Blasting GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump for not supporting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO], Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton warned voters of possible life under President Trump. Speaking for the Hillary campaign, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest chimed in. “The cornerstone of that alliance is the pledge that all of the allies have made to mutual self-defense,” referring to the Cold War fear that the now defunct Soviet Union could potentially takeover all of Eastern and Western Europe. NATO launched April 4, 1949 in the wake of WWII, where the Soviet Union lost some 20 million civilians and troops to Nazi Germany. Annexing East Germany after the war and stationing troops in much of Eastern Europe, NATO was designed to stop what looked like a Soviet juggernaut seizing more European territory.
Ghosts of the Soviet past revived Aug. 7, 2008 when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Russian enclaves in Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia without any response from NATO or former President George W. Bush. Georgia’s U.S.-friendly president Mikheil Saaskashvili begged NATO and Bush for help but received no response. While Georgia was not a NATO member, the U.S. was not interested in confronting Putin on the battlefield in the south Black Sea region. Ceding Russian parts of Georgia in 2008 invited Putin to seize Crimea March 1, 2014, putting U.S. and NATO back into a Cold War mindset. Since taking Crimea, U.S.-Russian relations deteriorated to the lowest levels since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned U.S. officials about changing the unconditional U.S. commitment to backing NATO.
Clinton senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan jumped all over Trump’s suggestion that NATO countries need to pony up their appropriate share of NATO costs. “The president is supposed to be the leader of the free world. Donald Trump apparently doesn’t believe in the free world,” said Sullivan, highlighting the Obama-Clinton administration’s use of Cold War rhetoric. Talking about the free world, Sullivan knows the Soviet Union ended Dec. 26, 1991, replaced by the Russian Federation. Obama’s Cold War atmosphere reversed 50 years of détente under 10 U.S. presidents, starting with Dwight D. Eisenhower. Neither South Ossetia and Abkhazia nor Crimea have any national security significance to the U.S. or NATO. Sullivan talks as if the U.S. still competes with the Soviet Union for worldwide domination, something vigorously denied by Putin
Many U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle still continue to prosecute the Cold War. “The Republican nominee for president is essentially telling the Russians and other bad actors that the United States is not full committed to supporting the NATO alliance,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a former Trump rival in 2016. Graham’s statement about Russia offers nothing constructive, only more barbs about deteriorated U.S.-Russian relations. Graham, who prides himself as a foreign policy expert, mirrors Obama’s failed policy in Syria. Graham, like Obama, calls for regime change in Damascus, backing the same position as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] and al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front, trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov bristled at Trump’s remarks about Russia potentially invading more ex-Soviet states.
Peskov objects to the insinuation that Russia would do in the Baltics, Poland or other former Soviet states what it did in South Ossetia, Abkhazia or Crimea. Russian officials deny completely that Russia is a threat to anyone’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Trump generates controversy when he says he wants better relations with Russia, something done by 10 presidents before Obama. Trump’s only beef with NATO is that participating members don’t pay their dues. He’s never said he wants to end the NATO alliance or even change it’s structure. “This is good for European security and good for U.S. security. We defend one another. We have seen this in Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of European, Canadian and partner nation troops stood shoulder-to-shoulder with U.S. soldiers,” referring to Oct. 7, 2001 Operation Enduring in the dark days after Sept. 11.
Using NATO as a political football, neither the Clinton campaign nor anti-Trump Republicans want the facts to come out. Covering about one quarter of NATO budget, the U.S. contributes about $800 million out of a $3.2 billion budget. At 16.6% Germany pays the largest portion of the budget next to the U.S., with France at 12.4% and the U.K at 12%. When you consider the U.S. doesn’t need NATO to defend its national security, contributing 25% of NATO budget is more than generous. If Trump points to NATO members in arrears on their annual dues, it’s not an attack on the alliance. Trump wants NATO to evolve into a post-Cold War institution. For that to happen, it’s necessary to improve U.S.-Russian relations, especially when it comes to the Middle East. Battling Russia in Syria makes zero sense. Both Democrats and Republicans need to commit to improving U.S.-Russian relations.
