vanviegen 5 hours ago

NATO works by projecting a united force. Nations unconditionally backing each other up. The USA is now clearly no longer a part of that. That's not to say that the USA will do nothing if a NATO member is attacked. It might. Or not.

  • jonnybgood 4 hours ago

    For much of NATO history, the US is NATO. The US doesn’t want it to be like that anymore because it needs to strategically shift to the other side of the world. So, the US says “What if Europe can be NATO? If we can force them to meet the GDP commitment then maybe we don’t need to worry about them too much and commit less of our own resources to this theater.” But of course people interpret this as if the US is abandoning the alliance. No, the US just has other problems to deal with in the world.

    • exceptione 3 hours ago

      That is the rationalization, but don't be surprised if the US would not confront China at all.

      The main flow of capital in the US had been going to the mil.industry, but that is not the case anymore. It is mainly surveillance tech that is receiving capital. In a very unhealthy economy, this all looks eerily pre-'30s.

      The US, right now, is only threatening weak countries, they don't have the industrial power to confront China, nor do they want it. This shouldn't be a surprise, some ideologues behind this maga-project belief in an America from one pole to the other. They believe in "spheres of influence", and as such China has their own sphere of influence. A sphere of influence means a kind of colony, where natural resources, people and industry are all resources to be extracted by them. It is the Russian model, it is the model of criminal mobs, it is might makes right, it is a multi-polar world.

      Meanwhile, re-industrialization projects have been scrapped, partners have been scared of, and tariffs have hit the industry that was still left in America.

      Monopolists are parasites on the economy, and the US is already very weakened from that. As the Japanese said, the US is still a great power, but the throne is empty. I suspect there will be skirmishes with other "great powers" over exploitable resources like Africa, Middle East, Europe, but I don't expect the current crop to go all-in on China.

    • ChocolateGod 3 hours ago

      The US has been the biggest opponent to a European (or EU) army, fearing loss of influence and control. It was very much in US interest at the time.

    • vanviegen 3 hours ago

      Yes, the US has always been the driving force behind NATO. It provides close to 40% of the combined military personnel, and an even higher portion of military spending.

      No longer committing to defend other NATO countries, even if their military spending exceeds the target, is abandoning the alliance though. NATO is little else than that commitment.

    • benterix 4 hours ago

      Well, the very fact that we are even discussing it means Trump already weakened NATO as an alliance.

  • SirHumphrey 4 hours ago

    One can only imagine what America not fighting an attack on NATO member would have on nuclear proliferation.

    • RobotToaster 4 hours ago

      We're currently in the position of the USA threatening to attack a NATO member (Denmark)

    • everyone 4 hours ago

      Any country without nukes, that is not currently developing them, is stupid imo.. Nukes are the only thing that can guarantee sovereignty now. Ukraine gave up their nukes.

    • thuridas 4 hours ago

      Europe is already considering to have a nuclear shield.

      This is because if Trump

wisty 5 hours ago

There's a left wing cooker conspiracy theory that the guy who gave Ukraine the Javalin anti tank missiles and forced NATO to increase military spending to 5% of GDP is actually a secret Russian agent.

  • alimw an hour ago

    You literally just used NATO for a grouping that does not include the US.

    • wisty 13 minutes ago

      Can you rephrase what I said without "literally using NATO for a grouping that does not include the US"?

      I didn't even mention the US lol, I think you're paranoid but please, correct me ...

      I mean, I didn't phrase it as Trump being a part of NATO, but he's not actually a country.