Europe, NATO, and Ukraine

Much is being made of the recent Oval Office tiff between President Trump and President Zelensky.  Critics claim that Trump's failure to support Ukraine in its continuing battle against Russia is no different from taking Putin's side in the conflict.  Always, criticism of Ukraine is labeled as apologist behavior on behalf of Russia.  However, I want to know what is our interest in Ukraine?  What national interest are we serving?  Why can't the Europeans tackle this one?  Let's consider some numbers:

Russia is the 11th largest economy in the world with a $2 trillion GDP.  It has a population of 145 million people.

The United States is the largest economy with a $27 trillion GDP.  We have population of 343 million.

If not for nuclear warheads, Russia is a gnat compared to the USA.  But what about Europe?

The European Union consists of 27 countries with a combined GDP of $18.6 trillion and a combined population of 450 million.  Germany alone has a GDP of $4.5 trillion (more than double Russia, you will note) and a population of 84 million.  France and Italy also have larger GDPs than Russia.  Why can't the European Union deal with the Ukraine problem?  After all, it is their backyard, not ours.

Let's consider NATO.  Not including the USA, there are 31 NATO countries with a combined GDP of $24.7 trillion and a combined population of 640 million.  That is 12 times the GDP and 4 times the population of Russia.  Moreover, several of these countries are nuclear powers.

After World War II, it made sense for the United States to guarantee the defense of Europe while it rebuilt from the ruins.  The Soviets had shown a clear desire to annex territory and impose communism.  NATO was needed to defend the remnants of the West.  Today, that clearly isn't the case.  The Soviet Union collapsed 30 years ago and we are pretending it is still a threat.  Either the European Union or the Non-USA members of NATO could easily defeat Russia if they put any resources into it.  The US should have spent the last 30 years weening Europe off of the USA paying for its defense.  They're all grown up now and can defend themselves.

NATO has outlived its purpose.  We should stop funding Ukraine and stop subsidizing European defense.

Alliances Led to World War

Prior to the First World War, many of the European countries collected into alliances.  France, the UK, and Russia formed the Triple Entente in 1894 while Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed the Triple Alliance.  This balancing act of alliance was in order to discourage war.  However, when a Bosnian Serb separatist killed the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Sarajevo, a domino effect of the alliances saw Germany invade France.  Had the alliances not been triggered, the war might have been between Russia - which viewed itself as a natural ally of the Slavic Serbs - and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Today, we have NATO.  NATO was established in the wake of World War II and was specifically meant to be a bulwark against Soviet expansion into Europe.  The war which had begun with the intent of freeing Poland from the Germany Nazis and the Soviet Communists, ended with the Soviet Communists in control of Poland, half of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Balkan countries.  Western Europe was understandably concerned that the Soviets might keep going.  However, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and all the captured Eastern European countries resumed independence.  West and East Germany reunited.  NATO should have had a party and closed shop.  Instead, it decided to expand.

The once defensive alliance was now marching toward the borders of - not the Soviet Union - Russia.  The anti-Soviet alliance has become the anti-Russia alliance.  The anti-communist alliance is now opposing a country that is no longer communist.  The opportunity for a new balance to be struck has been squandered.  The new Russian state saw that its old enemies from the USSR days remain its enemies.  Worse, they are expanding toward the Russian border.  Oh, but trust us, we will stop once we've added every state except Russia into the anti-Russian alliance.  We continued to treat Russia as the enemy and, predictably, Russia offered resistance to NATO encroachment.  Unsurprisingly, western media has painted Russia as the aggressor in all of this.

Putin is a dictator, a throwback to the czars, but he is not the Soviet Politburo bent on spreading communism around the world.  Europe no longer needs us to protect it from Russia.  Russia has a $5 trillion economy while the EU has a $25 trillion economy.  Russia has 150 million people vs. the EU at 450 million.  Why are we defending Europe when they have the resources to defend themselves?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has outlived its purpose.  It has been over 30 years since the end of the Soviet Union.  Time to close up shop.  As it is, further NATO expansion is going to lead to a war between the West and Russia.  Let's not have that war.

Turnabout is Fair Play

In 1962, the United States discovered that the Soviet Union was placing missiles in Cuba.  This was viewed as grounds for risking World War III, a nuclear Armagedon.  If not for Vasily Arkhipov, the submarine B-59 would have launched a nuclear strike on October 27, 1962.  It was the Cold War and tensions were high.  Of course, Cuba was an independent country.  What business did we have in denying them missiles, especially considering US involvement in the Bay of Pigs disaster the previous year?

Beginning in 1979, the United States and Russia fought a proxy war in Nicaragua.  The US supported the Contras while the Soviets supported the Sandinistas.  The US Monroe Doctrine had essentially declared the Western Hemisphere to be the domain of the US, foreign powers not welcome.

In 1983, the US invaded Grenada.  It had been communist-friendly since a 1979 bloodless coup, trading with Cuba and the USSR.  However, when a coup by hardline Marxists murdered the milquetoast Prime Minister, the US sent in the Marines. 

Let us consider the current situation in that light.  During the Cold War, the NATO states were on one side and the Warsaw Pact on the other.  When the Soviet Union crumbled, many Warsaw Pact countries sought membership in NATO.  In much the same way that the US considered Cuba to be encroaching, Russia has reason to view such NATO expansion as an encroachment.  How far have we encroached?  Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Croatia, and Hungary were all in the Soviet Bloc but are now members of NATO.  That's a lot of encroachment that Russia has tolerated.  Of course, most of these countries had only been 'acquired' during World War II.  Sure, it stings, but it's not like they had been part of Russia for centuries.

In 1991, Ukraine became independent for the first time in centuries.  It had long been swapped among empires: Ottoman, Polish, Russian, Soviet Union.  It had been part of Russia/USSR since the 17th century and still has a large Russian minority (17%).  It is closer to Russia than Cuba is to the United States.  If Russia had something similar to the Monroe Doctrine, offering NATO membership would be a clear violation.  NATO is a military organization created to oppose Soviet expansion, but now it has been expanding toward Russia for 30 years.  Now it proposes to annex a region that has been in the Russian Empire for centuries.

It is argued that World War II was caused by the mismanagement of the peace in the wake of World War I.  The Treaty of Versailles was as much about assigning blame to Germany as to providing for peace.  How likely is it that the current conflict in Ukraine is a direct result of the mishandling of the peace in the aftermath of the Cold War?

The End of NATO?

President Trump openly and undiplomatically hammered NATO members for failing to pay the portion of GDP toward defense that the treaty specified.  The US has shouldered the majority of European defense since the end of World War II.  Of course, NATO was formed as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, which collapsed over a quarter of a century ago.  Why not declare victory and go home?

 

With Russia supposedly a rising power, the US needs to stay in Europe to protect the West from Putin.  Failure to do so just proves that Trump is Putin's stooge!  Really?  It might come as a surprise that the German economy is more than 2 1/2 times the size of Russia's.  The UK is 2.1 times as large.  France's economy is double.  Italy is 1.5 times the Russian economy.  As a whole, the European Union has a Gross Domestic Product that is 13 times the size of the Russian economy.  The EU can easily dominate Russia but has instead mostly disarmed to maintain generous nanny states, outsourcing defense to the US taxpayer.  To top it off, we have trade deficits with most of them.  With allies like these...

 

27 years after the Cold War ended, there is no reason for the United States to still be defending Europeans from an economic backwater.  Worse, Europe is funding Russia by getting 40% of its energy from Putin.  Germany's dependence on Russian oil and gas is higher still.  Russia is a vital trade partner to modern Europe but NATO was formed to be anti-Russian.

 

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.  Government programs, once launched, never disappear.  Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

Ronald Reagan

 

NATO is an expensive ($946 billion in 2017) relic of the Cold War, a governmental bureaucracy that completed its purpose but failed to close up shop.  Let's stick around for the 'attack on one is an attack on all' but nix the shared funding bit.  It's one thing to agree to come to your neighbor's aid if he is attacked and another to be unpaid security while he has a party.  The EU is a nuclear power (UK and France) and can afford to pay for its defense.  We'll be there if needed but it's time for them to pay the day to day costs.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!
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