“If an American president says he no longer wishes to defend the other allies and leaves a NATO summit in protest, then the NATO treaty and its security guarantee aren’t worth very much,” Stoltenberg wrote.
This is absolute bullshit, BTW. NATO leaders have a history of seriously overvaluing the necessity of the US to the alliance.
Yes, obviously, having the world's biggest military power on your side is a really good thing. But, with or without the US, NATO can still be a force for mutual defence. It's a far better thing to have than not have, and defeatist bullshit like this is just kicking the trusses out for no good reason.
This is all saber-rattling on the part of Krasnov and has been since day one.
If the US were going to leave NATO he'd have already started that process. With every day that goes by his own leverage at home is shrinking, while Ukraine still has many supporters in positions of power, meaning that if Krasnov really did want to pull the US out of NATO, it is becoming politically harder and harder to do so.
Additionally, being in NATO is also protective for the US, and this is not without value given as many wars as this fucker has already begun on a whim: somebody somewhere might want to hit back, and remaining in NATO helps deter that to some extent.
So instead, Krasnov just keeps threatening and not doing, even as his own position gets weaker and weaker.
Compare and contrast this with Russia. Saber-rattling is high on the list of Putin's methodology of controlling his nearest neighbors and always has been, but the US has never had to, and why would it?
The simple fact is that the US can't leave NATO for as long as Krasnov is Putin's puppet, because keeping Ukraine OUT of NATO is far more important to Putin than any other consideration.
The second the US leaves NATO is the second the US can no longer veto Ukraine's admission.
So who benefits by all this threatening and not doing? Putin. Krasnov got another phone call and here we are again.
You mean that Rutte's "strategy" of having his tongue pretty much glued to Trump's ass hasn't actually resulted in Trump thinking of himself as "just another member in a group for the common good"?
Lunatic still confuses "individual human called Donald Trump" and "nation called US, regardless of who it contains". NATO is an agreement between nations, not individual humans. "Loyalty" has no place in there.
If the US loses its network of bases around the world it's screwed forever.
I do wonder if this has anything to do with the US looking to merge our military with Israel's, and moving CENTCOM to Israel. I know those arent NATO issues exactly, but I imagine they are complicated ideas in light of our NATO obligations.
Don't you understand!? We want you to be a branch of the great, marvellous, bestes ever US military. We want you to jump when our greatest, glorious, godly, mastermind leader says jump. This is so an honour for you!
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