I see Ron Paul is running away with the Fun Online Poll.
Since most voters are British and the most significant aspect of a Ron Paul presidency for Britain would be the end of NATO and similar alliances- does this mean that people think NATO should be disbanded.
Mangled
47 minutes ago
2 comments:
Yes.
When a nuclear armed Soviet Union was a potential adversary, the NATO alliance made sense, now it doesn't.
NATO worked on the principle that an attack against a member state, in the North Atlantic theatre, would trigger a united response from all members of the alliance. (This was why the Falklands War was an exclusively British, and not NATO, operation, as the events were 'out of theatre'). NATO however now claims a global reach- hence the operation in Afghanistan, but does anyone seriously believe that NATO would get involved (on our side) in a renewed Falklands conflict ?
NATO has simply become the favoured instrument used by the US to project its power in areas it deems essential to its interests.The keenest members of NATO at the moment are the Poles and other ex Warsaw Pact nations where Russophobe feeling, understandably, is strong.The chilling of US/Russian relations since the fall of Yeltsin means that the 'new' NATO countries & the US make ideal partners. However the 'partnership' between the US & western European nations like ours rings pretty hollow these days.
Non NATO countries in 'the West' such as Ireland & Sweden continue to do favours for the US on a strictly case by case basis, and maintain amicable relations with the US as a result.We should enter into a similar relationship.
A generation has grown up, particularly in places like Germany where they have no memory of the threat posed by the USSR. Therefore there see the presence of US troops on their soil as a visible projection of power against nothing. This is damaging for the US. A reluctant alliance may be worse than cobbling something together as and when needed.
2nd: Europe needs to spend some time having to defend itself instead of taking the US for granted and pretending there are no threats at all.
3rd: If this were anything other than the military, the average right winger would look with horror upon yet another tranzi organisation, which it clearly is.
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