Is NATO in the early stages of unraveling? It appears so. Bloomberg:
As NATO allies discuss the terms of any potential peace deal to be struck between Russia and Ukraine, signs of strategic splits are emerging from within their ranks.
With the war now in its second month, a series of dilemmas are coming into sharp focus over which conditions could be deemed acceptable by Ukraine for any accord, especially as regards the security guarantees alliance members might be able to offer Kyiv.
Wow, you’d think Ukraine was a NATO member after reading this paragraph.
There are also divergences over what further weapons to send Ukraine, and on the question of whether talking to President Vladimir Putin is helpful or not, according to people familiar with discussions that have taken place in the past week between leaders on both sides of the Atlantic and documents seen by Bloomberg.
Some of those differences spilled into the open over the weekend after U.S. President Joe Biden said that Putin couldn’t remain in power and then backtracked as his comments drew criticism.
As it rightly should’ve! You have a senile, demented old fuck who has absolutely no business whatsoever being US President–much less the leader of the “free world”–spouting off about pursuing regime change in a nuclear-armed superpower currently engaged in a full-blown war.
How could any NATO allies actually get on board with that? That type of talk is utter insanity. Full-blown craziness.
NATO is fracturing because NATO is leaderless. Joe Biden is not a leader that inspires any confidence or credibility.
“We shouldn’t escalate, with words or actions,” President Emmanuel Macron told French television when asked about Biden’s remarks. To avoid a military confrontation, the aim is to achieve a cease-fire now and then the withdrawal of Russian troops via diplomatic means, Macron said.
There’s dissent among the ranks of NATO because Biden is a doddering, demented old sack of shit who thinks it’s 1962. He’s firing his mouth off with reckless abandon, and obviously no one takes his words seriously anymore.
Berlin is on a similar wavelength. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s chief spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, told reporters on Monday that “in view of the horrible pictures that we currently have to stomach now for several days and actually weeks, the highest priority for now is to be able to reach a cease-fire so that the killing can stop.”
Scholz discussed the negotiation process on Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
At a NATO leaders’ summit last week, Scholz cautioned against any rushed moves, such as abandoning the NATO-Russia Founding Act. Nixing that agreement would permanently shut the door on Moscow and remove binding commitments on troop deployments for both sides, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussions.
Okay, so there are some NATO countries (like the UK, Poland, the Baltic States) that want to take a harder line against Russia, and then there are some that are urging sanity.
The problem is America is virtually all the power in NATO. America is the money and the might of NATO.
And yet due to the fact that America has no leadership, America’s European vassal states like France and Germany are the ones actually leading NATO at the moment, because they have leaders who know what day of the week it is at any given time.
This gets back to what I have been saying: how much longer is Europe going to keep playing this game? How much longer are they going to do America’s bidding at their own expense?
How much longer are they going to antagonize and provoke Russia simply to please the Americans?
For most of Europe, it would be beneficial to have normal and healthy relations with Russia. Russia is the most powerful country in their immediate vicinity, and it produces tons of natural resources and commodities. Objectively, most of Europe would benefit from stronger and healthier ties with the Russians.
(Now I understand that a lot of the former Warsaw Pact/Soviet Bloc states despise the Russians, will distrust them for decades to come and probably want to see Moscow leveled as payback for all the horrors suffered during the USSR. But the main power players in Europe–Germany, France–are more clear-headed on the matter.)
So how long until NATO is disbanded? Really, it’s a legitimate question.
NATO membership requires constant, unending antagonism and hatred towards Russia. Because the Americans hate the Russians.
At what point do European countries start coming to the conclusion that that’s not in their own best interest anymore?
If Putin were truly expansionist, and he really wanted to take over Europe, it would obviously be the European NATO members’ asses on the line in that situation. And it would be a result of their subservience to America, their constant provocation and antagonism of Russia at the Americans’ behest. Look what happened to Ukraine when they got too close to the Americans and pissed the Russians off one too many times.
Ukraine is gone. It’s Russia’s now.
Zelenskiy will never again set foot in Ukraine. Do you understand that?
He’s not in Ukraine right now. He’s probably somewhere in Poland.
And he’s never going to be allowed to go back to Ukraine again. He will never again set foot in the country he once led. Never again.
Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian President who was deposed in 2014 during the CIA-backed Maidan Revolution, has still to this day not stepped foot in Ukraine again. He’s been living in Russia the whole time.
Unless they are delusional, European nations realize that Zelenskiy’s situation is what you get for being too cozy with the Americans and being too antagonistic towards Russia.
That’s what happens when Putin has had enough of your shit.
Is it worth it, Europe? Is that what you want? Do you love America so much that you’d be willing to risk an invasion?
I doubt it.
And this is why I think NATO is on borrowed time.
Europe will realize that being a part of NATO and constantly provoking the Russians does not serve their interests.
And then we are back to the old days–the pre-1945 days–of a heavily armed Europe.
We’re back to these kinds of maps:
Look, I think NATO is horrible. NATO exists solely to antagonize and oppose Russia, which I think is idiotic and based on a severely outdated mindset.
But the one thing that NATO has done is ensure, relatively speaking, an extraordinary level of peace in Europe over the past 80 years.
With most of Europe disarmed and under the American military umbrella, there has been relative peace and prosperity–outside of the Balkans, and the American bombing of Yugoslavia, that is.
The main European powers–the British, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Dutch–have a long and storied history of hating each other and going to war with one another frequently. This dates back centuries, even millennia.
The post-1945 era has been a break from history for Europe.
If NATO crumbles, expect the “Old Europe” to make a comeback.