The challenge of NATO is Germany, not America



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By – July 18, 2018

ANALYSIS / REVIEW:

During the recent summit, a rumbustious ripped off a thin crust of subtleties to reveal a deep, ancient wound – the one that preceded the President of almost 30 years and goes back to the end of the Cold War.

At a time when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact are now an ancient history, everyone praises it as "indispensable" and "essential" to Western solidarity and European security. . But few feel the need to explain how and why it could still be.

Is he still protecting the West? Does this prevent destructive European quarrels? Does it ensure the post-war world order of free trade, commerce, travel and communications? And is – or the United States and its direction – the real reason that there was no Third World War or return to world tribalism and chaos – the expansion of the world. After the Cold War at 29 countries and at the border of Russia meant that the alliance became larger at the same time that the old Soviet existential threat disappeared. Greater membership tended to weaken common bonds, even as common dangers disappeared

The result was that the idea of ​​belonging became more important for the countries that belong to it than the reality and the responsibility of the actual military preparation. show that in most countries, the idea of ​​fighting on behalf of another country receives little public support. The idea that the Dutch would travel to Estonia to save his capital, Tallinn, from Russia is a cruel joke. [21] The problem of the 21st century is not the United States, which provide much of its means, but Germany. As Europe's most populous and wealthiest nation, Germany has still insidiously dominated Europe since its creation in 1871.

Berlin sends ultimatums to the indebted countries of Southern Europe. Berlin alone is trying to dictate the immigration policy for the European Union. Berlin sets the difficult conditions in which the UK can come out of the European Union. And when Berlin decides not to raise the 2% of GDP promised for its contribution, other countries lagging behind will follow his example. Only six of the 29 members (other than the United States) have so far filled in the promised estimates

. The combination of wealth and military miserliness of Germany is surreal. Germany has accumulated the largest trade surplus in the world, about $ 300 billion, including a $ 64 billion trade surplus with its military benefactor, the United States, but it is poorly equipped with tanks and equipment. combat aircraft. , still protects Europe's Russia from Vladimir Putin, just as she once kept the Soviet Red Army out of West Germany. But faced with the objections of its Baltic neighbors and Ukraine, Germany has just concluded a gas pipeline agreement with Russia – the presumed threat for which its US-subsidized security is needed.

The growing animosity of Germany towards the United States. At the end of the Obama administration, 57 percent of Germans expressed a positive view of America in a Pew poll. That figure dropped to 35 percent in the first year of the Trump administration. A recent poll reveals that the Germans consider Putin's Russia to be more trustworthy than the United States.

Why is Germany the most anti-American?

Germany started and lost two world wars. at the late entry of the United States. The unification of Germany brought millions of East Germans to the West, many of whom were raised under a communist system that accused the United States of the world's ills.

When Russia will supply more than half of the natural gas instead of threatening tactical nuclear missiles in Berlin, the US military is no longer considered so important to German security.

Add up all these disparate realities and the real crisis becomes clearer. The most wealthy and dominant European member of the alliance gives a pernicious example by not fulfilling its alliance obligations.

Germany requires that the United States continue to be the largest donor and have an adverse view of America. of the so-called common threat, Russia

Of other formidable European nations are accustomed to being dominated by Germany and to shut up or follow his example.

That's what he inherited and that he tried to jostle with his custom of the antics of the deal art. can be noisy and rude, but his argument that countries must pay more money for the self-defense of their shared alliance is solid. If successful, this would lead to reinforcement.

By contrast, German Chancellor Angela Merkel usually looks professional and diplomatic while she continues to weaken the alliance and pursue German commercial and financial interests to the detriment of other members.

Victor Davis Hanson, a Clbadical and Historian at the Stanford University Hoover Institution, is the author of "World War II: How the First World War Was Fought and Won" (Basic Books, 2017). Politics

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