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The Incredible Shrinking NATO
The Incredible Shrinking NATO
By Majik
18 Jul 2023 10:26 am in No Holds Barred Political Forum
13 posts • Page 1 of 1
18 Jul 2023 10:26 am
I’ve been waiting for the hubbub to die down since the NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 11-12 July 2023, waiting for someone — anyone — to point out the obvious reason for why the Ukraine’s cocaine-sniffing mascot-president Zelensky, having been lionized only a year ago, has suddenly fallen into disfavor with this organization. Yes, the Ukraine might still some day be invited to start the long and arduous process of joining NATO, but only after some undefined number of NATO members decide that it has done enough to comply with “NATO standards” (I’ll explain what those are later) and various other vague things. Keeping in mind that back on 20 September 2018 the Ukrainian parliament approved amendments to the constitution that would make the accession of the country to NATO and the EU a central goal and the main foreign policy objective, such a turn of events is most embarrassing for the mascot president and his backers and handlers.
Oh, the vicissitudes of fortune! Lots of analysis and commentators offered ready explanations for this turn of events. Yet not a single one of them saw it fit to dig just the tiniest bit and discover the glaringly obvious reason for this momentous shift. Perhaps all of them, for a variety of reasons, loathe to admit the reality of what NATO is, what it does, and why the Ukraine is suddenly a threat rather than a boon to its core mission. You may want to read all of that commentary at your leisure — if you have trouble falling asleep. The official NATO Summit Communiqué, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/offi ... 217320.htm
fantastically verbose and filled with irrelevancies, makes for particularly somniferous reading.
So, what did the Ukraine do to fall into such disfavor? Perhaps it did something that jeopardized NATO’s core mission? That seems like a good guess. But then what is NATO’s core mission?
In the movie “Silence of the Lambs,” Hannibal Lecter refers to a quote by Marcus Aurelius when he says to Clarice Starling, “First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?” The quote is from Book Three of “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, and it emphasizes the importance of understanding the essence of things.
NATO was formed on 4 April 1949 with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, more popularly known as the Washington Treaty, supposedly for the purpose of thwarting the Soviet Union in Europe. The USSR responded by forming the Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) — a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries for the express purpose of defending them from NATO. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991 and, shortly thereafter, on 26 December 1991, the USSR itself followed suit, but NATO continues to exist. By this point, the Warsaw Pact had existed for slightly less than half the time that NATO has existed, and the USSR had existed for only slightly more than that. Clearly, the communist threat as a rationale for NATO’s existence was but a ruse, a smokescreen… a red herring.
So, what was NATO’s real purpose? There are many ways to answer this question, but the Ukraine’s sudden fall from grace offers what is perhaps the most graphic explanation.
• Was it that the war there was dragging on? No, a slow burn would be exactly what the Pentagon ordered, so that it would have a chance to keep up with Russia’s hectic pace of weapons and ammunition deliveries.
• Was it that the Ukraine was losing the war? No, the Ukraine wasn’t losing; it just wasn’t winning. In particular, its attacks on Russia’s defensive lines, which the Russian troops termed “meat attacks” because of the huge and useless losses they incurred on the Ukrainian side, seemed rather futile.
Oh, the vicissitudes of fortune! Lots of analysis and commentators offered ready explanations for this turn of events. Yet not a single one of them saw it fit to dig just the tiniest bit and discover the glaringly obvious reason for this momentous shift. Perhaps all of them, for a variety of reasons, loathe to admit the reality of what NATO is, what it does, and why the Ukraine is suddenly a threat rather than a boon to its core mission. You may want to read all of that commentary at your leisure — if you have trouble falling asleep. The official NATO Summit Communiqué, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/offi ... 217320.htm
fantastically verbose and filled with irrelevancies, makes for particularly somniferous reading.
So, what did the Ukraine do to fall into such disfavor? Perhaps it did something that jeopardized NATO’s core mission? That seems like a good guess. But then what is NATO’s core mission?
In the movie “Silence of the Lambs,” Hannibal Lecter refers to a quote by Marcus Aurelius when he says to Clarice Starling, “First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?” The quote is from Book Three of “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, and it emphasizes the importance of understanding the essence of things.
NATO was formed on 4 April 1949 with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, more popularly known as the Washington Treaty, supposedly for the purpose of thwarting the Soviet Union in Europe. The USSR responded by forming the Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) — a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries for the express purpose of defending them from NATO. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991 and, shortly thereafter, on 26 December 1991, the USSR itself followed suit, but NATO continues to exist. By this point, the Warsaw Pact had existed for slightly less than half the time that NATO has existed, and the USSR had existed for only slightly more than that. Clearly, the communist threat as a rationale for NATO’s existence was but a ruse, a smokescreen… a red herring.
So, what was NATO’s real purpose? There are many ways to answer this question, but the Ukraine’s sudden fall from grace offers what is perhaps the most graphic explanation.
• Was it that the war there was dragging on? No, a slow burn would be exactly what the Pentagon ordered, so that it would have a chance to keep up with Russia’s hectic pace of weapons and ammunition deliveries.
• Was it that the Ukraine was losing the war? No, the Ukraine wasn’t losing; it just wasn’t winning. In particular, its attacks on Russia’s defensive lines, which the Russian troops termed “meat attacks” because of the huge and useless losses they incurred on the Ukrainian side, seemed rather futile.
18 Jul 2023 10:26 am
• Was it that the Ukraine was about to be defeated? Again, no, the Russians were happy to advance a few kilometers here and there, with their main objective the establishment of a buffer zone wide enough so that Ukrainian artillery would stop shelling what are now Russian civilian districts.
• Was it that NATO ran out of weapons and ammo to give to the Ukrainians? Again, no, there is still quite a lot of semi-obsolete junk that could be handed over to the Ukrainians.
So, what did the Ukrainians do to raise the ire of the Pentagon so suddenly, and as a direct consequence, fall into disfavor with NATO? In short, the Ukrainians demonstrated that NATO’s weapons are crap. Evidence of this built up slowly over time. First, it turned out that various bits of US-made shoulder-fired junk — anti-aircraft Stingers, anti-tank Javelins, etc — are rather worse than useless in modern combat. Next, it turned out that the M777 howitzer and the HIMARS rocket complex are rather fragile and aren’t field-maintainable.
The next wonder-weapon thrown at the Ukrainian problem was the Patriot missile battery. It was deployed near Kiev and the Russians quickly made a joke of it. They attacked it with their super-cheap Geranium 2 “flying moped” drones, causing it to turn on its active radar, thereby unmasking its position, and then fire off its entire load of rockets — a million dollars’ worth! — after which point it just sat there, unmasked and defenseless, and was taken out by a single Russian precision rocket strike.
This was sure to have seriously pissed off US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, whose major personal cash cow happens to be Raytheon, the maker of the Patriot. Yes, the Patriot proved useless using the First Gulf War, where it failed to protect Israel against ancient Iraqi Scud missiles; and it proved useless later on when it failed to protect Saudi oil installations against ancient Yemeni Scud missiles… but you aren’t supposed to advertise that fact. And now this!
And to top it all off, the German-donated Leopard 2 tanks and the US-donated Bradley infantry vehicles, not to mention the silly French wheeled non-tanks, performed absolutely miserably during the recent Ukrainian efforts to approach, never mind penetrate, Russia’s first line of defense. Rubbing salt into the wounds, Putin remarked off-the-cuff that Western armor burns rather more easily than the old Soviet-made stuff.
continued at....
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023 ... king-nato/
• Was it that NATO ran out of weapons and ammo to give to the Ukrainians? Again, no, there is still quite a lot of semi-obsolete junk that could be handed over to the Ukrainians.
So, what did the Ukrainians do to raise the ire of the Pentagon so suddenly, and as a direct consequence, fall into disfavor with NATO? In short, the Ukrainians demonstrated that NATO’s weapons are crap. Evidence of this built up slowly over time. First, it turned out that various bits of US-made shoulder-fired junk — anti-aircraft Stingers, anti-tank Javelins, etc — are rather worse than useless in modern combat. Next, it turned out that the M777 howitzer and the HIMARS rocket complex are rather fragile and aren’t field-maintainable.
The next wonder-weapon thrown at the Ukrainian problem was the Patriot missile battery. It was deployed near Kiev and the Russians quickly made a joke of it. They attacked it with their super-cheap Geranium 2 “flying moped” drones, causing it to turn on its active radar, thereby unmasking its position, and then fire off its entire load of rockets — a million dollars’ worth! — after which point it just sat there, unmasked and defenseless, and was taken out by a single Russian precision rocket strike.
This was sure to have seriously pissed off US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, whose major personal cash cow happens to be Raytheon, the maker of the Patriot. Yes, the Patriot proved useless using the First Gulf War, where it failed to protect Israel against ancient Iraqi Scud missiles; and it proved useless later on when it failed to protect Saudi oil installations against ancient Yemeni Scud missiles… but you aren’t supposed to advertise that fact. And now this!
And to top it all off, the German-donated Leopard 2 tanks and the US-donated Bradley infantry vehicles, not to mention the silly French wheeled non-tanks, performed absolutely miserably during the recent Ukrainian efforts to approach, never mind penetrate, Russia’s first line of defense. Rubbing salt into the wounds, Putin remarked off-the-cuff that Western armor burns rather more easily than the old Soviet-made stuff.
continued at....
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023 ... king-nato/
18 Jul 2023 11:45 am
NATO should have been dissolved decades ago. The appeal of globalism is too attractive. The dims love this ****. Whenever NATO is used in wars, America usually holds most of the burden. The other countries tend to find ways to contribute the bare minimum.
18 Jul 2023 12:08 pm
Excuse me.
Ukraine is currently at war with Russia.
It’s in all the papers.
If NATO admitted Ukraine today there would be WW3 tomorrow.
What I don’t quite understand is that the overwhelming , nearly unanimous majority of patriotic Americans have taken America’s side against Russia since 1946.
I never thought so many people would hate a Democrat President so much they’d turn traitor to America.
That red kool aid is powerful stuff.
Ukraine is currently at war with Russia.
It’s in all the papers.
If NATO admitted Ukraine today there would be WW3 tomorrow.
What I don’t quite understand is that the overwhelming , nearly unanimous majority of patriotic Americans have taken America’s side against Russia since 1946.
I never thought so many people would hate a Democrat President so much they’d turn traitor to America.
That red kool aid is powerful stuff.
18 Jul 2023 12:15 pm
Exactly ....Vegas » 18 Jul 2023, 11:45 am » wrote: ↑ NATO should have been dissolved decades ago. The appeal of globalism is too attractive. The dims love this ****. Whenever NATO is used in wars, America usually holds most of the burden. The other countries tend to find ways to contribute the bare minimum.
18 Jul 2023 1:08 pm
NO, NATO is at war with Russia using the Ukrainian people as their proxies under the dictator Zelensky ...Bruce » 18 Jul 2023, 12:08 pm » wrote: ↑ Excuse me.
Ukraine is currently at war with Russia.
It’s in all the papers.
If NATO admitted Ukraine today there would be WW3 tomorrow.
What I don’t quite understand is that the overwhelming , nearly unanimous majority of patriotic Americans have taken America’s side against Russia since 1946.
I never thought so many people would hate a Democrat President so much they’d turn traitor to America.
That red kool aid is powerful stuff.
Your lack of understanding of why so many Americans side with Russia in this war is due to your own ignorance and disbelief of the Agenda that the governments of the western world has signed on with and has implimented against their own citizens that nobody democratically voted for including ...you.
This war is an extension of that Agenda an Agenda you totally agreed with before you re-imagined this SOK named Bruce and your sidekick ChatGPT started misrepresenting your self .....as a conservative ....
18 Jul 2023 1:14 pm
If America and Russia are at war, I’m an American.Majik » 18 Jul 2023, 1:08 pm » wrote: ↑ NO, NATO is at war with Russia using the Ukrainian people as their proxies under the dictator Zelensky ...
Your lack of understanding of why so many Americans side with Russia in this war is due to your own ignorance and disbelief of the Agenda that the governments of the western world has signed on with and has implimented against their own citizens that nobody democratically voted for including ...you.
This war is an extension of that Agenda an Agenda you totally agreed with before you re-imagined this SOK named Bruce and your sidekick ChatGPT started misrepresenting your self .....as a conservative ....
I used to think all Americans were loyal.
Not any more.
18 Jul 2023 1:29 pm
I hate Biden with a passion. But, I support Ukraine's right to be a soverign nation free from Russia.Bruce » 18 Jul 2023, 12:08 pm » wrote: ↑ Excuse me.
Ukraine is currently at war with Russia.
It’s in all the papers.
If NATO admitted Ukraine today there would be WW3 tomorrow.
What I don’t quite understand is that the overwhelming , nearly unanimous majority of patriotic Americans have taken America’s side against Russia since 1946.
I never thought so many people would hate a Democrat President so much they’d turn traitor to America.
That red kool aid is powerful stuff.
18 Jul 2023 1:33 pm
Defense News . Com
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Army will boost production of 155mm artillery shells
more than sixfold to 85,000 a month by fiscal 2028,
according to the service’s undersecretary.
In other words....The US only makes 500 per day
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Army will boost production of 155mm artillery shells
more than sixfold to 85,000 a month by fiscal 2028,
according to the service’s undersecretary.
In other words....The US only makes 500 per day
18 Jul 2023 1:34 pm
Very true, well said.Skans » 18 Jul 2023, 1:29 pm » wrote: ↑ I hate Biden with a passion. But, I support Syria's right to be a sovereign nation free from American occupation
18 Jul 2023 1:39 pm
I have no problem with Syria being a soverign nation. America does not occupy Syria. But, I also support Lebanon's right to be a soverign nation, and apparently Syria has a problem with that.
18 Jul 2023 1:44 pm
Pops, yer a liar and a fraud. Yer soulless. You vomit when trying to define socialism.Skans » 18 Jul 2023, 1:39 pm » wrote: ↑ I have no problem with Syria being a soverign nation. America does not occupy Syria. But, I also support Lebanon's right to be a soverign nation, and apparently Syria has a problem with that.
I enjoy exposing you. The RINO Bruce
18 Jul 2023 3:07 pm
We were loyal until our government and military created and funded a global pandemic , started depopulating our citizens with a death Jab, took control of the MSM, Censored and deplatformed countless Americans because of their opposition , rigged an election and refused to investigate it, falsely called a riot an insurrection , grooming children to hate America, grooming children to question their gender, sexualizing children , glorifying gender dysphoria , using ABC agencies to spy on opposition, two tier justice system, the subversion of scientific debate,....Bruce » 18 Jul 2023, 1:14 pm » wrote: ↑ If America and Russia are at war, I’m an American.
I used to think all Americans were loyal.
Not any more.
for starters.....
So, why should we be loyal to a government and military that has become tyrannical and whose shared agenda with theor corporate counterparts is to bring this country crashing down so it can be depopulated, rebuilt and social engineered for a one world government lead by cultists , traitors and Globalists ?
huh?
13 posts • Page 1 of 1
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