What is clear, however, is that Trump — who ostensibly spent four years as president of the United States — has little clue about what NATO is or what NATO does. And when he spoke on the subject at a rally in South Carolina over the weekend, what he said was less a cogent discussion of foreign policy than it was gibberish — the kind of outrageous nonsense that flows without interruption from an empty and unreflective mind.
“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’” Trump said, recalling an implausible conversation with an unnamed, presumably European head of state. “‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted responding. “‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”
The former president’s message was clear: If NATO members do not pay up, then he will leave them to the mercy of a continental aggressor who has already plunged one European country into death, destruction and devastation.
Except NATO isn’t a mafia protection racket. NATO, in case anyone needs to be reminded, is a mutual defense organization, formed by treaty in 1949 as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union hardened into conflict. “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” states Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
It’s a bit weird hearing people make a huge fuss over Trump not taking the Russian threat seriously while they themselves are refusing to spend even just the minimum they’ve already agreed to spend on defence. Especially if we’re looking at the potential of the US being an unreliable partner, shouldn’t we be putting a lot more effort into shoring things up here at home? (Canadian)
Yes, we definitely should, but you won’t find a party on any side of the spectrum that will run on that.
Which is among the reasons that people are losing faith in government, and why Trump is capable of capitalizing on the issue.
Shoresy?
Can’t lose what you never had. Its laughable to pretend that Trump ever had a clue as to what NATO is or does.
If Putin doesn’t like it, then Trump doesn’t like it. He probably doesn’t even know why.
He thinks NATO is his slum tenants and fancies himself a mob boss getting paid protection money.
My suspicion is that he got NATO and NAFTA confused years ago and never admitted it. Now he believes it’s about trade and defense.
He doesn’t understand OUR military, how is he going to comprehend the utility of a trans-national mutual defense accord?
I’m frankly amazed he doesn’t choke on his food, he’s so fucking stupid.
He has Melania chew his food for him like a mama bird with its young.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jared does that for him.
You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”
Boy, that’s rich coming from Il Douche.
From somebody being sued by their former attorney for not paying their bills
From somebody who was sued for not paying his contractors.
Doesn’t he owe a bunch of cops money from like 2016 still?
The only time the mutual defence treaty was triggered is because the US was attacked and all countries in NATO stepped up to the plate.
Not just stepped up to the plate, but went pretty much all-in on a COMPLETELY pointless invasion against what was almost certainly the wrong country.
That’s how committed they were to NATO.
I am assuming you mean the Iraq war, but that was not a NATO operation, it just happened to have many NATO allies providing support, not all of them.
To your point, it was called the “Coalition of the willing”. Article 5 was not invoked.
Article 5 was invoked in response to 9/11: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
That was Afghanistan.
Kind of, but not really. NATO did operations to ensure US’s immediate security against further terrost attacks. Once the US affirmed it had it’s shit together, NATO pulled out. Any countries that stuck around for the counter-attack wars (like Afghanistan and Iraq) did so under different banners. NATO does not encroach or encourage war, it exists to prevent it and will do what’s necessary up to the point a nation is deemed safe again.
It circles the injured sheep and fights off the wolf. Once this is done, it doesn’t then hunt down the fleeing wolf. This works very well because other animals aren’t scared of NATO controlling the lands, but the wolves are also scared of trying to attack that herd.
Similarly, if everything went wrong for the US in Afghanistan, NATO wouldn’t help. If the US retreated and started getting attacked in its homeland, NATO would.
At the time it was correct and very much not pointless. Where we fucked up was staying around and trying to nation build. Moment we destroyed al qaeda we should have left.
When did we destroy al qaeda?
Al Qaeda was never in Iraq though.
Afghanistan was in response to 9/11 and where nato allies helped…
Completely different war.
Mission accomplished! (/s)
My implication is that if we really wanted to get Bin Laden / Al-Qaeda, the more sensible targets were Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Which of course we didn’t go after. We had a goal of spilling some Arab blood, but wanted a target that would be a cooperative punching bag.
And even then, we still fucking failed. Al-Qaeda still exists. Or it was consumed by/transformed into/always secretly was just a branch of Daesh who are still going strong. Or maybe they weren’t really a coherent organization in the first place and were always more grassroots/franchised. Not to mention the Taliban are right back in power and doing their same shit. We accomplished nothing more than running the best possible recruitment campaign for the next generation of west-hating religious extremist warriors.
And the attack was done by rogue non-state actors. Europe agreed to go burn a whole district because a thug who lived roughly there punched USA in the face. Now Europe faces an entire mafia from another town and Trump says “should’ve bought better gear, bye suckers”.
Trump knows what NATO is. This is rhetoric for his voters.
He doesn’t care, he’s doing what Putin tells him. Destabilise the western alliance
I can guarantee you that if it isn’t a woman’s ass we’re talking about, there’s not chance he’s grasped it.
He has this bizarre idea in his head that NATO is like one of his golf clubs with membership fees and not GDP pledges.
Both sides though, right? I mean… we have one guy wanting to plunge America into absolute chaos by dismantling hundreds of years of progress and ending democracy as we know it just so he can protect his sad little crumbling empire of corruption….
And the other guy is old.
Totally comparable!
And the other guy is slightly older
D. Trump, traitor
Remember in 2016 when Republican types were adamant that Hillary wouldn’t be tough enough on Putin, and that Liberals were Communists? And that the Liberals would let Russia do whatever it wanted?
And now those same Republicans are outspoken against helping Ukraine, and want to let Russia just have it. Their preferred candidate wants to dismantle the organization of countries that stands as the United front against Russian expansion. Working deliberately and blatantly toward Putin’s interests isn’t a problem to them at all.
Back then, I thought that if there was a single (decent) principle they actually stand for, that would have been it. Apparently I was wrong.
Kompromat in the form of the RNC’s emails that have not been leaked.
At this point I suspect the main damage is done. But the dirt was found out a different way.
The big secret to hide was campaign funding and coordination. But Trump won anyway. Then didn’t even get in trouble for it.
And later the Russia>>NRA dark money link was found and reported on. Without the media then going ape shit that the funnel was really Russia>>NRA>>GOP. And without any of the Biden administration cracking down on what happened.
So I suspect it’s why they’re all even more brazen now. Some of the dirt was found. It didn’t amount to any punishment. So why bother trying to hide now?
Emails that WikiLeaks apparently has but said “nah we’re not going to release them because there’s totes nothing in there trust us”.
They could’ve been neutral and trustworthy. Instead they had an axe to grind against Hillary, and prioritized that over being known for objective truth.
At this point what could possibly be in those emails that their voters wouldn’t just dismiss?
Trump supporters are more pathetic than the man himself. This is exemplified simply because this demonstration of his ineptitude as well as his various acts of indecency and immorality cannot and will not sway their opinion of the man.
The only way to change their opinion of him is for Trump himself to “go woke” so hard they no longer recognize him as their Cheeto covered Jesus.
Based on discourse online post the invasion of Ukraine, it seems there’s a few Americans that don’t know what NATO is/does, nor how it differentiates from how the US conducts its military. For starters, it’s anti-militant—kind of the point—unless it has no other viable resort, and it’s the threat of that last resort that bolsters the passive-security within NATO. It is safety in numbers and it fails if the herd scatters.
As a result, Article 5 has only needed to be acted upon once and the irony is that it was the US that raised the call for help and the other nations responded.
If Trump has his way, WW3 will kick off, everyone will suffer, and it’ll end with the US saying, “Fucking hell. Wow. Let’s not let that happen again. We need some sort of agreement to make sure of that.”
“Fucking hell. Wow. Let’s not let that happen again. We need some sort of agreement to make sure of that.”
I don’t think humans have that much self-awarneess anymore, I think Trump can literally kill 12 million people with his bare hands and most people will say “Aww shucks” aside from a vocal minority, with the media calling such actions “Divisive” at worst
For starters, it’s anti-militant—kind of the point—unless it has no other viable resort
Umm. Well. Are we including NATO-sponsored
invasionserr… peacekeeping conflict-resolution interventions?NATO doesn’t only operate in defense, there have been a long list of NATO-sponsored interventions outside NATO membership: Kuwait/Iraq, the Balkans, Libya. One can argue whether NATO operations were justified in those cases, but I don’t think any of them could be described as anti-militant, or that there were no other viable options. Doing nothing was an option, for example.
With Article 4, they will respond to threats with enough recourse to prevent it or provide aid and assistance for operations focused toward peace. The “threat” being one the collective nations of NATO agree that a member of NATO will not be able to handle alone, thus its security will be compromised, and that would lead to Article 5 being invoked when it could’ve been avoided earlier.
I’m not even saying that I disagree with the decision to intervene in Kuwait, but it was certainly militant, and NATO nations certainly had other “resorts” to insure their own security. I’m having trouble coming up with any argument that Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, for example, threatened the security of a NATO member.
Stop applying Hanlon’s Razor to Trump.
It’s fucking malice.
¿Porque no los dos?
Hanlon’s Razor If youre curious.
How do people not see this as being directed by Putin? Russia is literally the only beneficiary of this “stupidity”.
The funny thing is, Russia would never actually strike NATO. I don’t know what the fuck State or JCS are letting him get away with while DOJ jacks off with reports about the incumbent’s mental health, but Trump needs to be gagged and thrown into solitary yesterday.
Is that a new brand of wood chipper?
For the GOP voters? 50+ yrs of highly concentrated, and pointed propaganda.
For the nonvoters? Bc their favorite social media sites (this one included) are full of russian bad faith actors working to make Status Quo Joe seem somehow worse, or, at the very least, more ineffectual, than ronald mcdump.
Just saw a fella here the other day absolutely screeching and livid that Joe “hasn’t done anything for Flint.” I mean, neither did Donald and also Donald hamstrung the EPA as best he could to make things worse all over the nation.
The dishonesty is so overt. That guy didn’t respond to anything, either, so no updates if he is concerned for the EPA or not.
Its all performative. Theres no shortage of 20something yr old leftist idealists that are ripe for the brainwashing. Just discovered The Dunk Tank, which i guess is more of the same.
24 year old leftist redneck the fuck is the dunk tank, is that some tankie shit im too Non Credible Defense pilled to understand.
It’s hexbear so yes, tankie shit. They screen grab themselves “dunking” on “liberals”!
Fair enough, didnt realize it was hexbear. Sounded like a podcast or something like that.
It’s a NYTimes article. As much stupid shit as Trump has said, he was right about the NYT. And that’s why they have all these very shareable articles exploring every nook and cranny of his psyche. This article would have been exhausting to read in 2017.
It certainly has the exact structure of all the other Russian agitation material, designed to breed resentment.
I can imagine the typical low-information voter: “What? They think we’re required to fight for them? And they refuse to do their share at the same time? Oh the entitlement!” - bam - anger against EU, happy about Trump supposedly calling them out, may even support leaving NATO.
True, but EU countries not contributing to mutual defense also helps Putin. Both are bad. Some EU countries are finally adding some defense spending now there’s a literal war on their continent.
The lack of defense spending in Europe is pushed by European political parties partially supported by Russia. So basically, Putin has created the problem that he told Trump to yell about.
