The Trump administration is considering scrapping the longstanding role of the U.S. in leading NATO’s military operations in Europe, NBC News reported on March 18, citing unnamed defense officials.
For nearly 75 years, a four-star U.S. general has held the position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), overseeing NATO’s military strategy and operations.
I’ve seen this said before, and I’ll say it again. If Trump is NOT an agent, paid or otherwise, of Russia (and he may well not be!)–he is doing an incredible job of accomplishing every single thing that a Russian agent would want to.
Ending military support for Ukraine.
Alienating our European allies.
Kneecapping our economic advantages.
Pulling us back from NATO, thus weakening both ourselves and the alliance.
Really mind blowing, isn’t it?
Given trump loves name calling his enemies, I’m surprised he’s not just routinely called Traitor Trump.
Terrible? Yea. Awful? Yes. Unamerican? Absolutely.
Mind blowing? No… not at all.
Trump has always said he hates the EU. Now he’s behaving in a hostile manner to the EU. That’s no surprise, and you don’t need to be a Russian spy to hate the EU, anyway.
Honestly, you don’t need the whole ‘Trump is literally a Russian spy!’ schtick to be aware of the danger that Trump could align the US (by their own volition) with Russia. But, Trump being a loose cannon, we have no idea what will happen in the so-called peace negotiations with Russia. Though it’s unlikely to be good news for the Ukrainians, at this point.
What is clear is that Trump has a thing for authoritarian leaders, unsurprisingly, as he probably sees himself as one as well.
The facto agent
When he leaves NATO, we need to worry about Canada, Greenland and Panama. He will start a war to make them US property.
I’ve read before that there has been a law passed disallowing the American president to decide to leave NATO. The republicans (having a majority) would have to vote in favour of leaving NATO in the American parliament. I’m not sure how unlikely that is, but the US republicans getting rid of NATO would be very interesting…
But the US don’t need to leave NATO to destroy it. All Trump needs to do is say the US won’t come to the assistance of NATO partners in the event of an attack. NATO could die in irrelevance instead.
What happens if the US attacks a NATO country?
I don’t know, but according to the Dutch Chief of Defence Mart de Kruif, it would trigger article 5 against the attacking NATO member:
If Trump indeed decides to militarily attack Greenland and thus NATO partner Denmark, Article 5 of the NATO charter would come into force. Under that article, an attack on one is an attack on all ‘and you are at war with all other NATO countries’. According to De Kruif, that would mean that the European part of NATO and Canada would be at war with the United States. ‘That would be a bizarre situation, I don’t think it would come to that either.’
Probably the opposite. By staying in NATO, but rendering it mostly obsolete, attacking Canada would be much less of a clear case of being an attack on NATO.
However, realistically speaking the rest of NATO has only limited force projection capabilities and thus wouldn’t be able to help Canada much.
