Is Europe headed back to 1914 circumstances?
Can Tweety Pie and Tweety Dumb Supporters be any more ignorant of the value and need the United States has for a validated and strong Europe?
President Trump directly, and on his orders, his State Department, and Vice President, have created a clear withdrawal from alliances that lasted 70 years.
It is time for a "divorce" between the United States and the rest of the World, all other Democracies. US values are not the same any longer . . .
"Is Going It Alone the Best Way Forward for Europe?"
Why Strategic Autonomy Should Be the Continent’s Goal
By Benjamin Haddad and Alina Polyakova October 17, 2018
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/2018-10-17/going-it-alone-best-way-forward-europe
"Since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, Europeans have struggled to come to terms with his confrontational style and policies. From Trump’s tariffs to his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris agreement to calling the EU a “foe,” no U.S. president since World War II has appeared so distant, even hostile, to European interests."
With such an uninformed, threatening, rude, disrespectful US President sending emissaries. Pompeo and Pence, and others, to insult NATO and try to "gangsta" strong-arm bullying the European Union, how can Europe think it best to stay "married" to the US? Why should Europe takes "orders" from Trump?
"In recent months, however, the tone coming from European capitals has changed. In August, in a rather undiplomatic op-ed, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed doubts that his country could just “sit this presidency out” and called for “a sovereign, strong Europe” in response to Trump’s hostility. Macron echoed this sentiment in his annual speech to ambassadors: “I do not honestly think today that China or the United States thinks Europe is a power with strategic autonomy comparable to their own. I do not believe it.”"
It would be wise for Europe and the United States to remain steadfast in our Alliances as examples of successful Democracies, expressing the humanity and decency of our form of government. But in 2019 US values under Trump are ugly, diminished, and shout extreme nationalism, racism, lack of concern for human rights, and war-like aggression, thus separating the continents.
"The United States’ pivot away from Europe did not start with Trump. The end of the Cold War made Europe less central to U.S. national security interests, as shown by the 75 percent decrease in U.S. troop presence in Europe since then."
These author's (Benjamin Haddad and Alina Polyakova) notion of pivoting away from Europe is wrong. The United States has NOT "pivoted away" from Europe because we have reduced our military occupation. Weapons have changed as have strategies for future wars. It is clear and simple troops are withdrawn to "de-occupy" Europe.
Withdrawing troops means the troops are not needed in Europe, period. That is a good thing, but does not mean Alliances are not needed or not important to the US survival in a challenging world. These authors have it wrong to think soldiers in Europe are proof of our ties with Europe in 2019.
"Reaffirming his view of imbalance in the U.S.-European relationship, Obama, frustrated with France and the United Kingdom’s absence from the post-conflict political reconstruction of Libya, famously called Europeans “free riders” in his outgoing interview with The Atlantic."
Europe grew with the help of the US and we avoided war with NATO, ALL OF WHICH BENEFITTED THE UNITED STATES AS MUCH AS EUROPE IN MANY, MANY WAYS. The United States should not say it invested in Europe so these nations could repay a "debt."
Obama should not have said what he said about Europe in public, unless he had exhausted his efforts for greater European involvement in rebuilding Libya and other needs.
"The European model of foreign policy is rooted in the ideal of multilateralism and peaceful cooperation, embodied in the EU’s aspiration of an “ever closer union.” Despite setbacks, the European project, which brought 70 years of unprecedented peace to a war-torn continent, has been a success. But it would not have been possible without the U.S. military umbrella and NATO, which, among other things, allowed Europeans to invest in their economies rather than in their militaries. This underlying dependency on U.S. power enabled Europe to become what it is today—an economically robust and politically integrated continent—but it has also left Europeans unprepared for a world of great power competition."
As stated above, THE UNITED STATES BENEFITTED AS EUROPE BECAME ECONOMICALLY STRONG. The US should not betray its own investment in Europe by now saying Europe does not do enough to help the world.
". . . strategic autonomy means urgently shoring up European military capacities and capabilities. The NATO commitment to spend two percent of GDP on defense should be the minimum benchmark. A broader rethinking of European capabilities, capacities, and readiness is already taking place with the framework of the EU-launched Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which will better pool resources for acquisition and R&D, the creation of the European Defense Fund, and Macron’s proposed European Intervention Initiative, which aims to create a common European strategic culture through joint planning and exchange of troops."
It will be vary challenging for Europe to increase defense spending if their economies cannot support the required spending on research and joint armies.
". . . strategic autonomy means urgently shoring up European military capacities and capabilities. The NATO commitment to spend two percent of GDP on defense should be the minimum benchmark. A broader rethinking of European capabilities, capacities, and readiness is already taking place with the framework of the EU-launched Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which will better pool resources for acquisition and R&D, the creation of the European Defense Fund, and Macron’s proposed European Intervention Initiative, which aims to create a common European strategic culture through joint planning and exchange of troops."
Is this reasonable? Will Europe get busy and make their independence a reality?
"Strategic autonomy should, however, not solely be based on defense and security. As the United States’ expansive use of extraterritorial sanctions has shown, Europeans are vulnerable to U.S. weaponization of its economic power. Inevitably, the economic imbalance will mean a reckoning by EU leaders with the role of the euro in the global economy. Taken as a whole, the EU is one of the world’s largest economies, accounting for 22 percent of world GDP. Yet the euro represents a much smaller share of global currency reserves and international trade than the dollar, a sign that investors still don’t trust the long-term future of the eurozone after years of crises and ad hoc responses to address the zone’s shortcomings. Germany, as the economic powerhouse of the eurozone, should work together with France and the European Commission to take concrete steps to ensure the sustainability and competitiveness of the monetary zone."
Europe must find a way to integrate.
"Strategic autonomy could be the vision that rallies both integrationists such as Macron and more conservative figures such as Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz without giving in to the illiberalism of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. If the integrationists can make the case that the EU can shield its citizens against an unstable geopolitical environment through investments in security, border control, and effective trade policies, it will undermine the agenda of illiberal forces."
The United States will benefit as Europe becomes more independent, but only if we are not too cozy with Russia or f**k up negotiations with China. Current State Department efforts do not, in my opinion, bode well for the United States as our dealing with Russia and China seems awkward and bumbling, ineffective, and ignorant.
". . . European strategic autonomy will benefit Washington as well. First, politically: the lopsided defense relationship has fueled resentment among U.S. policymakers and voters who wonder why rich European countries have to rely on the United States to fight wars closer to European shores than American ones. More important, as the United States shifts resources toward competition with Russia and China, a more autonomous Europe could contribute to global security and economic balancing, from the fight against terrorism to containing the rise of China."
What's the United States to do under President Trump? "Tweety Pie" is so ignorant I have little hope for good things to come from the adversarial approach Trump and his cronies have chosen.
"U.S. policymakers, meanwhile, should help steer Europe in the right direction to ensure that Europeans remain part of the U.S. global agenda. The tumultuous relationship that three U.S. presidents—John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon—had with French President Charles de Gaulle could serve as inspiration. "
In the end, how can the US "guide" Europe and prevent Europe falling under the "umbrella" of Russia and China? Given Trump's impulsive, petulant ideas for "diplomacy," the US will NOT guide Europe anywhere except away from the US.
"To prevent a perverse version of European autonomy in which Europe pivots toward Russia with the false hope of replacing the U.S. security umbrella, Washington will have to support and encourage European autonomy in the right direction. After all, European strategic autonomy is not about building a counterweight to U.S. military power. It’s about Europe investing in its own security and the security of the transatlantic alliance. And Europe will have to overcome its internal divisions while managing the political challenges of growing populism and working with the United States to counter common threats—no easy task, to be sure. Despite differences, leaders on both sides should be confident. In the face of a rising China, resurgent Russia and increasing security threats, there is much more binding the liberal democracies of the United States and Europe than dividing them."
This is, in my opinion, and I am an optimist "glass is half-full" guy, wishful thinking.
President Trump has no idea or intent to "guide" as he prefers bullying and demanding and win-lose deals.
Tweety supporters I know think retreating from Europe is a great tactic!
"Will Europe Be Victim of Nuclear Power Plays?"
U.S. President Trump has accused Russia of violating the INF arms control treaty and has suspended the pact, firing the starting gun on a new high-tech arms race. NATO is caught in the middle of what's been described in Berlin as the "Trump-Putin problem." By DER SPIEGEL Staff
By Benjamin Haddad and Alina Polyakova October 17, 2018
". . . there it lay, like a coffin resting on two green, metal supports: the corpus delicti, Russia's alleged super weapon, a missile capable of traveling so far that Washington says it is in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the agreement that has curbed the United States' and Russia's nuclear arsenals for decades.
Presenting the missile to the world in such a manner was an act of unprecedented transparency, said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. What he failed to mention was that the missile on display was, in fact, merely a hollow metal casing void of any controversial payload."
More.
"On Friday [1 Feb 2019?], American President Donald Trump made good on his threat to pull the U.S. out of the INF treaty, meaning one of the last two remaining major disarmament treaties between the U.S. and Russia will expire after six months. Nuclear arms control, which has provided Europe with security and stability for more than three decades, will be history. The result could be a new global arms race."
The world of 2019 is very complex and very dangerous as nuclear proliferation is suggested by President Trump, saying South Korea, Japan, and even Saudi Arabia should get nukes, and Putin uses unpredictability as a weapon.
"The mistrust among today's nuclear powers has reached a level not seen since the peak of the Cold War. When the INF treaty was signed, Russia was led by Gorbachev, the architect of glasnost. Fast forward to today and the current Russian president, Vladimir Putin, uses unpredictability as a political weapon. And in Washington, President Trump doesn't see why the U.S. shouldn't just use its nuclear weapons."
More.
"In Berlin, there is talk of a "Trump-Putin problem." For months, communications channels between the Americans and the Russians at the highest levels have been silent. The last time both countries' presidents spoke to each other at length was in Helsinki in July. A meeting scheduled for November in Paris never took place. And talks on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires in early December was canceled due to the crisis in the Sea of Azov.
In the U.S., the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections has put President Trump under so much pressure that there is a de facto ban on communication between him and President Putin."
More.
"There was also the so-called ABM treaty, which restricted the use of anti-ballistic missiles for defensive purposes. The U.S., however, pulled out in 2002. Then there is the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, which set upper limits for tanks and artillery, though the Russians haven't felt bound to that agreement for more than 10 years. And now doubt is being cast on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty . . . "
Is it time for Germany and Poland to get nukes? France has nukes.
"How will NATO react? Roderich Kiesewetter, a defense expert with Germany's ruling Christian Democratic party (CDU), is already calling for a new version of the NATO Double-Track Decision of 1979, a mixture of "firmness while negotiating and a willingness to engage in dialogue." "If Russia doesn't dismantle its systems, we must ensure Europe's security and shouldn't exclude any options, even nuclear ones," he says."
Of course NATO countries do not want to end compliance with the INF and seek Russian cooperation with respect to deploying the intermediate nuke missiles.
". . . many NATO members -- most notably France and Germany -- are hesitant to accuse Russia of a clear violation of the INF treaty. At the NATO summit in Brussels in July 2018, the heads of state and government agreed upon a statement that left open a back door for Russia: "Allies believe that, in the absence of any credible answer from Russia on this new missile, the most plausible assessment would be that Russia is in violation of the Treaty."
At that, Putin seized the initiative. At a summit a few days later in Helsinki, he put forward proposals on arms control, including a renewal of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START. The weaponization of outer space was also discussed. He said nothing new about the INF treaty."
The US is pushing Europe to withdraw from the INF?! Ha! It is easy for the US to ask the closest target of Russian missiles to withdraw from a treaty that hopefully gives some security, lends some safe margin to their continued existence and avoidance of war!
"Unlike in the past, U.S. intelligence agencies granted its allied counterparts access to their raw data. They shared a satellite video showing that the Russians' 9M729, the cruise missile at the heart of the controversy, was capable of traveling more than 500 kilometers. They also named companies involved in the development and manufacturing of the prohibited weapons and their launchers.
The demonstration had the intended effect. In early December, for the first time, the foreign ministers of NATO announced Russia had violated the INF treaty without making any allowances.
Nevertheless, talks have continued with the Russians. On Jan. 15, Undersecretary Andrea Thompson met with a Russian delegation in Geneva. The meeting, however, didn't end well."
More. Germany is most active trying to keep the INF alive.
"NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg is not ready to seriously discuss a possible reaction by the alliance. "We have asked our military commanders, our military authorities, to look into the consequences," he said on Jan. 15. Even after Feb. 2, Russia still has six months to bring itself back into compliance with the treaty. "After that, then the treaty has ceased to exist.""
China?
"Russia and the U.S. together possess over 92 percent of all nuclear weapons, but other countries are also arming themselves in their shadows. The week before last, China's People's Liberation Army reported that two DF-26 medium-range missiles had been fired in a missile test "somewhere in northwestern China." The missiles are better known by military experts as the "Guam-killer." Contrary to "doubts" by the Western media, the army says its missile is very capable of hitting a "slow moving aircraft carrier."
China, which is not limited by any disarmament agreement, already possesses the world's largest arsenal of ballistic missiles."
More. Poland?
". . . NATO member states in Western Europe have a much less robust response in mind for the Russian missiles than the Poles and the Baltic states. "NATO cohesion is in great danger," warns Ischinger.
And there is no shortage of military officials who feel that may be the true Russian calculation at play here. They believe Moscow wants to drive a wedge through NATO."
Hope to keep the INF remains in Berlin.
