Of Pepe Escobar

Source: counterinformation
Trump is right – NATO is obsolete, and if Europe wants to fight imaginary enemies, he should pay his own expenses
Terrified of Trump, Eurocrats in Brussels have conveyed their fears to Asia Times in recent days about the end of NATO, the end of the World Trade Organization, even the end of the EU.
The level of hysteria has reached its peak. After the NATO summit in Brussels, the final decline of the West was declared by an agreement made as President Trump prepared to meet President Putin in Helsinki.
It was Trump himself who decreed that he wanted to talk to Putin behind closed doors, face to face, without helpers e, in theory, spontaneously, after the preparatory meeting between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was canceled. The summit takes place in the early 19th century presidential palace in Helsinki, former residence of the Russian emperors.
As a preamble for Helsinki, Trump's spectacular NATO blitzkrieg was a stage show for the ages; the various assorted “leaders” in Brussels simply didn't know what was hitting them. Trump didn't even bother to arrive in time for the morning sessions regarding the possible membership of Ukraine and Georgia. Diplomats confirmed to Asia Times that, after Trump's stinging "punch or something" scolding, Ukraine and Georgia were asked to leave the room because what would be discussed was strictly an internal NATO issue.
Preview on the summit, the Eurocrats allowed themselves to be carried away by endless charges of "illiberalism" that took over, from Viktor Orban in Hungary to Sultan Erdogan in Turkey, and everyone dedicated themselves to crying over the “destruction of European unity” (Yes, It's always Putin's fault). Trump, however, would have had no reason to do so. The US president brings together the EU and NATO, interpreting the EU as a rival, just like China, but much weaker. As for the US “deal” with NATO, just like NAFTA, this is a bad deal, according to Trump.
NATO is 'obsolete'
Trump is right that without the United States, NATO is an “obsolete” organization – as in non-existent. So, essentially, what he did in Brussels laid bare the case for NATO as a protection racket, with Washington fully entitled to raise the stakes for "protection".
But “protection” against what?
After the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, when NATO was repositioned into its new role as global imperialist and humanitarian Robocop, the alliance's record is absolutely dismal.
This toll has miserably resulted in the loss of an endless war of 17 years in Afghanistan, against a group of Pashtun warriors armed with Kalashnikov replicas; it involved having transformed Libya, from a functional and developed country into a wasteland of jihadist militias and headquarters for refugees linked to the exodus to Europe; and having made him lose, to the Gulf Cooperation Council through NATO, his bet on a galaxy of jihadists and crypto-jihadists who were to take over Syria, transformed into “moderate rebels”.
NATO has launched a new training mission, not combat in Iraq; 15 years after the US invasion shock, the Sunnis, the Shiites, Yazidis and even Kurdish factions are unimpressed and all reject US and NATO "protection".
NATO Operation Libya
Then there is NATO's "Readiness Initiative"; the ability to deploy 30 battalions, 30 warships and 30 aircraft squadrons within 30 days (o meno) by 2020. If not to devastate the South of the world, this initiative is supposedly established to deter “Russian aggression”.
So, after dabbling in the “Global War on Terror” (at George W. Bush e Dick Cheney), NATO has essentially returned to the original “threat”.; the imminent Russian invasion of Western Europe – a ridiculous notion if ever there was one. The final declaration in Brussels explains this explicitly, with particular emphasis on the point 6 and on point 7.
The combined GDP of all NATO members is 12 times that of Russia. And NATO's defense spending is six times larger than Russia's. Contrary to the non-stop Polish and Baltic hysteria, Russia doesn't need to "invade" anything; what worries the Kremlin, long term, it is the well-being of ethnic Russians living in former Soviet republics.
Russia cannot be both a threat and an energy partner at the same time.
Then there is European energy policy – ​​and that is a completely different story.
Trump described the Nord Stream pipeline 2 as “inappropriate”, but his statement that Germany gets the 70% of his energy (through natural gas imports) from Russia could easily be scaled down. Germany gets at most the 9% of its energy from Russia. In terms of Germany's energy sources , only the 20% it is natural gas. And less than 40% of natural gas in Germany comes from Russia. Germany is moving rapidly towards wind power, the solar, biomass and hydroelectric energy, which represent the 41% of the total in 2018. The goal is 50% by 2030.
Yet Trump has a strong point when, stressing that “Germany is a rich country”, wants to know why America should “protect you against Russia” when energy deals are on the table. “It explains what cannot be explained! “, As reported to Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, Wednesday.
In the end, Obviously, it's about business. What Trump is really aiming for is for Germany to import American shale gas, three times more expensive than Russian gas supplied by the pipeline.
The energy angle is directly linked to the never-ending soap opera of defense spending 2%. Germany currently spends 1.2% of NATO's GDP. by 2024, should reach a maximum of 1.5%. And that's all. The majority of German voters, Indeed, they want US troops out of the country.
So Trump's question for the 4% of GDP on defense spending for all NATO members will never fly. The US arms sales proposal should be seen for what it is: a temporary “invitation” for a increase in EU and NATO shopping spending on American military hardware.
In a nutshell, the key factor remains that Trump's blitzkrieg in Brussels has run its course. Russia cannot be a “threat” and a reliable energy partner at the same time. As terrified as NATO poodles may be of Russian aggression, the facts explain that they will not put their money where their rhetorical hysteria is.
Source: Asia Times
Translation: Sergei Leonov