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Donald Trump gets what John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and a bevy of hidebound American elites -- Republicans and Democrats -- refuse to get. America's relationship to, and military involvement in, Europe is long overdue for a big overhaul.
World War II ended in 1945. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Yet nearly a generation after the USSR went away, the U.S. is still, broadly, non-Russian Europe's principal defender.
Why?
The nations of Western Europe, primarily, affluent for decades, have benefited from American protection at American taxpayers' expense. All this time, Western Europe's progressive leaders enjoyed the luxury of diverting untold treasure into their social welfare systems. Cradle to grave, they call it. Americans provide a disproportionate share of NATO's hardware and soldiers, while the French, for instance, practically give workers every August at the beach. Lose your job? No worries. In Denmark, you can live off the public teat for up to 104 weeks at 90% your previous salary.
NATO is a relic. It shouldn't be transformed into a roving globalist military machine, as seems the intent, in the quest for a new mission. The U.S. needs to sunset its NATO membership. NATO needs to become the "European Union Treaty Organization" or some such. It's high time for Europeans to reorder their priorities. Or not. Europe's fate belongs to Europeans. No more free rides compliments of the U.S.
Not only should President-elect Trump serve notice that the U.S. will transition out of NATO, but he needs to discard the Wilsonian notion that America's role is to make the world safe for democracy.
America's role is to make the world safe for itself. America isn't the world’s nanny-cop.
American interests take precedent. Trump shouldn’t let NATO get in the way of a smart deal with Putin.
This isn’t the 1980s. No longer is the world bipolar, split roughly between U.S. and Soviet spheres. The PRC is the coming military power in Asia. Its desire is to supplant the U.S. as the world’s preeminent power. Militant Islam is a ideological-religious and practical threat to nations and worldviews across the globe. Refugee crises are burgeoning in the Old and New Worlds.
NATO members (sans the U.S.) have the wealth to attend their own collective security. What Europeans may lack is the will to contain the Russians, relying on the U.S. to furnish that as well. We don’t need any more American military cemeteries in Europe.
What Trump needs to say to McCain and Europe: “Enough done. No more.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/01/enough_with_defending_europe.html
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YES, YES, YES!
World War II ended in 1945. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Yet nearly a generation after the USSR went away, the U.S. is still, broadly, non-Russian Europe's principal defender.
Why?
The nations of Western Europe, primarily, affluent for decades, have benefited from American protection at American taxpayers' expense. All this time, Western Europe's progressive leaders enjoyed the luxury of diverting untold treasure into their social welfare systems. Cradle to grave, they call it. Americans provide a disproportionate share of NATO's hardware and soldiers, while the French, for instance, practically give workers every August at the beach. Lose your job? No worries. In Denmark, you can live off the public teat for up to 104 weeks at 90% your previous salary.
NATO is a relic. It shouldn't be transformed into a roving globalist military machine, as seems the intent, in the quest for a new mission. The U.S. needs to sunset its NATO membership. NATO needs to become the "European Union Treaty Organization" or some such. It's high time for Europeans to reorder their priorities. Or not. Europe's fate belongs to Europeans. No more free rides compliments of the U.S.
Not only should President-elect Trump serve notice that the U.S. will transition out of NATO, but he needs to discard the Wilsonian notion that America's role is to make the world safe for democracy.
America's role is to make the world safe for itself. America isn't the world’s nanny-cop.
American interests take precedent. Trump shouldn’t let NATO get in the way of a smart deal with Putin.
This isn’t the 1980s. No longer is the world bipolar, split roughly between U.S. and Soviet spheres. The PRC is the coming military power in Asia. Its desire is to supplant the U.S. as the world’s preeminent power. Militant Islam is a ideological-religious and practical threat to nations and worldviews across the globe. Refugee crises are burgeoning in the Old and New Worlds.
NATO members (sans the U.S.) have the wealth to attend their own collective security. What Europeans may lack is the will to contain the Russians, relying on the U.S. to furnish that as well. We don’t need any more American military cemeteries in Europe.
What Trump needs to say to McCain and Europe: “Enough done. No more.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/01/enough_with_defending_europe.html
--------------------------------
YES, YES, YES!
