Why are we still in NATO?

[Unseen]

It’s a huge financial burden considering we have no real “skin in the game” in Europe. I know war apologists say, “We fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.” Like Russia could ever mount an invasion of the mainland U.S. Don’t make me laugh.

Speaking of the Ukraine effort alone, the money spent so far could have done a lot of good right here at home. Helping people who want to get off the street to live a decent life and find work. To fix our ageing infrastructure. To establish a national healthcare system. That plus building a lot fewer WMD’s could finance a lot. (I don’t know if you ever thought of it this way but every destroyer, aircraft carrier, fighter, bomber, and submarine is a WMD).

A lot of Russia’s pugnaciousness has to do with being surrounded by countries which are basically puppets or client states of the American MID (military-industrial complex). The U.S. functions in part as lobbyists for and de facto salespeople for the U.S. WMD industries.

At the same time, due to our NATO obligations, we don’t have a totally free hand in our relations with European nations including Russia.

Russia is a European problem and the other NATO nations should be capable of countering Russia on their own. Two of them, the UK and France, are actually nuclear powers. America’s #1 concern is poor relations with China over Taiwan, a country we have let become essential to American business (ultra-sophisticated microchips) and security. And the security aspect seems largely due to America’s having extended its Monroe Doctrine to now cover the entire Earth.

Resolved: We’d be better off out of NATO.

[Noel]

Procter & Gamble, ColgatePalmolive, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Raytheon, Boeing, McDonnell/Douglas. United States financial interest .

[RichRaelian]

Hi! A even better question to ask is,”Why do we continue to give are power away to the military Industrail complex?”

[_Robert_]

With only 8% of the world living in true democracies and another 37% living in flawed democracies, some teetering toward authoritarianism (including the US). Many of the leading democracies also happen to be in NATO. That leaves more than half the people of the world living under the boot of some sort of bullshit regime. These regimes and dictators would agree with you all, there’s no need for NATO.

It’s so easy and somewhat dim-witted to take for granted that humans actually have reasonable freedoms and rights. Every time peaceful nations assume the best you can expect the worst.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

There is one huge risk, however. If the US losses it’s mind (as it is) and appoints a Putler-like, Christian emperor…well holy fuck, kids. That’s a lot of firepower for a dictator who is gonna need diversions. And sure, we’d get out of NATO, drop relationships with democracies, align-up with Putler and lil’ Kim and every other piece of dictator-shit. It’ll be great. I’m sure the extra money we save will go to our poor, LOL.

[Noel]

What Robert said.

I’d like to think that NATO exist to prevent the Putin’s of the world from dictating how I should shower, shit, and shave. That NATO exist to prevent a repeat of what happened in the late 1930’s and early to mid 1940’s. You know what I’m talking about, The Holocaust. That NATO exist to further the interest of the nation members.

The US built bases in Saudi Arabia. The US then sold them state of the art F-16 Attack/Fighter aircraft, air defense systems, M-1 tanks, and all manner of weaponry. The US retrofitted the equipment on those bases in order to make it compatible and interchangeable with the planes, tanks, trucks etc the US has in their arsenal. Why? To protect the oil that directly impacts the bottom line. The U.S. has done the same in Europe. But with Europe it’s about more than “The Bottom Line”. (LOL my daughter performed once at The Bottom Line.)

[Unseen]

@Robert & Noel

Do you honestly believe (and I mean believe in your figurative heart and soul) that Putin could defeat a coalition of UK, France, Germany and the rest of NATO?

If so, you need to go into therapy.

They shouldn’t need us.

[Noel]

But any coalition is only as strong as the word of the people in it. The scariest thing in the world for me would be being labeled a liar. In the end, standing naked in front of the world, my word is all I got. All these nations signed a pact and gave their word to defend one another if ever attacked.

Your thinking is that if the United States left NATO that they wouldn’t be missed because France, UK, Poland, etc can handle Putin and Russia. You’re right. They probably could take Russia on and could probably win. But if the U.S. leaves what’s stopping other NATO nations from doing the same thing and leaving with all their toys? Remove enough nations and that superiority you speak of is gone. So much so that now Russia (Putin) can move ahead with his plan to start with the Estonias, Lithuanias, and, yes, Poland and slowly visit the horrors he’s visiting on the civilians in Kiev on those countries by threatening them with nuclear weapons. He said so himself.

You are right, this is a cash day for the military industrial complex. What’s great about this for the arms dealers is that no American military is directly involved in hostilities so the people of the United States don’t have their undies tied up in knots about American lives being lost in another far away war.

Said it before and I’ll say it again… Empathy. Probably the biggest reason to help The Ukraine. Another would be to show the world what a paper tiger Russia and it’s military really are.

[Unseen]

Noel wrote:

But any coalition is only as strong as the word of the people in it. The scariest thing in the world for me would be being labeled a liar. In the end, standing naked in front of the world, my word is all I got. All these nations signed a pact and gave their word to defend one another if ever attacked.

None of them have been attacked. We could simply declare that NATO has become a burden borne by the American people that is costing them the nice things Europeans have been enjoying at U.S. expense. It’s time for them to take on a larger burden representative of their stake in the matter.

Your thinking is that if the United States left NATO that they wouldn’t be missed because France, UK, Poland, etc can handle Putin and Russia. You’re right. They probably could take Russia on and could probably win. But if the U.S. leaves what’s stopping other NATO nations from doing the same thing and leaving with all their toys? Remove enough nations and that superiority you speak of is gone. So much so that now Russia (Putin) can move ahead with his plan to start with the Estonias, Lithuanias, and, yes, Poland and slowly visit the horrors he’s visiting on the civilians in Kiev on those countries by threatening them with nuclear weapons. He said so himself.

Poland on its own could likely defeat Russia and there’s nothing stopping NATO from absorbing the smaller nations you mentioned or even taking in Ukraine if they really want to get under Putin’s skin.

You are right, this is a cash day for the military industrial complex. What’s great about this for the arms dealers is that no American military is directly involved in hostilities so the people of the United States don’t have their undies tied up in knots about American lives being lost in another far away war.

But our current state of being always at war somewhere and maintaining 750 offshore bases is impoverishing the American people and reducing our quality of life.

Said it before and I’ll say it again… Empathy. Probably the biggest reason to help The Ukraine. Another would be to show the world what a paper tiger Russia and it’s military really are.

Empathy? Since when does the U.S. refer to empathy except as an excuse to flex its muscles and kill dark-skinned foreigners? We are currently either killing people or assisting others in killing people in Yemen and Syria, are we not? And our reasons for being in both conflicts have nothing to do with empathy.

We are a country always at war (undeclared or through a “proxy”) and isn’t it time to just act like a democracy whose main purpose is the welfare of its own citizens?

[Author]

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