It’s Time for America to Leave NATO and for Europe to Resolve Their Internal Disputes

By Steve McCann

Since 1916 and the First World War, United States foreign policy has been dominated by Eurocentrism. Following the Second World War, America has been the military protector of Western Europe for 73 years through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO.

Now the time has come to disband NATO and tell the countries of Europe, in particular Germany, that they are on their own, as this nation must focus on its ever-growing domestic problems and the global threat of Communist China.

The United States should have begun the process of severing military commitments with Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. After all, protecting Europe and thus the United States against

Soviet aggression was the primary purpose of NATO. But an irrational fear of a non-existent nation and its former satellites still persists and has been conferred on its much smaller and less formidable successor, Russia. Together with the compulsive need to defend a prosperous continent these two pillars still form the basis of American military planning and international policy.

 

The divorce process should have been accelerated in 1993 when the anti-democratic European Union comprising 27 European countries and unified economic, social and security policies came into being. The combined population of these nations is 33% larger and their overall annual Gross National Product is second only to the United States. Since 1993 Europe has been more than capable of defending itself.

The primary accomplishment of the European Union has been to pave the way for Germany to once again assume the dominant role in Europe. Under the guise and false pretense of an all-powerful administrative European Union, the German ideas of collectivism, protectionism and corporatism have been successfully established throughout much of Europe.

Through a single currency, a single market, a European Central Bank which controls monetary policy and sets interest rates, strict industry protocols, an overbearing bureaucracy, and an endless array of regulations, German influence saturates all of Europe. German economic might has placed many of the poorer southern European states in a vice grip of indebtedness from which they cannot escape unless the Euro fails. In which case the entire continent is thrust into uncontrolled financial chaos which ultimately benefits Germany and Russia.

German determination to dominate Europe did not end in 1945; it continues to the present day. With the exception of Great Britain, Germany is Western Europe and Western Europe is Germany.

Thanks to their determination to “go green,” Germany has shuttered its nuclear power plants, is closing its coal plants and is failing miserably in its attempt to rely on alternative electricity sources such as wind and solar. Germany has made a commitment to natural gas. With no supply of their own they are dependent on imports. And those imports come from Russia. Further, the new socialist government in Germany is further left of center than ever before and philosophically closer to Russia than the United States.

If the European Union as presently constituted continues to exist, the economic power of Germany and the fossil fuel reserves and military of Russia will, in due course, give birth to Germany and Russia being in a de facto alliance in full control of the European continent, achieving a centuries-old goal for both nations.

Yet, the United States through NATO not only continues to defend Germany and much of Europe against the theoretical enemy Germany is in bed with, but Germany and 19 other countries refuse to meet their financial and military obligations to the alliance. The imbalance in the alliance is not just the funding but the obligation of the United States to get involved in virtually any and all internal and external conflicts involving the countries of Europe.

The ongoing threat by Russia to invade Ukraine is the latest debacle in Europe involving NATO. It has revealed not only the folly of keeping that alliance alive but the mindset of the German ruling class.

Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Even if it were, it is a European problem requiring a European solution. Nonetheless, Germany, a huge beneficiary of NATO’s defense and protection for generations, is refusing to participate in either a NATO or a European solution.

They will not defend Ukraine, agree to sanctions, send armaments or support, and have banned other countries from using German air space or transportation to do so. Germany has turned its back insisting on an obsequious pro-Russia approach. It is not just a matter of dependence on Russian gas, but realpolitik at play for both countries, as Germany in 2014 didn’t lift a finger or protest Russia’s proxy war in Eastern Ukraine or the annexation of Crimea.

Instead of having an addled American president creating chaos and stumbling into a military conflict under the umbrella of NATO, the United States should use the Ukrainian-Russian confrontation as the perfect opportunity to tell Germany and the rest of Europe: This is your problem; find a solution as we are finished with NATO and being dragged into conflicts that are not in our national interest.

The time has come to focus on the home front and the global hegemony Communist China is determined to achieve. This country does not have the wealth or resources to protect Europe from itself, solve myriad domestic and societal issues, and confront China. Due to its size, ideology, implacable nationalism, economy and centuries-old belief in manifest destiny, China is the greatest long-term threat to the United States in its history.

I am from Europe. While I no longer have any familial ties to Europe, I have many emotional ties to the continent where I was born and later maintained an office. America leaving NATO will force Europe to confront the long-term viability of a German dominated European Union and Russia’s ambitions. As well as come to the realization that Communist China is a far greater threat to Europe than their present-day internal squabbles.