Why not let go of NATO?
Posted on March 27th, 2009
by Patrick J. Buchanan |
|
“In 1877, Lord Salisbury, commenting on Great Britain’s policy on the Eastern Question, noted that ‘the commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies.’
“Salisbury was bemoaning the fact that many influential members of the British ruling class could not recognize that history had moved on; they continued to cling to policies and institutions that were relics of another era.”
“Relics of another era”–thus did Stephen Meyer, in Parameters in 2003, begin his essay “Carcass of Dead Policies: The Irrelevance of NATO.”
NATO has been irrelevant for two decades, since its raison d’etre — to keep the Red Army from driving to the Rhine — disappeared. Yet Obama is headed to Brussels to celebrate France’s return and the 60th birthday of the alliance. But why is NATO still soldiering on?
In 1989, the Wall fell. Germany was reunited. The Captive Nations cast off communism. The Red Army went home. The USSR broke apart into 15 nations. But, having triumphed in the Cold War, it seems the United States could not bear giving up its role as Defender of the West, could not accept that the curtain had fallen and the play was closing after a 40-year run.
So, what did we do? In a spirit of “triumphalism,” NATO “nearly doubled its size and rolled itself right up to Russia’s door,” writes Richard Betts in The National Interest.
Breaking our word to Mikhail Gorbachev, we invited into NATO six former member states of the Warsaw Pact and three former republics of the Soviet Union. George W. Bush was disconsolate he could not bring in Georgia and Ukraine.
Why did we expand NATO to within a few miles of St. Petersburg when NATO is not a social club but a military alliance? At its heart is Article V, a declaration that an armed attack on any one member is an attack on all.
America is now honor-bound to go to war against a nuclear-armed Russia for Estonia, which was part of the Russian Empire under the czars.
After the Russia-Georgia clash last August, Bush declared, “It’s important for the people of Lithuania to know that when the United States makes a commitment — we mean it.”
But “mean” what? That a Russian move on Vilnius will be met by U.S. strikes on Mother Russia? Are we insane?
Let us thank Divine Providence Russia has not tested the pledge.
For can anyone believe that, to keep Moscow from re-establishing its hegemony over a tiny Baltic republic, we would sink Russian ships, blockade Russian ports, bomb Russian airfields, attack Russian troop concentrations? That would risk having some Russian general respond with atomic weapons on U.S. air, sea and ground forces.
Great powers do not go to war against other great powers unless vital interests are imperiled. Throughout the Cold War, that was true of both America and Russia.
Though he had an atomic monopoly, Harry Truman did not use force to break the Berlin blockade. Nor did Ike intervene to save the Hungarians, whose 1956 revolution Moscow drowned in blood.
John F. Kennedy did not use force to stop the building of the Berlin Wall. Lyndon Johnson fired not a shot to halt the crushing of Prague Spring by Soviet tanks. When Solidarity was snuffed out on Moscow’s orders in 1981, Ronald Reagan would not even put the Polish regime in default.
In August 1991, George Bush I, in Kiev, poured ice water on Ukraine’s dream of independence: “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.”
Many Americans were outraged. But outrage does not translate into an endorsement of Bush’s 43’s plan to bring Ukraine into NATO and risk war with Russia over the Crimea.
Bush 43 bellowed at Moscow last summer to keep hands off the Baltic states. But his father barely protested when Gorbachev sent special forces into all three in 1991.
Bush I’s secretary of state, Jim Baker, said it was U.S. policy not to see Yugoslavia break up. Bush 43 was handing out NATO war guarantees to the breakaway republics.
“Washington … succumbed to victory disease and kept kicking Russia while it was down,” writes Betts. “Two decades of humiliation were a potent incentive for Russia to push back. Indeed this is why many realists opposed NATO expansion in the first place.”
Few Americans under 30 recall the Cold War. Yet can anyone name a single tripwire for war put down in the time of Dean Acheson or John Foster Dulles that we have pulled up?
Dwight Eisenhower, writes Richard Reeves, in his first meeting with the new president-elect, told JFK, “‘America is carrying far more than her share of the free world defense.’ It was time for the other nations of NATO to take on more of the cost of their own defense.”
Half a century later, we are still stuck “to the carcass of dead policies.”
Filed under: Uncategorized
Exactly! Yet the bipartisan consensus is to keep NATO alive. The true reasons being special interests living off all the US spending and the globalists who love to use NATO as their own globo-cop.
We seem to suffer from the delusion that by carrying the burden of European, Japanese, and Korean defense, we have some leverage over them. They spend tiny amounts of their GDP on defense, and they cannot project force beyond their own immediate region. It’s clear that we have no common of defense strategy and our allies will never take serious steps to provide stability in their respective regions.
Nato needs to be reorganized as a Western European Defense structure with the Mediterranean basin, Africa and the western North Atlantic as it’s Sphere of influence. Of course the European Union’s defense apparatus may make the whole thing moot.
One question remains. Who’s job is it to see that oil keeps flowing through the straits of Hormuz?
I tend to agree with the analysis. But I’m curious whether Mr. Buchanan thinks that it would be in the American national interest to go to war against a nuclear-armed China in order to protect Taiwan. If so, I’d like an explanation of the difference between Taiwan and the Baltic states.
Is it worthwhile to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion? If so, what’s the difference between that and the Baltic republics?
Russia will never be part of the EU or the Euro as long as the US leads NATO.
Yet, Russia cannot defend its rapidly depopulating eastern provinces from China. Russia will be suprised to be forced into an alliance with China only to be betrayed and lose its eastern provinces.
Yet Europe (western, central and eastern) cannot survive without Russian oil, gas and natural resources. Increasingly those resources are more important than any stimulus from US troops and bases.
Europe and the US are still partners! Partners in culture, partners in western civilization, partners in technology and economy, partners defense, etc BUT increasingly the future visions of national interest are different for the US and Europe.
The US should encourage Europe to embrace Russia and Eastern Europe by pulling its permanent troops and bases out. We can still use european bases as via a permanent invitation as needed.
Look at the current crisis in North Korea. Issue an ultimatum to China, Russia and Japan. Either unify North and South Korea or we will bomb and declare war on North Korea. We can then pull our troops out of a unified North Korea.
It is true that NATO has served its original purpose and that it is currently not necessary as a defense alliance. But it is the brace that keeps the US and Europe together. What will happen in that relationship if NATO is dissolved? I do not claim to know, but how can you discuss “why not let go of NATO” without addressing that question?
If there’s a weakness in the Buchanan/walk-away-from-NATO-now school of thought it seems to me the familiar one of unconsciously believing that the present situation is more stable than it is.
That is, is everyone so sure that the nature and stability of Russia today are such that we ought to walk away from the intellectual and material architecture so laboriously constructed over the decades so as to contain her?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of trying to essentially welcome Russia into being a modern European-type nation as soon as possible. And I’ll even grant that even if handled as delicately as possible the very existence of NATO can somewhat work against that.
But it still would be nice to see at least a few more years go by of apparent moderation and stability in Russia, and apparent moderation and stability that is more clearly being attained other than at the point of what can seem a pretty tough bunch of Kremlin customers and the periodic mysterious shootings of journalists and etc.
And I also would ask whether those who are in favor of walking away from NATO now aren’t conceeding that the West ought to just accept it if, say, Russia forcibly re-annexed a number of her former Republics, including a big chunk of the Ukraine if not all of it.
If, after all, the rationale for walking away from NATO is that Russia is already merging with modern Europe, well, we wouldn’t *want* that merging to happen anyway if it *did* go re-absorbing the Ukraine and otherwise being revanchist, would we?
Maybe instead of killing off NATO it should just be kept at a lower profile for awhile. We’re talking an issue with huge consequences here that so far seems to have been handled to produce fairly happy results. In any event some extreme prudence would seem called for I think.
TomB. I’m not sure that Pat is saying that Russia is already a good citizen in the community of nations. I think his point is that Europe has the military where with all to defend itself. In my view that would take something like a robust European Union defense organization.
Obviously I can’t speak for Pat but i suspect that he agrees with you that Russia is run by “tough customers.” But if asked, I think he would compare the current Kremlin leadership more to PRI Mexico than to Stalin’s USSR.
This brings up an interesting point. Many of us don’t like the merging of all the old cultures of Europe into the European Union. But only such a Union could deter a serious Russian attack. It’s a quandary.
[...] http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2009/03/27/why-wont-we-let-go-of-nato/ Why not let go of NATO? The American Conservative March 27th, 2009 Patrick J. Buchanan “In 1877, Lord Salisbury, commenting on Great Britain’s policy on the Eastern Question, noted that ‘the commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies.’ [...]