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<p data-elm-loc="1">"Bipartisanship is when the Stupid Party and
the Evil Party get together and do something<br>
that is Stupid and Evil" - Tom Woods<br>
<font size="+3">...<br>
<font size="+1">Bipartisan bill would prevent Trump from
exiting NATO without Senate consent</font><br>
</font></p>
<p data-elm-loc="1">A quartet of senators launched a new
bipartisan effort Thursday to prevent President Trump from
withdrawing the United States from NATO without the prior
approval of the Senate, the latest effort to constrain the
president from upending U.S. policy regarding Russia.</p>
<p data-elm-loc="2">The bill would require the president to secure
the support of two-thirds of the Senate — the same threshold
required to enter into a treaty — before he could withdraw from
the nearly 70-year-old alliance. It also authorizes the Senate’s
legal counsel to represent the body in any court cases needed to
prevent a withdrawal from NATO without the Senate’s approval.</p>
<p data-elm-loc="4">The measure was drafted by Sens. Cory Gardner
(R-Colo.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), both of whom sit on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee; Senate Armed Services Committee
Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and ranking Democrat Jack Reed
(R.I.) have also signed on to the measure as leading
co-sponsors.</p>
...“Regrettably, President Trump’s mistreatment of our closest
allies has raised doubts about America’s commitment to the
transatlantic alliance and the values of defense,” McCain said in
a statement. McCain, despite presently undergoing treatment for
brain cancer, remains Congress’s most respected statesman and has
been a frequent critic of the president’s stances regarding NATO
and Russia.
<p data-elm-loc="6">“This legislation is urgently required to
ensure that no president can withdraw the United States from
NATO without the constitutionally required advice and consent of
the Senate,” he continued.</p>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/bipartisan-bill-would-prevent-trump-from-exiting-nato-without-senate-consent/2018/07/26/4ca1b206-9106-11e8-bcd5-9d911c784c38_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.979fdd433509">https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/bipartisan-bill-would-prevent-trump-from-exiting-nato-without-senate-consent/2018/07/26/4ca1b206-9106-11e8-bcd5-9d911c784c38_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.979fdd433509</a><br>
<br>
stuartnlevy via Peace-discuss wrote:<br>
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-- Stuart</div>
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<div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><!-- originalMessage -->
<div>-------- Original message --------</div>
<div>From: Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:kklcac@earthlink.net"><kklcac@earthlink.net></a> </div>
<div>Date: 7/27/18 19:24 (GMT-06:00) </div>
<div>To: </div>
<div>Subject: [ufpj-activist] It’s Time for NATO to Go the Way
of the Warsaw Pact | Conn Hallinan | Foreign Policy in Focus
via Portside </div>
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<title>It’s Time for NATO to Go the Way of the Warsaw Pact |
Portside</title>
<div class="original-url"><br>
<a
href="https://portside.org/2018-07-27/its-time-nato-go-way-warsaw-pact"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://portside.org/2018-07-27/its-time-nato-go-way-warsaw-pact</a><br>
<br>
</div>
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<!-- This node will contain a number of div.page. -->
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break-word; max-width: 100%;">
<h1 class="title" style="font-family: -apple-system-font;
font-size: 1.95552em; font-weight: bold; line-height:
1.2141em; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em;
text-align: start; -webkit-hyphens: manual; display:
block; max-width: 100%;">It’s Time for NATO to Go the
Way of the Warsaw Pact </h1>
<div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255,
0);">Trump stole the headlines, but the recent NATO
summit declaration suggests the odds of an unnecessary
conflict are rising. NATO's expansion eastward to
Russia's borders has added to the risk.</span></div>
<h1 class="title" style="font-family: -apple-system-font;
font-size: 1.95552em; line-height: 1.2141em; margin-top:
0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: start;
-webkit-hyphens: manual; display: block; max-width:
100%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">By Conn
Hallinan</span></h1>
<div class="leading-image" style="font-family:
-apple-system-font; font-size: 0.75rem; max-width: 100%;
margin-bottom: 1.15em; line-height: 1.5em; color:
rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8);"><img
src="https://portside.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/nato_troops.jpg"
alt="" class="" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;
margin: auto; display: block; clear: both;"
onmouseover="imageMousePointerUpdate(true)"
onmouseout="imageMousePointerUpdate(false)"
id="1532779688298" moz-do-not-send="true">
<div class="credit" style="max-width: 100%; margin: 1em
0px 0px; width: 100%;"> Opening ceremonies at the 2018
NATO summit in Brussels , Shutterstock / Foreign
Policy in Focus </div>
</div>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">The outcome of the July 11-12
NATO meeting in Brussels got lost amid the media’s
obsession with President Donald Trump’s bombast, but
the <a
href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_156624.htm"
target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210);
max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">“Summit Declaration”</a> makes
for sober reading. The <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/world/europe/trump-nato-summit.html?login=email&auth=login-email"
target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210);
max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">media</a> reported that the
28-page document “upgraded military readiness,” and was
“harshly critical of Russia,” but there wasn’t much
detail beyond that.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">But details matter, because
that’s where the devil hides.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">One such detail is NATO’s
“Readiness Initiative” that will beef up naval, air, and
ground forces in “the eastern portion of the Alliance.”
NATO is moving to base troops in Latvia, Estonia,
Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Since Georgia
and Ukraine have been invited to join the Alliance, some
of those forces could end up deployed on Moscow’s
western and southern borders.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">And that should give us pause.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">A recent European Leadership’s
Network’s (ELN) <a
href="https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/26042018-Deterrence-Russia-NATO-Thomas-Frear-Lukasz-Kulesa-Denitsa-Raynova.pdf"
target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210);
max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">study</a> titled “Envisioning a
Russia-NATO Conflict” concludes, “The current
Russia-NATO deterrence relationship is unstable and
dangerously so.” The ELN is an independent think tank of
military, diplomatic, and political leaders that fosters
“collaborative” solutions to defense and security
issues.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">High on the study’s list of
dangers is “inadvertent conflict,” which ELN concludes
“may be the most likely scenario for a breakout” of
hostilities. “The close proximity of Russian and NATO
forces” is a major concern, argues the study, “but also
the fact that Russia and NATO have been adapting their
military postures towards early reaction, thus making
rapid escalation more likely to happen.”</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">With armed forces nose-to-nose,
“a passage from crisis to conflict might be sparked by
the actions of regional commanders or military
commanders at local levels or come as a consequence of
an unexpected incident or accident.” According to the
European Leadership Council, there have been more than
60 such <a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/04/baiting-the-bear-russia-and-nato/"
target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210);
max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">incidents</a> in the last year.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;"><strong style="max-width:
100%;">Which Side Is Advancing?</strong></p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">The NATO document is, indeed,
hard on Russia, which it blasts for the “illegal and
illegitimate annexation of Crimea,” its “provocative
military activities, including near NATO borders,” and
its “significant investments in the modernization of its
strategic [nuclear] forces.”</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">Unpacking all that requires a
little history, which isn’t the media’s strong suit.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">The story goes back more than
three decades to the fall of the Berlin Wall and
eventual re-unification of Germany. At the time, the
Soviet Union had some 380,000 troops in what was then
the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. Those
forces were there as part of the treaty ending World War
II, and the Soviets were concerned that removing them
could end up threatening the USSR’s borders. The
Russians have been invaded — at terrible cost — three
times in a little more than a century.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">So in the early 1990s, West
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, U.S. Secretary of State
James Baker, and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev cut a
deal. The Soviets agreed to withdraw troops from Eastern
Europe as long as NATO didn’t fill the vacuum, or
recruit members of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact.
Baker promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one
inch east.”</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">The agreement was never written
down, but it was followed in practice. NATO stayed west
of the Oder and Neisse rivers separating Germany and
Poland, and Soviet troops returned to Russia. The Warsaw
Pact was dissolved in 1991.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">But President Bill Clinton blew
that all up in 1999, when the U.S. and NATO intervened
in the civil war between Serbs and Albanians over the
Serbian province of Kosovo. Behind the new American
doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” NATO opened a
massive 11-week bombing campaign against Serbia.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">From Moscow’s point of view,
the war was unnecessary. The Serbs were willing to
withdraw their troops and restore Kosovo’s autonomous
status. But <a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/04/baiting-the-bear-russia-and-nato/"
target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210);
max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">NATO demanded</a> a large
occupation force that would be immune from Serbian law,
something the nationalist-minded Serbs would never agree
to. It was virtually the same provocative language the
Austrian-Hungarian Empire had presented to the Serbs in
1914, language that set off World War I.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">In the end, NATO lopped off
part of Serbia to create Kosovo and re-drew the post
World War II map of Europe, exactly what the Alliance
charges today that Russia has done with its seizure of
the Crimea.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">But NATO didn’t stop there. In
1999, the Alliance recruited former Warsaw Pact members
Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, adding Bulgaria
and Romania four years later. By the end of 2004, Moscow
was confronted with NATO in Latvia, Lithuania, and
Estonia to the north, Poland to the west, and Bulgaria
and Turkey to the south. Since then, the Alliance has
added Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, and
Montenegro. It has invited Georgia, Ukraine, <a
href="http://www.france24.com/en/20180711-nato-invites-macedonia-start-membership-talks"
target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210);
max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Macedonia</a>, and Bosnia and
Herzegovina to apply as well.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">When the NATO document
chastises Russia for “provocative” military activities
near the NATO border, it is referring to maneuvers
within Russia’s own borders, or one of its few allies,
Belarus.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">As author and foreign policy
analyst <a
href="https://fpif.org/bush-era-foreign-policy-delusions-are-alive-and-well-in-2017/"
target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210);
max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Anatol Lieven</a> points out,
“Even a child” can look at a 1988 map of Europe and see
“which side has advanced in which direction.”</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">NATO also accuses Russia of
“continuing a military buildup in Crimea,” without a
hint that those actions might be in response to what the
Alliance document calls its “substantial increase in
NATO’s presence and maritime activity in the Black Sea.”
Russia’s largest naval port on the Black Sea is
Sevastopol in the Crimea.</p>
<h3 style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.05em; font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><strong
style="max-width: 100%;">Worrisome Disconnects</strong></h3>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">One does not expect
even-handedness in such a document, but there are
disconnects in this one that are worrisome.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">Yes, the Russians are
modernizing their nuclear forces, but the Obama
administration was first out of that gate in 2009 with
its $1.5 trillion program to upgrade the U.S.’s nuclear
weapons systems. Both programs are a bad idea.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">Some of the document’s language
about Russia is aimed at loosening purse strings at
home. NATO members agreed to cough up more money, a
decision that preceded Trump’s Brussels tantrum on
spending.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">There is some wishful thinking
on Afghanistan — “Our Resolute Support Mission is
achieving success” — when in fact things have seldom
been worse. There are vague references to the Middle
East and North Africa, nothing specific, but a reminder
that NATO is no longer confining its mission to what it
was supposedly set up to do: Keep the Americans in, the
Russians out, and the Germans down.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">The Americans are still in —
one should take Trump’s threat of withdrawal with a
boulder-sized piece of salt — there is no serious
evidence the Russians ever planned to come in, and the
Germans have been up since they joined NATO in 1955.
Indeed, it was the addition of Germany that sparked the
formation of the Warsaw Pact.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">While Moscow is depicted as an
aggressive adversary, NATO surrounds Russia on three
sides, has deployed anti-missile systems in Poland,
Romania, Spain, Turkey, and the Black Sea, and has a 12
to 1 advantage in military spending. With opposing
forces now toe-to-toe, it would not take much to set off
a chain reaction that could end in a nuclear exchange.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">Yet instead of inviting a
dialogue, the document boasts that the Alliance has
“suspended all practical civilian and military
cooperation between NATO and Russia.”</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">The solution seems obvious.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">First, a return to the 1998
military deployment. While it is unlikely that former
members of the Warsaw Pact would drop their NATO
membership, a withdrawal of non-national troops from
NATO members that border Russia would cool things off.
Second, the removal of anti-missile systems that should
never have been deployed in the first place.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">In turn, Russia could remove
the middle-range Iskander missiles NATO is complaining
about and agree to talks aimed at reducing nuclear
stockpiles.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">But long range, it’s finally
time to re-think alliances. NATO was a child of the Cold
War, when the West believed that the Soviets were a
threat. But Russia today is not the Soviet Union, and
there’s no way Moscow would be stupid enough to attack a
superior military force.</p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;">The old ways of thinking are
not only outdated, but also dangerous. It’s time NATO
went the way of the Warsaw Pact.</p>
<p style="max-width: 100%;"><em class="author-id"
style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a
href="https://fpif.org/authors/conn-hallinan/"
style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration:
none;" moz-do-not-send="true">Conn Hallinan</a> is a
columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be read
at <a
href="http://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com</a>
and middleempireseries,<a href="http://wordpress.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">wordpress.com</a>.</em></p>
<p style="font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size:
1.2em; max-width: 100%;"><br>
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