Ted Malloch: TRUMP SAVES NATO

Guest post by Ted Malloch

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) turns 70 years old this year.

NATO is an old man looking for a mission and befuddled by the fact that only nine of its 29 member states pay their agreed dues, up from five last year, thanks to President Trump’s pestering – not that he gets any credit for it.

That is $130 billion more! Which is both more money than one can fathom, and simultaneously a pitiful share (~20%) of America’s defense spending.

They are paying more thanks to constant hammering by President Trump, but many have not gotten to the 2 per cent level yet, including the richest countries, like Germany. So long as Chancellor Merkel remains in power with the votes of the left-wing Socialists (“Grand coalition”) in the Bundestag the chance is near zilch of this issue being dealt with. She’s promised Germany will hit the target in the “Early 2030s”.

Unbelievable.

But Trump is turning it around, give him credit!

In the meantime, the world has changed a great deal since 1949 – 70 years ago, when the Washington Treaty was first signed and the North Atlantic Charter put into force. American soldiers held the line on the free side of the Iron Curtain long enough for Moscow to trip on its own contradictions.

But 1989 was 30 years ago – the triumph that was the 50th anniversary celebrations (1999) is a distant memory – fully benefiting from nostalgia for the 90’s, despite the Balkan wars awkwardly underlining the limitations of collective security in the new world order.

This summit is less of a celebration of the military achievements and the collapse of the Soviet empire than it is a day of reckoning.

The operative question is: Does NATO have a future or is it, as French President Macron recently called it, “brain dead”? Merkel herself famously criticized NATO in the months after POTUS’ inauguration in 2017 and backed Macron’s version of a European army, widely seen as a threat to the alliance.

Turkey’s President Erdogan, the enfant terrible of the alliance (whose rough neighborhood includes long borders with Iran, Syria, Iraq, all unstable warzones) has also come out swinging, this time against French President Macron – It is Macron that’s braindead, said Erdogan. His Ambassador in Paris was called in for a stern dressing down.

Today in London at an anniversary summit of its members, President Donald Trump who has long thought the collective security arrangement “obsolete,” has reiterated his demand that Europe pay more (South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Japan, as well) for their defense.

He suggested NATO should refocus on terrorism, Syria, cybersecurity, and most critically, China, the number one adversary faced by NATO countries. Funnily enough, Turkey is on the same page on the terrorism issue.

Can NATO adapt fast enough?

The Russians are in no state to take over Ukraine, much less West Germany. The 21st century – about to enter its third decade – presents challenges very different to those NATO stared down in the cold war. Out of area operations like the Bosnian wars and Afghanistan have failed to provide a strategic rationale for the commitment required of America and even some European states.

The organization has certainly proven to be resilient – but is it relevant any longer? Witness the differences in implementing nuclear sanctions on Iran – Europe has set up INSTEX, a sanctions-dodging mechanism for blockade-running. Iran’s regime, currently wracked by the worst protests since their 1979 revolution by which it came to power, is being thrown a lifeline by Paris, Brussels and Berlin.

Why?

As the strongest and most successful military alliance in history, at least according to its own Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg (Norwegian) the crux of the matter on this birthday is, does it have an ability to change significantly?

He tries to make a case here: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_153756.htm

In our new book Trump’s World, we argue that the “Dog Fight” over NATO is in a critical stage and the disrupter in chief, Donald Trump a Geo Deus, may give it a second breath but only if…

It pays.

And,

It shifts.

In his America First paradigm, but not alone, there is a new task master in town and he plays by new rules not old ways and ideologies of globalism.

NATO survives and grows in strength thanks to one Donald J. Trump.

Theodore Roosevelt Malloch is a scholar, diplomat, and strategist who was active in the Trump campaign in 2016. His soon to be released book, is Trump’s World: GEODEUS.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

You can email Jim Hoft here, and read more of Jim Hoft's articles here.

 

Thanks for sharing!