Czech president Petr Pavel warned that Donald Trump’s recent comments questioning the role of Nato have damaged the alliance’s credibility more than the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has done in several years.
Pavel, a retired Nato general and former chair of the Nato military committee, also said that Trump’s criticism of the alliance over the Iran war was “to put it mildly, unfair”.
“The moment we begin to question the alliance as a single, united entity, ready to act together and very decisively then, of course, its role is lost,” he warned.
He said that Trump ‘s criticism appeared to miss the fact that Nato is a defence alliance, and “not an alliance that will automatically help in wars waged outside its territory”.
Trump: Yeah, that’s the point.
I disagree. I think it shows that NATO has a modicum of a spine and won’t bow to a corrupt president no matter how conventionally powerful their military.
Putin hasn’t hurt Nato’s credibility at all. More like strengthened it relative to Russia’s credibility.
edit Unless we count Trump of course.
Yes and no. Putin has shined a light on the flaws of NATO’s unanimity clause. The idea was that if someone is going to enter into (and gain the protection of) a collective defense deal, everyone actually needs to agree to defend each other. It can’t simply be a majority vote where some countries vote “No” but are compelled to follow along anyways.
Because asking another country to send their citizens to defend a country halfway across the world is already difficult. Trying to compel it would be a lesson in frustration, and would have objecting member states circling the wagons and abandoning the entire agreement as soon as Article 5 was invoked. But it means that a single holdout can stall the process indefinitely.
Honestly, as a European, this is a good thing. For far too long the entire western world have basically been vassals of the American empire. This is an opportunity to finally get out from under their shadow and forge our own path, away from imperialism and towards peaceful multilateral diplomacy.
Unless at least Germany and Poland acquire nukes the EU will be a dwarf in a US/China dominated world.
The main thing NATO ensured was nuclear non-proliferation.
With NATO gone everyone in Europe needs nukes to survive.
France has nukes, at least. I agree, though, unfortunately and tragically it seems that nuclear sovereignty is becoming necessary.
Unfortunately, the EU needs to federalize, obtain an EU army and EU controller nukes.
It does seem to be going that way. We certainly do live in interesting and terrifying times. Reminiscent of the build up towards World War 2, except this time, with nuclear weapons…
I wish it needn’t have happened in my time.
Yup, Europe has never done imperialism. It was all America. /s
You do get that the vast majority of Europe is trying to lean away from their respective imperialist pasts, right?
Not just trying, it’s built into our laws, at least for the countries that are in EU.
Some of the biggest companies in Germany are still owned by nazis and nobody cares
As I always say, never ask Mr. Kühne what his company was transporting when his dad ran it. Mostly because he’ll either lie or downplay it.
Considering his father was allowed to not only stay free, but keep running the company until his death in 1981, there’s no way he didn’t raise his son to share his nazi values. The man was a nazi through and through.
Well compared to many of the American billionaires, those Nazis look like saints.
Um they are just not loud. Lol. They are still nazis. And nazism is alive and well in germany.
Are they undermining healthcare for all? Are they destroying democracy? Are they leading massive campaigns that claim climate change is a hoax? And suppressing scientists that work with it, and the organizations they work in?
I have never seen anything in Europe that is nearly as bad as for instance the Koch brothers. And the Koch brothers are far from alone. I think we got that established with the Epstein case, that has shown that the rich in USA cooperate towards a common goal, to take ever more power.Kühne literally makes billions from Germany but has his tax residence in Switzerland because he doesn’t think the German government should get his money. Probably still salty about when they stopped his dad, an outspoken nazi party member, from looting Jewish peoples’ property. Which is what made them billionaires in the first place. He of course says nothing happened and they didn’t get rich off genocide while simultaneously refusing to open the company’s wartime archives. Honestly think he’d deny Hitler existed if he could get away with it.
So maybe they’re not trying to undermine healthcare for all, but they’re evading the taxes that pay for said healthcare while literally trying to downplay the genocide that made their families rich.
Are they destroying democracy?
Yes! Wtf. How do you think these far right parties are getting popular again?
Ehhh. The far right is doing pretty well in Europe, and they’re sorry for nothing. Across the class spectrum as opposed to just in the poor, rural and uneducated, too.
You’re not OP, so there’s the sticky wicket of what we’re comparing to, as well. The US’s actual history is as a colony that broke away, and it often took anti-imperialist stances as a result. They did some of their own as well, but never on the scale of, say, Britain or Portugal. This is Lemmy where if the US breathes it’s redefined as imperialism, though.
The far right is doing pretty well in Europe
What a complete bullshit statement.
Yes having 5-10% of the European vote is doing well, because it used to be less, but compared to USA where Trump got the majority vote!! And Trump is more extreme than even the AfD.In USA the extreme right is actually in power, extreme as in literally fascist destroying democracy and talking about genocide far right. Europe is nowhere near where USA and Russia are. But of course we are paying attention.
Looking randomly at France, it’s 40-50% right now, and other parties have been adopting far-right stances across the continent to compete. But yes, the US is much worse. Although that broad cross-class appeal worries me. With any luck it ends in Japanese-style democracy not Hungarian-style autocracy.
Anyway, OP came in only mentioning the US, and said imperialism, not fascism or autocracy or the far-right. Those are not the same thing.
Even in France there’s a huge difference between the extreme right there and in USA. Le Penn is of course a traitor that support Russia, but she is not for instance advocating against healthcare for all. She is also not trying to undermine ordinary workers. But she hates foreigners and think Russia should be allowed to take Ukraine. But she is also not a war monger like Trump, and as far as we know she is not a pedophile.
Yes she is bad, and I have no idea why she is popular in France? But she is not nearly as dangerous to our democracy even just in France, as Trump is in USA. Also they do not have 40-50% support, she only got 23% of the vote, only because France has the stupid system that ends op pitting 2 candidates did she get 41% of the vote, when there was only one other candidate to compete against.
So you are wildly exaggerating the popularity of the far right in France and in Europe. Only the undemocratic presidential system in France makes her and “Rassemblement National” a danger of getting actual power.
Oh, you’re French yourself. Didn’t mean to make this personal, for what it’s worth.
Only the undemocratic presidential system in France makes her and “Rassemblement National” a danger of getting actual power.
Ditto for the US. Each party gets 50% every election, with the margin swinging predictably based on, like, who’s incumbent and how the economy is. And electoral districts are basically designed to have a set outcome at this point. Trump came to power because he’s popular with the radicals that vote in Republican primaries.
FWIW their system is so much worse than the French one, even if the French one is worse than, like, Norway.
Obviously Europe is not immune to imperialist sentiment, but at the moment, America is a great, terrible evil, perhaps the worst the world has ever seen. Even if our own societies aren’t perfect, we are far better apart from fascist America than we would be with them.
They are dangerous now, that’s true, although it doesn’t seem like imperialism is the right word.
What would you call it?
You said fascist too, and that fits really well.
Imperialism is a very specific system, and while the US has started dabbling in it again, they’re still largely producing their own wealth, and have also dabbled in isolationism which is one possible opposite. In the other direction, the nth British lord of Whatevershire (or whatever Chinese or Sumerian noble) didn’t really meet the populist part of the definition of fascism, but was definitely imperialist.
It’s really a detail, so I’m kind of sheepish for bringing it up, but on Lemmy I think it’s an important one.
From Wikipedia’s article on Imperialism:
Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more formal empire.
I feel like that perfectly fits the behavior of the American Empire, not just in recent years, but going back decades. Hegemony is absolutely what they’ve always been trying to build. Don’t you feel like the Munroe doctrine is an imperialist endeavor? The US invasion of Vietnam? Venezuela? The Philippines? Hawaii? Afghanistan? Iraq? Iran? The ongoing blockade and years of terrorist attacks against Cuba?
The idea that America is heavily invested in being a “world police” has been a meme going back decades. What is that, if not the maintenance and extension of power over foreign nations?
Someone is still in denial, I think. For what it’s worth, I don’t judge you for that, I totally understand it, but I think you’re doing yourself a disservice here.
Yup. They grabbed a few islands and puppeted a few Latin American countries.
If we’re talking about history, Europe blows them out of the water. If we’re talking about now, refer to last reply.
Oh please, talk about ridiculous straw man argument. European countries have abandoned taking colonies since WW2, and transitioned completely to laws that respect international law and human rights. Which means respecting national sovereignty.
This is of course limited to the democratic part of Europe, so unfortunately Russia and Belarus do not stand by those values.Yes, it’s not really doing imperialism now. And Russia is a completely different beast.
In the interest of only running one thread with you I’ll leave it there.
It was over with USA as being a trusted NATO partner when Trump threatened allies, first Canada as becoming part of USA, and later direct threats of invasion of Greenland that is a NATO ally, that has allowed all the American bases on Greenland they wanted.
The latter was the nail in the coffin for many European politicians. They just generally don’t say it out loud, but are moving on without USA.Maybe it could have been saved if Trump had been removed for making those threats, but he wasn’t. And Trump was also not removed for threatening Iran with nuclear strikes “annihilating a great nation”.
It is far from just Trump, it’s not even just the fact that about half the American voters voted for him. It’s also the complete lack of democratic checks and balances to remove a madman like Trump. Failure of both the people the judicial system and the political system.
We cannot rely on a rogue criminal nation like that. And then some Americans act surprised that China is now considered a lesser danger to the world than USA.
This. Even a large portion of the American left doesn’t take those threats seriously. One of the most powerful countries in history threatening your own and the only response is jokes on the fuckin’ Colbert Report.
Unfortunately despite there are a lot of good Americans, there are more that either don’t give a shit or even support the current regime.
to be fair trump is an effect of putin.
tump is an effect of neo liberalism, capitalism
I dont know until when will libs live in denial
Id say anything trump does to nato should also be included in putin’scolumn
One of the main reasons I hate Putin is that he inflicted Trump on us. For that alone, he should suffer horribly.
Putin is that he inflicted Trump on us
how?
Its all about the Epstein files
Hurt? The alliance is dead and only continues to exist by inertia while something else is organized in Europe. If anyone believes at this point that the USA would honor Article 5, they are simply stupid.
Iran is not a member of NATO so I don’t see how Trump being an absolute piece of shit damages nato reputation. It is common knowledge Trump wants to leave nato anyway
