Trump wants to get out of NATO

 

The reason Trump wants to get out 

…is very simple. NATO became pointless:

At the start, it was created to ‘Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’, but it had a more important purpose for a long time:

Help protect the reserve currency status of the dollar.

The US would print money like a banana republic without suffering inflation, it would use it for its military spending, it would be the muscle of NATO, and in return, the NATO countries would use the dollar and attach their economies to the US to boost the US. Together they would bash down any smaller country that did not use the dollar and enforce the ‘world order’.

This allowed the US to monetize the entire world’s economic activities wherever they happened. If someone opened a random business somewhere in Africa or Asia and increased his country’s GDP, that GDP would end up monetized by the US through printed dollars because his country had to buy dollars to use in international trade. The European satellites of the US also benefited from this system through their participation and investments in the Angloamerican financial system.

Moreover, this Angloamerican ‘world order’ would force other countries to open up their resources and economy and buy out their resources, companies and even land/housing. A perfect, modern imperial colonialism: Buy out the entire world with the dollars printed on their economic activity.

So everything was great for a while. But then things suddenly started to change:

First, the European Union (EU) came into being in 1993. The EU countries started closing their economies to the US through tariffs or regulations. Then, the EU backstabbed the US by creating the Euro in 1999. Now the dollar had a major reserve currency competitor. The euro started eating into the dollar’s global share. This caused an estrangement between the US and the EU and it started a low-level trade war, through tariffs, regulations, counter-regulations, diplomatic, political and legal pressure and that has been going on since around 2005.

Then, China and the Asian countries developed. They were protecting their domestic markets to varying levels and prioritizing manufacturing and physical and social infrastructure. This made Asia the biggest economic market whose economic size was backed by actual physical goods as opposed to the increasingly financialized, hollowed-out US economy. The US was able to bash down Japan and shove the Plaza Accords down its throat and cripple its economy. But it wasn't able to do it to the rest of Asia.

Things were not working out. The US elite decided to ‘contain’ (read: make a colony) China. But its pesky friend Russia was a problem and needed to be taken out before taking on China. It was already doing diplomacy and stirring movement for an alternative ‘world order’. So they decided to take Russia out first.

At that point, the US elite made a fatal mistake: They stole not only the state assets of Russia in dollar reserves in the West but also the dollars of the Russian elite. In their out-of-touch narcissist minds, this would cause Russia to collapse within months. It didn’t. Russia did import replacement and integrated with the Global South and its economy got pumped up.

But something collapsed: The US Dollar.

Now the entire world and their elite classes saw they could be next. It didn’t matter whether you were a friend - if one faction of the US elite thought it would be profitable to target you or your country, you could end up getting screwed the next time that faction is in power in the US. All of them started to reduce risk by reducing their dollar reserves, moving their money out to other assets and starting to use other currencies in international trade.

Booom - the unused dollars were flowing back home, causing major inflation. The banana republic that printed money without inflation wasn't able to print money without inflation anymore. What followed that has been the most destructive economic crisis the West faced in a very long time. Not a cyclical, profitable crisis. A permanent, systemic crisis. Now the dollar scam was gone for good.

And it's not likely to change. Regardless of what kind of peace and detente is reached with Russia, and even China, ~80% of the world won't come back to the dollar like before. The age of free cash printing machine is over. And it's a good thing too - because that scam caused the US to become a hollowed-out, bloated economy. The dollar becoming a normal currency can only help the US fix that problem.

So now NATO lost the #1 reason for its existence because the dollar won't be going back to what it was and there is no military means of making that happen. As a result, now it is just a money black hole that will suck away the American budget while the European countries benefit. It is much better for the US to dump NATO on Europe and keep its money and spend it where it sorely needs to spend it.

Therefore Trump wants to get out of NATO. Even the prominent neocon Republican senators want to get out of NATO.

特朗普想要退出的原因……很简单。北约变得毫无意义：

一开始，它是为了“挡住俄罗斯，稳住美国，压制德国”而成立的，但长期以来它还有一个更重要的目的：

帮助保护美元的储备货币地位。

美国会像香蕉共和国一样印钞，不会遭受通货膨胀，它会将其用于军事开支，它会成为北约的力量，作为回报，北约国家会使用美元，并将其经济依附于美国，以促进美国的发展。他们会一起打击任何不使用美元的小国，并执行“世界秩序”

这使得美国能够将全世界的经济活动货币化，无论这些活动发生在何处。如果有人在非洲或亚洲的某个地方开了一家随机的企业，并增加了他国家的 GDP，那么这个 GDP 最终会被美国通过印制美元货币化，因为他的国家必须购买美元用于国际贸易。 美国的欧洲卫星国也通过参与和投资英美金融体系从该体系中受益。

此外，英美“世界秩序”将迫使其他国家开放其资源和经济，并收购其资源、公司甚至土地/住房。一个完美的现代帝国殖民主义：用印在他们经济活动上的美元收购整个世界。

所以一切都很顺利。但后来事情突然开始改变：

首先，欧盟（EU）于 1993 年成立。欧盟国家开始通过关税或监管向美国关闭其经济。然后，欧盟于 1999 年创建欧元，背叛了美国。现在美元有了主要的储备货币竞争对手。欧元开始蚕食美元的全球份额。 这导致美国和欧盟之间关系疏远，并引发了一场低级别的贸易战，通过关税、监管、反监管、外交、政治和法律压力，自 2005 年左右以来一直在进行。

随后，中国和亚洲国家发展起来。它们在不同程度上保护国内市场，优先发展制造业、物质和社会基础设施。这使得亚洲成为最大的经济市场，其经济规模由实际的物质商品支撑，而不是日益金融化、空心化的美国经济。美国能够打压日本，将广场协议强加给日本，削弱其经济。但它无法对亚洲其他国家这样做

事情没有进展。美国精英决定“遏制”（即建立殖民地）中国。但它讨厌的朋友俄罗斯是个问题，需要在对付中国之前先除掉它。它已经在进行外交活动，并煽动建立另一种“世界秩序”的运动。所以他们决定先除掉俄罗斯。

 那时，美国精英犯了一个致命的错误：他们不仅窃取了俄罗斯在西方的美元储备中的国家资产，还窃取了俄罗斯精英的美元。在他们脱离现实的自恋心理中，这将导致俄罗斯在几个月内崩溃。但事实并非如此。俄罗斯确实进行了进口替代，并与全球南方国家融合，其经济得到了提振。

但有一样东西崩溃了：美元。

现在，整个世界和他们的精英阶层都看到他们可能是下一个。不管你是否是朋友——如果美国精英的一个派系认为针对你或你的国家是有利可图的，那么下次这个派系在美国掌权时，你最终可能会被坑。他们都开始通过减少美元储备、将资金转移到其他资产并开始在国际贸易中使用其他货币来降低风险。

砰——未使用的美元流回国内，导致严重的通货膨胀。在没有通货膨胀的情况下印钞的香蕉共和国再也无法在没有通货膨胀的情况下印钞了。 随后发生的是西方长期以来面临的最具破坏性的经济危机。这不是一场周期性的、有利可图的危机。这是一场永久性的系统性危机。现在美元骗局已经一去不复返了。

而且这种情况不太可能改变。无论与俄罗斯甚至中国达成何种和平与缓和，全球约 80% 的国家都不会像以前那样回归美元。免费印钞机的时代已经结束。这也是一件好事——因为那场骗局导致美国成为一个空心化、臃肿的经济体。美元成为正常货币只能帮助美国解决这个问题。

因此，现在北约已经失去了其存在的首要原因，因为美元不会回到原来的水平，而且也没有军事手段来实现这一点。结果，现在它只是一个金钱黑洞，会吸干美国的预算，而欧洲国家则从中受益。对美国来说，把北约抛弃给欧洲，把钱留着，花在最需要花的地方，这样要好得多。

因此，特朗普想退出北约。即使是著名的新保守派共和党参议员也想退出北约。

Great letter to read from a great man of solidarity.

Former President of Poland Lech Walesa wrote the following letter to Trump.

Your Excellency, Mr. President,

We watched the report of your conversation with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, with fear and distaste. We find it insulting that you expect Ukraine to show respect and gratitude for the material assistance provided by the United States in its fight against Russia. Gratitude is owed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They have been dying on the front lines for more than 11 years in the name of these values and the independence of their homeland, which was attacked by Putin’s Russia.

We do not understand how the leader of a country that symbolizes the free world cannot recognize this.

Our alarm was also heightened by the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation, which reminded us of the interrogations we endured at the hands of the Security Services and the debates in Communist courts. Prosecutors and judges, acting on behalf of the all-powerful communist political police, would explain to us that they held all the power while we held none. They demanded that we cease our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people suffered because of us. They stripped us of our freedoms and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the government or express gratitude for our oppression. We are shocked that President Volodymyr Zelensky was treated in the same manner.

The history of the 20th century shows that whenever the United States sought to distance itself from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately became a threat to itself. President Woodrow Wilson understood this when he decided in 1917 that the United States must join World War I. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this when, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he resolved that the war to defend America must be fought not only in the Pacific but also in Europe, in alliance with the nations under attack by the Third Reich.

We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and America’s financial commitment, the collapse of the Soviet empire would not have been possible. President Reagan recognized that millions of enslaved people suffered in Soviet Russia and the countries it had subjugated, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their defense of democratic values with their freedom. His greatness lay, among other things, in his unwavering decision to call the USSR an “Empire of Evil” and to fight it decisively. We won, and today, the statue of President Ronald Reagan stands in Warsaw, facing the U.S. Embassy.

Mr. President, material aid—military and financial—can never be equated with the blood shed in the name of Ukraine’s independence and the freedom of Europe and the entire free world. Human life is priceless; its value cannot be measured in money. Gratitude is due to those who sacrifice their blood and their freedom. This is self-evident to us, the people of Solidarity, former political prisoners of the communist regime under Soviet Russia.

We call on the United States to uphold the guarantees made alongside Great Britain in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which established a direct obligation to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for its relinquishment of nuclear weapons. These guarantees are unconditional—there is no mention of treating such assistance as an economic transaction.

Signed,

Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, President of Poland

2016

‘Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’: a potted and bloody history of Nato

History

The Nato flag , European 🇪🇺 Union

From its inception to the present, Nato has been intent on pursuing a policy of aggression. Jonathan Maunders explains 

‘Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’ – those were the words of Nato’s first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, when explaining the aims behind the new military alliance (as it was then). Simple rhetoric it may well be, but Ismay’s words seem to be of haunting significance in the world we inhabit more than half a century later. 

As Nato further escalates tensions with Russia, sending more troops to Eastern Europe and raising the spectre of a no-fly-zone in Syria, Ismay’s words seem clearer and more deliberate, particularly when you factor in the likely election of Hilary Clinton, seemingly fixated on all-out war with Putin. However, before we can really explain here and now, we must first understand Nato’s history. 

Beginnings

The initial beginnings of what we now refer to as Nato can be traced back to the Treaty of Brussels of 1948 where four of Europe’s foremost colonial powers, Belgium 🇧🇪 , France 🇫🇷 , the Netherlands 🇳🇱 and the UK 🇬🇧 , agreed upon a mutual defence clause. We think of Nato as intrinsically US-led but this early ancestor of the treaty was notable for its absence of the USA 🇺🇸 . These European powers would soon form the Western European Defence Organisation, a loose military organisation that goes further in resembling Nato as it has become.

However, economically and military ravaged by the Second World War, these European powers soon became convinced that it was essential that they got the United States on board to provide protection and clout.This further shows that contrary to the Nato of today, it was the European nations that were desperate to bring in the US, not vice versa. An agreement with the US was quickly formulated and the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in April 1949.

As well as adding the US, this treaty added Canada 🇨🇦 , Portugal 🇵🇹 , Italy 🇮🇹 , Norway 🇳🇴 , Denmark 🇩🇰  and Iceland 🇮🇸 . While the signature of this agreement was popular amongst the populations of many of the signatories, riots broke out outside the Iceland parliament, with the Icelandic population keen to maintain a policy of neutrality. 

Articles

Many of the articles of the North Atlantic Treaty are relatively well known, however, there has been much in the way of misinformation. The articles can be largely boiled down to three significant ones. Firstly, Article 1 denotes that the Treaty organisation aims to solve international disputes peacefully, an interesting development given the aggressive organisation that Nato was to become. Article 4 asserts that the organisation must provide consultation if the territorial integrity, political independence or security of a member nation is threatened. While this article is less well known than its successor, it has been invoked three times by Turkey alone. Article 5, by far the most famous, commits each signatory to consider an armed attack on one member as an attack on all members. This stipulation was of course controversially invoked by the US in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. 

Structure

The internal structures of Nato have largely remained the same since its inception, with the majority of the organisation’s power running through two positions. The first of these of positions is that of Secretary General (where our old friend Lord Ismay comes in). This position is currently filled by former Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenburg and is very much the diplomatic arm of the organisation. This position has always been filled by a European and it is clear that this is by design. The powers behind Nato are aware of the ‘interfering American’ reputation and thus have always felt that a European is best placed to achieve Nato’s diplomatic aims.

The second position is that of Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Interestingly, this position is always filled by an American and, again, this is fundamentally by design. Not only is the person in this position, currently Curtis Scaparroti, in charge of Nato’s forces ( here) , he is also commander of US forces in Europe. This may seem like a technicality, but in practice it means that Scaparotti is simultaneously directly answerable to both Nato’s Secretary General and also the US president, just illustrating the power the US has at the heart of the organisation.

Cold War

It was the Korean War that would come to impress upon the US the potential strength of utilising the military alliance. In the eyes of the US administration, the fact that the North Korean effort was being aided by both China 🇨🇳 and the Soviet Union 🇷🇺 raised the threat of communist countries working together against US interests. Alarmed by this scenario, a newly convinced US led Nato to developing their first substantial military plans. 

Despite growing tensions between the West and the Soviet Union, the latter actually suggested it join Nato in 1954, only to be rejected by the organisation’s signatories. While you’d be right in thinking there was a chasm between west and east, this in fact shows that the Soviet Union was at least prepared for political dialogue, but its rivals weren’t.

Not just content with quashing the Soviet Union’s suggestion, Nato would approve the MC48 document in December 1954, a further escalation in tensions. The document asserted that the Nato allies would have to use atomic weapons in a war with the Soviet Union, even if the latter had no intention of using them first. This may not be a surprise but it is important to stress the last clause of that document’s message. The fact that Nato allies were willing to use atomic weapons to annihilate a rival country even if that country was not willing to use them themselves, just illustrates how an alliance formed under the guise of preserving peace was instead pursuing a dangerous policy of aggression and hostility. 

The following summer, West Germany joined the alliance, allowing Nato to utilise its significant manpower and to push the organisation’s border right up against the East. The Kremlin responded by initiating the Warsaw Pact, an alliance between the Soviet Union, Hungary 🇭🇺 , Czechoslovakia 🇨🇿 , Poland 🇵🇱 , Bulgaria 🇧🇬 , Romania 🇷🇴 , Albania 🇦🇱 , and East Germany 🇩🇪 , defining the two sides of the Cold War for the first time. 

As both sides built up their nuclear arsenal in the decades that followed, the spectre of nuclear war haunted the continent and despite France withdrawing from Nato’s military front, the organisation continued to expand its influence and its weapon capabilities.

When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, Nato was keen to assert its validation for its policy of aggression and hostility. It soon made a deal with the last Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the newly unified Germany under Nato’s alliance. As part of this deal, Nato powers promised Gorbachev that in return they would not expand the alliance further into former Warsaw Pact Nations, a promise they would soon break. 

Yugoslavia 

As an organisation fundamentally defined by the Cold War, Nato was left struggling to find its purpose in a post-Cold War world. It soon found this purpose during the protracted collapse of Yugoslavia. 

Deterioration in Bosnia 🇧🇦  led the United Nations to ask Nato to enforce a no-fly-zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦 , which started in April 1993. After downing 4 Serbian planes and an escalation in the war, the UN’s military commander was given power to call for Nato airstrikes without seeking consultation with UN officials. This soon led to Nato launching widespread airstrikes in the area. 

Later in the decade, after a breakdown of talks between US special envoy Richard Holbrooke and Slobodan Milosevic, the former handed the matter to Nato, who began a savage 78 day bombing campaign on Serbian targets. This operation, known as Operation Allied Force, became known for its high civilian casualties, with hundreds of civilians slaughtered by western airstrikes in 1999. This can be seen as the first example of Nato’s normalisation of civilian casualties, with the organisation keen to normalise the idea that high civilian casualties could be a necessary evil to promote peace, a morally bankrupt approach that would later haunt Afghanistan 🇦🇫  and Libya 🇱🇾 . 

It has later been revealed that as part of Nato airstrikes, passenger trains were hit, Albanian refugee movements were repeatedly bombed, hospitals were struck with cluster bombs and bridges were destroyed with civilians desperately crossing.

During this conflict, the US and UK opposed French attempts for the organisation to seek approval from the UN’s Security Council before launching airstrikes, claiming it would undermine the treaty’s authority, further emphasising the organisation’s neglect of democracy and embrace of bloodshed.

Afghanistan

In the aftermath of 9/11, the US invoked Article 5, forcing all Nato signatories to consider the attacks as attacks on all of them. This marked the first time that Nato had markedly expanded outside of its original North Atlantic parameters. This is of particular significance as it allowed the US to use cover of Nato legitimacy to wage its imperialist War on Terror in the region. 

Nato was soon asked to take control of the International Security Assistance Force, a force consisting of troops from 42 nations. This force was initially charged with just taking Kabul before having their mission expanded to the whole of Afghanistan. 

Nato caused the massacre of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, with 20,000 dying in 2001 alone, statistics that form a haunting spectre over the intervention. While Nato was largely able to portray its intervention in Yugoslavia as a relative success and necessary task, the more the events in Afghanistan became common knowledge, the harder the intervention became to gloss. Influential anti-war groups like Stop the War Coalition were able to spread an anti-war sentiment and alert people to Nato’s massacres. 

Libya

In March 2011 the United Nations called a ceasefire in Libya during the Civil War. Nato soon began to enforce a no-fly-zone over the country. It was soon reported that there were tensions within the alliance, deriving from the fact that only Nato nations were taking part in the operation, with a sizeable confrontation between US and German officials. This crack in the alliance reflected the fact that the German government believed Nato had overstepped its mark in intervening in the conflict. 

More than just opposition from the German government, thousands marched against the intervention, particularly in response to the high figures of civilian casualties. Nato soon had to defend themselves to suggestions that they had accidentally struck rebel fighters they were supporting. This in itself raised sizeable moral and legal questions regarding Nato’s presence in the nation. People began to question Nato officials whether their primary aim was to protect Libyan civilians or Libyan rebels, a question that in itself reveals the true aim of the intervention.

While clear to many at the time, it has only become clearer that Nato’s intervention in the country was to ensure regime change rather than protect Libyan civilians. This point is further illustrated by the dreadful stories of civilians slaughtered by Nato fire. One of these stories is that of 11 Imams who were killed by Nato airstrikes during a large prayer gathering praying for peace. Similarly, 85 people were killed in a building in the small village of Majer. This effecting story has since become infamous after the words of Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, commander of the Nato mission, when asked to comment on the deaths, “I cannot believe that 85 civilians were present when we struck but I cannot assure there were none at all.” If any quote could summarise the organisation’s regard to civilian life, it is this one. 

The present

Since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, Nato has broken its promise to Gorbachev and has expanded beyond East Germany into countries such as Hungary, Poland and Estonia. In recent years there have been pushes for Ukraine and Georgia to be admitted into the organisation. The US has been keen to expand Nato’s borders right up against that of Russia, whilst frustrated by Germany’s anxiety on the issue.

With or without Ukraine and Georgia, it is clear that Nato is intent on a policy of aggression. It is stationing more and more troops in former Warsaw Pact countries and has undertaken large scale manoeuvres in the region, in an effort to antagonise the Kremlin. This approach, undertaken under the backdrop of the bloody cauldron that is Syria, means that Nato is playing a dangerous game of chicken with Putin, baiting him to attack a Nato country and thus the whole organisation, initiating global war.

As we look back to Lord Ismay’s quote, it has a harrowing pertinence with regards to the global situation and a treaty organisation defined by its relationship with the US and the latter’s objectives: power, antagonism and conflict. Nato is playing a menacing game of aggression and hostility; a game that no one can win, but everyone can lose.