Trump Is Right—–Dump NATO Now
by David Stockman •
If you want to know why we have a $19 trillion national debt and a fiscal structure that will take that already staggering figure to $35 trillion and 140% of GDP within a decade, just consider the latest campaign fracas. That is, the shrieks of disbelief in response to Donald Trump’s sensible suggestion that the Europeans pay for their own defense.
The fact is, NATO has been an obsolete waste for 25 years. Yet the denizens of the Imperial City cannot even seem to grasp that the 4 million Red Army is no more; and that the Soviet Empire, which enslaved 410 million souls to its economic and military service, vanished from the pages of history in December 1991.
What is left is a pitiful remnant—–145 million aging, Vodka-besotted Russians who subsist in what is essentially a failing third world economy. Its larcenous oligarchy of Putin and friends appeared to live high on the hog and to spread a veneer of glitz around Moscow and St. Petersburg. But that was all based on the world’s one-time boom in oil, gas, nickel, aluminum, fertilizer, steel and other commodities and processed industrial materials.
Stated differently, the Russian economy is a glorified oil patch and mining town with a GDP the equivalent of the NYC metropolitan area. And that’s its devastating Achilles Heel.
The central bank driven global commodity and industrial boom is over and done. As a new cycle of epic deflation engulfs the world and further compresses commodity prices and profits, the Russian economy is going down for the count; it’s already been shrunk by nearly 10% in real terms, and the bottom is a long way down from there.
The plain fact is Russia is an economic and military weakling and is not the slightest threat to the security of the United States. None. Nichts. Nada. Nope.
Its entire expenditure for national defense amounts to just $50 billion, but during the current year only $35 billion of that will actually go to the Russian Armed Forces. On an apples-to-apples basis, that’s about three weeks of Pentagon spending!
Even given its non-existent capacity, however, there remains the matter of purported hostile intention and aggressive action. But as amplified below, there has been none. The whole demonization of Putin is based on a false narrative arising from one single event.
To wit, the February 2014 coup in Kiev against Ukraine’s constitutionally elected government was organized, funded and catalyzed by the Washington/NATO apparatus. Putin took defensive action in response because this supremely stupid and illegal provocation threatened vital interests in his own backyard.
The openly hostile government installed in Kiev the very next day by the State Department threatened to join NATO, persecute the Russian-speaking minority in eastern Ukraine, renounce its multi-billion financial obligations to Moscow and imperil Russia’s rental arrangement for the homeport of its Black Sea naval fleet in Sevastopol (Crimea). The latter has been the historic anchor of Russia’s national security policy under czars and commissars alike.
Moreover, the putsch installed by the “regime change” crowd at the CIA, State Department and so-called Endowment for Democracy while Putin was minding his own business at the Sochi Olympics was crawling with adherents of the “Right Sector”. The latter is a fascist movement that looks to a World War II Nazi collaborator, Stepan Bandera, as its national hero.
That’s right. The new prime minister imposed by US Assistant Secretary of State and card-carrying neocon, Victoria Nuland, and affectionately known as “our man Yats” was part of a neo-Nazi cabal.
Moreover, without the prodding of Washington and the bellicose incitements of the NATO apparatus, Europe wouldn’t even need a military alliance. Save for the manufactured and unnecessary conflict with Russia, Europe has no industrial state enemy on the planet; it doesn’t need to spend even the $250 billion or 2% of GDP that it collectively allocates to defense (waste) at present.
The whole confrontation with Russia including the self-inflicted economic folly of the anti-Putin sanctions is the handiwork of a war machine and its bureaucratic auxiliaries that are long past their sell-by date. That is, the entire “Russian threat” narrative is concocted by generals, admirals, spies, diplomats and other national security apparatchiks who would otherwise be out of power, jobs and cushy pensions.
Naturally, Trump’s GOP rivals crawled out of their time warps to calamity-howl the very idea of getting realistic about NATO. Not surprisingly, Governor Kasich said Trump was “dead wrong”, and then unleashed another barrage of his patented beltway stupid-speak:
But Ted Cruz is another matter. When it comes to foreign policy, the guy is just plain whacko. He has been so pumped full of neocon ideology that he fairly oozes jingoistic bile:
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*Phodos added
The fact is, NATO has been an obsolete waste for 25 years. Yet the denizens of the Imperial City cannot even seem to grasp that the 4 million Red Army is no more; and that the Soviet Empire, which enslaved 410 million souls to its economic and military service, vanished from the pages of history in December 1991.
What is left is a pitiful remnant—–145 million aging, Vodka-besotted Russians who subsist in what is essentially a failing third world economy. Its larcenous oligarchy of Putin and friends appeared to live high on the hog and to spread a veneer of glitz around Moscow and St. Petersburg. But that was all based on the world’s one-time boom in oil, gas, nickel, aluminum, fertilizer, steel and other commodities and processed industrial materials.
Stated differently, the Russian economy is a glorified oil patch and mining town with a GDP the equivalent of the NYC metropolitan area. And that’s its devastating Achilles Heel.
The central bank driven global commodity and industrial boom is over and done. As a new cycle of epic deflation engulfs the world and further compresses commodity prices and profits, the Russian economy is going down for the count; it’s already been shrunk by nearly 10% in real terms, and the bottom is a long way down from there.
The plain fact is Russia is an economic and military weakling and is not the slightest threat to the security of the United States. None. Nichts. Nada. Nope.
Its entire expenditure for national defense amounts to just $50 billion, but during the current year only $35 billion of that will actually go to the Russian Armed Forces. On an apples-to-apples basis, that’s about three weeks of Pentagon spending!
Even given its non-existent capacity, however, there remains the matter of purported hostile intention and aggressive action. But as amplified below, there has been none. The whole demonization of Putin is based on a false narrative arising from one single event.
To wit, the February 2014 coup in Kiev against Ukraine’s constitutionally elected government was organized, funded and catalyzed by the Washington/NATO apparatus. Putin took defensive action in response because this supremely stupid and illegal provocation threatened vital interests in his own backyard.
The openly hostile government installed in Kiev the very next day by the State Department threatened to join NATO, persecute the Russian-speaking minority in eastern Ukraine, renounce its multi-billion financial obligations to Moscow and imperil Russia’s rental arrangement for the homeport of its Black Sea naval fleet in Sevastopol (Crimea). The latter has been the historic anchor of Russia’s national security policy under czars and commissars alike.
Moreover, the putsch installed by the “regime change” crowd at the CIA, State Department and so-called Endowment for Democracy while Putin was minding his own business at the Sochi Olympics was crawling with adherents of the “Right Sector”. The latter is a fascist movement that looks to a World War II Nazi collaborator, Stepan Bandera, as its national hero.
That’s right. The new prime minister imposed by US Assistant Secretary of State and card-carrying neocon, Victoria Nuland, and affectionately known as “our man Yats” was part of a neo-Nazi cabal.
Moreover, without the prodding of Washington and the bellicose incitements of the NATO apparatus, Europe wouldn’t even need a military alliance. Save for the manufactured and unnecessary conflict with Russia, Europe has no industrial state enemy on the planet; it doesn’t need to spend even the $250 billion or 2% of GDP that it collectively allocates to defense (waste) at present.
The whole confrontation with Russia including the self-inflicted economic folly of the anti-Putin sanctions is the handiwork of a war machine and its bureaucratic auxiliaries that are long past their sell-by date. That is, the entire “Russian threat” narrative is concocted by generals, admirals, spies, diplomats and other national security apparatchiks who would otherwise be out of power, jobs and cushy pensions.
Naturally, Trump’s GOP rivals crawled out of their time warps to calamity-howl the very idea of getting realistic about NATO. Not surprisingly, Governor Kasich said Trump was “dead wrong”, and then unleashed another barrage of his patented beltway stupid-speak:
We clearly have to make sure we strengthen NATO, we have to make sure that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin understands we will arm the Ukrainians so they fight for freedom,” Kasich told Anderson Cooper. “We need NATO. NATO is important; we all wish they would do more.”The man is still campaigning for the Lithuanian vote in Youngstown—so maybe he has no particular reason to think about the matter. But at least someone should disabuse him of the fairy tale that the nationalist politicians, crypto-Nazi thugs and thieving oligarchs who seized the Ukrainian government are some kind of latter day “freedom fighters”.
But Ted Cruz is another matter. When it comes to foreign policy, the guy is just plain whacko. He has been so pumped full of neocon ideology that he fairly oozes jingoistic bile:
“It has been Russia’s objective, it has been Putin’s objective, for decades to break NATO. What Donald Trump is saying that he would unilaterally surrender to Russia and Putin, give Putin a massive foreign policy victory by breaking NATO and abandoning Europe.”Needless to say, there is not a single accurate point in that statement. The truth is more nearly the opposite. And that begins with George H. W Bush’s 1989 promise to Gorbachev that in return for his acquiescence to the reunification of Germany, NATO would not be expanded by “a single inch”.
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*Phodos added
