russia.

The interviews with current and former diplomats revealed that European officials were mostly out of ideas for how to deal with Trump other than returning to a previous playbook of flattery and transactional tributes.

Smaller countries that are more vulnerable to Russian attacks are expected to try to buy their way into Trumps good graces by increasing their orders of U.S. weapons or as Poland did during his term by performing grand acts of adulation, including offering to name a military base Fort Trump in return for his placing a permanent presence there.

At this point in the campaign, Trump is focused on the criminal cases against him and on defeating his Republican primary rivals, and he rarely talks about the alliance, even in private.

As he maintains a broad lead in his campaign to become the Republican nominee, the implications for Americas oldest and most critical military alliance are not clearly advertised plans from Trump, but a turmoil of widely held suspicions charged with unknowability.

Ukraine

Amid those swirling doubts, one thing is likely: The first area where Trumps potential return to the White House in 2025 could provoke a foreign policy crisis is for Ukraine and the alliance of Western democracies that have been supporting its defense against Russias invasion.

Helping Ukraine stave off the attempted Russian conquest has become a defining NATO effort. Ukraine is not a NATO member but has remained an independent country because of NATO support.

Camille Grand, who was NATOs assistant secretary-general for defense investment early in the war, said that how Trump handled Ukraine would be the first big test case that Europeans would use to assess how reliable an ally or not he might be in a second term.

Will he throw Zelenskyy under the bus in the first three months of his term? Grand, now at the European Council on Foreign Relations, asked, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trump has repeatedly declared that he would somehow settle the war in 24 hours. He has not said how, but he has coupled that claim with suggestions that he could have prevented the war by making a deal in which Ukraine simply ceded to Russia its eastern lands that President Vladimir Putin has illegally seized.

Zelenskyy has said Ukraine would never agree to cede any of its lands to Russia as part of a peace deal. But Trump would have tremendous leverage over Ukraines government. The United States has supplied huge quantities of vital weapons, ammunition and intelligence to Ukraine. European countries have pledged the most economic assistance to Ukraine but could not make up the shortfall if America stopped sending military aid.

Some of Trumps congressional allies, who have followed his lead in preaching an America First mantra, already oppose sending further military assistance to Ukraine. And in a broader sign of waning support, Senate Republicans last week blocked an emergency spending bill to further fund the war in Ukraine after demanding unrelated immigration policy concessions from Democrats as a condition of passing it.

But even if Congress appropriates further aid, Trump could withhold delivery of it as he did in 2019 when trying to coerce Zelenskyy into announcing a criminal investigation into Joe Biden, the abuse-of-power scandal that led to Trumps first impeachment.

Against that backdrop, Russias battlefield strategy for now appears to be biding its time; it is carrying out attacks when it sees opportunities to tie up Ukrainian forces but is not making paradigm-shifting moves or negotiating, officials said. That stasis raises the possibility that Putin has calculated he could be in a much better position after the U.S. 2024 election.

Everybody Owes Us Money

Trump likes to brag that he privately told leaders of NATO countries that if Russia attacked them and they had not paid the money they owed to NATO and to the United States, he would not defend them. He claimed at a rally in October that after he had declared that everybody owes us money and was delinquent, he made that threat at a meeting, and hundreds of billions of dollars came flowing in.

That story is garbled at best.

There was a spending-related dispute, but it was over Europeans meeting their spending commitments to their own militaries, not money they somehow owed to NATO or to the United States. They did increase military spending during the Trump administration although by nowhere near the amounts Trump has claimed. And their spending rose significantly more in 2023, in response to Russias invasion of Ukraine.

But Trumps exuberance for retelling his story, coupled with his past displeasure with NATO, is giving fresh alarm to NATO supporters.

Pressed by The New York Times to explain what he means by fundamentally reevaluating NATOs mission and purpose, Trump provided a rambling statement that contained no clear answer but expressed skepticism about alliances.

It is the obligation of every U.S. president to ensure that Americas alliances serve to protect the American people, and do not recklessly endanger American blood and treasure, Trumps statement read.

Some Trump supporters who are pro-NATO have argued that Trump is bluffing. They said he was merely looking to put more pressure on the Europeans to spend more on their own defense.

Hes not going to do that, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and a Trump supporter, said of the prospect of Trumps withdrawing from NATO. But what he will do is, he will make people pay more, and I think that will be welcome news to a lot of folks.

Robert OBrien, who served as Trumps final national security adviser, echoed that view.

President Trump withdrawing from NATO is an issue that some people in D.C. discuss, but I dont believe its a real thing, OBrien said. He understands the military value of the alliance to America, but he just feels correctly, I might add like were getting played by the Germans and other nations that refuse to pay their fair share for their own defense.

But John Bolton, a conservative hawk who served as national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, wrote in his memoir that Trump had to be repeatedly talked out of withdrawing from NATO. In an interview, Bolton said there is no doubt in my mind that in a second term, Trump would withdraw the United States from NATO.

As a legal matter, whether Trump could unilaterally withdraw the United States from NATO is likely to be contested.

The Constitution requires Senate consent to ratify a treaty but omits procedures to annul one. This has led to debate about whether presidents can do so on their own or need lawmakers authorization. There are only a few court precedents regarding the issue, none definitive.

Decisions to revoke treaties by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 and by President George W. Bush in 2001 led members of Congress to file lawsuits that were rejected by courts, partly on the grounds that the disputes were a political question for the elected branches to work out. While the legal precedents are not perfectly clear, both of those presidents effectively won: The treaties are widely understood to be void. Still, any attempt to withdraw from NATO would likely invite a broader challenge.

In reaction to Trumps threats, some lawmakers led by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. put a provision in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress is likely to vote on this month. It says the president shall not withdraw the United States from NATO without congressional approval. But whether the Constitution permits such a tying of a presidents hands is also contestable.

And European diplomats say that even if Trump were to nominally keep the United States in NATO, they fear that he could so undermine trust in the U.S. reliability to live up to the collective-defense provision that its value as a deterrent to Russia would be lost.

A Transactional Attitude

The uncertainty stemming from Trumps maximalist and yet vague rhetoric is bound up in his past displays of consistent skepticism about NATO and of unusual solicitude to Russia.

As a candidate in 2016, Trump rattled NATO allies by saying that if Russia attacked the Baltic States, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing whether they had fulfilled their obligations to us. He also repeatedly praised Putin and said he would consider recognizing Russias illegal annexation of Crimea.

As president in July 2018, Trump not only nearly withdrew from NATO at an alliance summit but also denounced the European Union as a foe because of what they do to us in trade. He then attended a summit with Putin, after which he expressed skepticism about the idea that the United States should go to war to defend a tiny NATO ally, Montenegro.

With no prior experience in the military or government, Trump brought a transactional, mercantilist attitude to interactions with allies. He tended to base his views of foreign nations on his personal relationships with their leaders and on trade imbalances.

Trump particularly disliked Angela Merkel, the former German chancellor, and often complained that German automakers were flooding America with their products. His defenders say his anger was in some ways justified: Germany hadnt been meeting its military spending commitments, and over his objections, Merkel pushed ahead with a natural gas pipeline to Russia. Germany only suspended that project two days before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Trumps allies also point out that he approved sending anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, which President Barack Obama had not done after Russia seized Crimea in 2014.

Still, in 2020, Trump decided to withdraw one-third of the 36,000 U.S. troops stationed in Germany. Some were to come home, as he preferred, with others redeployed elsewhere in Europe. But the following year, as Russia built up troops on Ukraines border, Biden canceled the decision and added troops in Germany as a show of support for NATO.

A Supportive Movement

If he returns to power, Trump will be backed by a conservative movement that has become more skeptical of allies and of U.S. involvement abroad.

Anti-interventionist foreign policy institutes are more organized and better funded than they were during Trumps time in office. Those groups include the Center for Renewing America, a Trump-aligned think tank that published a paper titled Pivoting the U.S. Away From Europe to a Dormant NATO, which provides a rationale for minimizing Americas role in NATO.

On Nov. 1, the Heritage Foundation a traditionally hawkish conservative think tank that has lately refashioned itself in a Trumpist mold on matters including opposition to aid to Ukraine hosted a delegation from the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The Europeans exchanged views with ardent nationalists, including Michael Anton, a National Security Council official in the Trump administration; Dan Caldwell, who managed foreign policy at the Center for Renewing America; and national security aides to Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and other Trump-aligned senators.

According to two people who attended, Anton told the Europeans he could imagine Trump setting an ultimatum: If NATO members did not sufficiently increase their military spending by a deadline, he would withdraw the United States from the alliance.

As the meeting broke up, Eckart von Klaeden, a former German politician who is now a Mercedes-Benz Group executive, implored Anton to ask Trump to please talk to Americas European allies as he formulated his foreign policy.

That seems like wishful thinking.

In his statement to the Times, Trump invoked his slogan America First a phrase once popularized by American isolationists opposed to getting involved in World War II.

My highest priority, Trump said in the statement, has always been, and will remain, to America first the defense of our own country, our own borders, our own values, and our own people, including their jobs and well-being.

c.2023 The New York Times Company

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Fears of a NATO Withdrawal Rise as Trump Seeks a Return to Power - Yahoo News

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Our correspondent joins the French air force on a mission in the Baltics, seeing increasing support for NATO just as the country draws down in Africa. Drones have by now become a standard feature of warfare, but in Gaza the demands are differentand Israel has much expertise to draw upon (09:36). And artificial intelligence predicts the structures of 2m brand-new materials (16:38). Runtime: 22 min

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France is beefing up its support at NATO's eastern flank - The Economist

NATOs Rob Bauer (left) visited representatives of the Gaza division in Israels military shortly before the current war was declared. (Via Twitter)

A few people are profiting handsomely from the genocidal war against Gaza.

Elbit Systems, a leading Israeli weapons maker, has reported a considerable increased demand for its products since the war was declared.

About 15 percent of Elbits workforce in Israel has been called up by the military.

Even with reduced staff, the firm is ready to exploit the opportunities afforded by mass slaughter. Not only is it anticipating fresh orders from Israels defense ministry, it is endeavoring to keep international clients satisfied.

Within the past three weeks, Elbit has announced new deals with Canada and Romania.

Both of those countries belong to NATO.

Israel, on the other hand, is nominally outside the alliance. Yet Israels cooperation with NATO is flourishing.

Back in January, Elbit clinched a contract with the NATO Support and Procurement Agency. Under it, Elbit supplies warplane equipment and runs a service center at the agencys headquarters in Luxembourg.

Through a 2018 deal, the agency acts as a conduit through which Israel can sell weapons to NATO members. The arrangement has proven beneficial for Israel, Haim Regev, the states ambassador to the European Union and NATO indicated earlier this year.

Regev accompanied Mircea Geoana, NATOs deputy secretary general, on a trip to Israel in September.

The launch appears to have been postponed amid the Gaza genocide.

I contacted NATO, asking whether the launch would take place once the situation was regarded as calmer. The alliances spokesperson did not answer my question.

Rob Bauer, the Dutch admiral chairing NATOs military committee, also visited Israel in September.

Bauer declared himself impressed by the capabilities of the Gaza division in Israels army. He expressed particular interest in how artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics were being applied in monitoring what he called border crossings.

A NATO representative was, in effect, praising Israel for blockading a civilian population with the aid of advanced technology.

Read a few months later, the message looks even more sinister.

The website +972 Magazine has revealed that Israel is using AI to choose targets in its current war against Gaza.

It is improbable that the AI system serving that deadly purpose is entirely separate from the one that impressed Bauer in the recent past. Not surprisingly, NATO would not answer a question I asked about whether Israel is keeping it updated on the use of AI in the current war.

While meeting Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, during September, NATOs Mircea Geoana stressed a strong interest in building upon the exceptional technological sophistication of your great nation.

Israel is now carrying out a genocide with the aid of its exceptional technology. We can expect that it will be congratulated for doing so by NATOs ever-so-sophisticated elite.

Continue reading here:
NATO impressed by Israel's genocide tech - The Electronic Intifada

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will ultimately get the US funds his country desperately needs to continue to fight Russia's invasion, a former US ambassador to Nato has predicted.

Mr Zelenskyy left Washington empty-handed this week after Republicans made additional Ukraine funding contingent on President Joe Biden's administration toughening its immigration stance on the US-Mexico border.

Still, Kurt Volker, who served as US special representative for Ukraine negotiations from 2017 to 2019 and as George W Bush's Nato ambassador from 2008 to 2009, told The National that there is enough bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill to approve billions more dollars for Kyiv in the new year.

It is so much in the US interest to support this aid to Ukraine, Mr Volker said. There's a very substantial majority in both chambers [of Congress] that gets it. I'm very optimistic that it will pass, but probably not until they reconvene in January.

The US Congress has approved more than $110 billion for Ukraine since Russia's February 2022 invasion, but no new funds since Republicans took control of the House from Democrats in January. The new funding package under consideration includes another $61 billion for Ukraine as well as money for Israel and border security.

Mr Volker, who is a distinguished fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, added that the Biden administration had initially been too intransigent in its approach to Ukraine funding, insisting on portraying the issue as a battle for Ukraine's and the West's survival instead of sitting down sooner to seek compromise with Republicans on border security, which remains a top concern among conservative voters.

How can [Republican politicians] go home and tell their voters they voted to give all this money to Ukraine and Israel, but did not do anything about our own security at home? he said.

The White House told Congress this month that the government will run out of Ukraine military assistance at the end of the year.

Ukrainian soldiers from the 60th Battalion of Territorial Defense

This week marks 100 days of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which began in the early hours of Sunday, June 4. Getty Images

Republicans have sounded a pessimistic tone when it comes to Ukraine's chances of beating Russia, pointing to the slow progress of this year's counter-offensive, and have argued that the US should not be allocating more money for a lost cause.

But Mr Volker said Russia's capability to stay in the fight has been overstated, with Moscow forced to rely on old North Korean munitions and drones from Iran while conscripts are dying in huge numbers.

And crucially, Russia has dedicated about 45 per cent of its budget to the military effort, many times more than what the West is spending on the conflict.

That is a huge and unsustainable level of spending, but they're doing it now as a short-term measure because they think if they do, they can outlast the West, Mr Volker said.

The US has far deeper pockets and support for Ukraine so far represents a fraction of the Pentagon's $840 billion budget.

Newly declassified US intelligence shows that Russia seems to believe that a military deadlock through the winter will drain western support for Ukraine and ultimately give Moscow the advantage, Adrienne Watson, White House National Security Council spokeswoman, told reporters this week.

Mr Volker said Ukraine had eliminated half of the Russian military so far and estimated that 100,000 Russian troops have been killed since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with another 300,000 wounded. He said Ukraine's losses had been smaller.

The diplomat added that the US has many more tools at its disposal to help Ukraine, including by running freedom of navigation and demining operations in the Black Sea. The US should also stop limiting the range of the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) it has provided Ukraine, something Mr Volker sees as hampering Kyiv's capabilities.

The US has been careful to avoid sending weapons that Russia could argue is a direct threat to its homeland.

Mr Volker also said the US needs to take more of a leadership role in pushing for Ukraine to join Nato.

The alliance worries such a move would be overly provocative to Russia and could even trigger a broader war with the West were Nato's Article 5 mutual defence clause to be invoked but Mr Volker argued this rationale is a fallacy that only encourages Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep fighting.

Updated: December 14, 2023, 6:19 AM

Read more from the original source:
Ukraine will get the US aid it needs, former Nato envoy predicts - The National

Ukraine will become a member of NATO, Joe Biden assured at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Dec.12.

Read also: Biden set to host Zelenskyy at White House amidst aid crisis

I'm very proud about how strong and unified NATO has become and now it's even larger, said Biden.

NATO will be in Ukraine's future, no question about that. But we as we said in Vilnius, Ukraine will become a member of NATO when all allies agree, and conditions are met. Right now, we have to make sure that Ukraine wins the war, he said.

G7 leaders outlined a long-term commitment to supporting Ukraine's defense needs in Vilnius, said Biden.

Read also: Biden, Zelenskyy to discuss Ukraine aid crisis in White House talks

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine

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'Ukraine will become a member of NATO when all allies agree, and conditions are met' Biden - Yahoo News

The ongoing war in Gaza reveals the futility of trying to solve a crisis without addressing its root causes. The US approach to crisis resolution has relied on harsh military and coercive methods to deal with various security-strategic and political challenges. The American international order has a simple rule: any change and transformation that creates a new game, a new plan and a new international order must be achieved by an all-out war. However, recent events such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan, NATOs expansion in the east and Russias provocation of war in Ukraine, the attempts to trigger a war with China over Taiwan and the naval blockade of this rival country, the unresolved wars and crises in different regions, and the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza, all indicate a grand strategy: NATOs constructive anarchism.

NATOs constructive anarchism strategy has several aspects. The first one is the undermining of international organizations that were supposed to provide multilateral solutions and security guarantees. For example, the United Nations Security Council has lost its ability to build a global consensus on a common threat to global peace and stability and has become a venue for rivals to veto each others plans to end wars and ensure security. This signifies the end of the collective security system, where no security phenomenon, war, or peace is seen as a common interest of all, and there is no single interpretation of any crisis that aims to resolve it. In this situation, if an international order is defined as a written or unwritten agreement among its parties to protect it and accept its common norms and values, we can confidently say that we are in a period of disorder and pervasive anarchism. In this period, we face not one order, but multiple overlapping and competing orders, and instead of multilateralism at the global level, we see intersecting coalitions and alliances that cannot reach a single agreement.

The second aspect is that in this situation, the US is not interested in resolving issues through international organizations and rules. Instead, Washington tries to align their NATO allies and use their combined military force to fight and maintain the current order. In other words, in a strategy based on constructive anarchism, the goal of the US military campaign is not to create a new order but to preserve the existing one. In this case, NATOs constructive anarchism aims to eliminate three competitors: ideologically asymmetric groups that oppose the status quo; Russia, which is weakened by the war in Ukraine and could be fully dominated after Putins fall; and China, which is the main rival of this order.

Meanwhile, the occupation of the Palestinian lands and the disregard for the two-state solution have led to the Gaza war. This is an unsolvable crisis that aims to weaken the Islamic-Arab countries, destroy the Palestinian resistance groups, and eliminate the Israeli problem in the Islamic world. On the other hand, on the Ukrainian front, the strategy of constructive anarchism has successfully dragged Russia into a costly war of attrition, and the Americans claim that the goal of the war is to end Russias military power. Russia, which is NATOs buffer zone with China, and its fall could pave the way for NATOs global strategy, which is seen by Western strategists as the downfall of China. Meanwhile, the Chinese are well aware of the completion of the puzzle that outlines their demise. In this scenario, peace is not a priority.

The escalation of these wars shows that the Americans and their allies do not benefit from peace and their desired order cannot be achieved peacefully. Therefore, they are implementing a new strategy to eliminate their opponents rather than contain and control them. In this strategy, NATOs constructive anarchism tries to revive the previous order based on fear and violence with a new form ofthe chaos and the tools of war.

The deployment of NATO fleets following the Americans in the Mediterranean and the Middle East and the opening of a new front in the Middle East along with Europe has made war the norm of the current situation, a war which, according to the White Houses usual practice, is synonymous with American peace. This is where we do not have a single and inclusive global peace, but a fragmented and contested peace among the Americans, Russians, and Chinese, which is vetoed and collapsed every time in a meeting. A peace that does not bring order, but is replaced by war. The wars that are creating a NATO out of disorder.

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NATO's Strategy Of Constructive Anarchism Fuels Endless Wars OpEd - Eurasia Review