PSYCHOANALYSING NATO: CONFIRMATION BIAS

Everything that is wrong and broken with NATO is summed up in the below article by Patrick Armstrong.

Once a defensive alliance during the original cold war, against the soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact but with the end of that it switched tack to try to define a new role for itself and became the military Rah! Rah! alliance of a hegemonic American empire aimed at exporting a neoliberal world order.

https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2018/11/17/psychoanalysing-nato-confirmation-bias/

 

There is a renewed push from the west, particularly Britain and America to ostracise Russia once more, the reality is that there is no going back no matter how hard they try. Personally this tactic angers me as I have been the target of such campaigns (as a South African), and understand quite well that once public sentiment turns against the "targeted party", they then move forward with more/other aggressive tactics. The public campaign a precursor to justify future aggression..

 

Baker promised Gorby NATO wouldn't move one inch past Germany if he let the wall come down.

Now look at NATO sitting right on Russia's borders and threatening more.

But of course it's Russia acting hostile threatening it's neighbors.

 

Excusez moi; do you suggest a better world order?

 

World Order, Peter? That's a joke. World Disorder is what we're living through - and that as a direct consequence of the US pushing for a world order under its dominance and ideology and which they have tried to force militarily.

No surprises this wouldn't and doesn't work is it. Every Napoleonic style overreach gets beaten back eventually.

Yo asked for my suggestion. This remains unchanged. a Multipolar world with no one nation being able to dominate.

 

Correct!

And these US Anti-Missile defense is sitting right where again? Uh ... in Poland and Romania where not a single US soldier should be normally!
And more and better as this ... this Anti Missile defense is told to be against these evil Iranian and North Korean Missiles that threat Europe so heavy! Anyone really believing this crap of lie in this forum?

 

If by chance Russia had stayed on the course that Gorbachev started and did not expand into Georgia/Ukraine or acted aggressively politically through assassination, digital hacking or election interference then perhaps its neighbors and adversaries would not want NATO protections.

 

Is it? Can't say I've noticed. In what way please?

 

On the one hand, NATO is already something good, and the existing structures allow the allies to work closely together and also to use common commons, supply and material structures.
There are numerous examples of this, especially within the Western European members such as the Franco-German Brigade, or to mention another example of no-ch else, the remaining 16 Leopard 2 tanks of the Netherlands, which form a company within a German tank battalion !

On the other hand, there is also a lot of legitimate criticism and, unfortunately, NATO has re-invented itself incorrectly after the end of the Cold War.
Just plain disgusting is the criticism from the US for many things. Apart from the fact that the US misuses its NATO bases and nato resources for its own geopolitical purposes, Trump's criticisms are simply shameful.
Yes, most Europeans do not fulfill the 2% duty to invest in their own defense ... and it is also true that, at least in my country's case, that would be necessary ... but that is the Treaty of Wales in 2014 and that according to this the 2% must be fulfilled only from 2024 on, does not say a Donald Trump of course and that his blind followers do not want to know either ... because this truth and fact will kill their reason to bash these stupid evil Euros!.

I am simply pleading for an end to NATO and for the Europeans to come closer together ... even if at the beginning it is only the core of France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and perhaps even Denmark, which are already working very closely together!

 

Ehm ... when became this part of Europe again member of NATO and when was the Georgia and Ukraine conflict starting please? Don't twist cause and effect ...
And if you look closer on it, we have the fact that the US started to dance in the Foreyard of Russia like Georgia first ... something what the US will never allow anyone else to do in of these countries in their foryard = Central America and Caribbian Sea!
And about Ukraine ... look on the last crisis there in 2009 and what the West told and what Putin answered then...
The West had nothing better to do as to announce that Ukraine could become next new NATO and EU member ... and Putin clearly told "OK, but then Crimean and Donbass become part of Russia. The West lauighed once about Putin, but I don't think that those who laughed once, are still laugh, eh?
And if you rate this as evil, then you have to rate of same evil US actions same way as evil!

 

If US had not pushed for NATO expansion eastwards, as it did immediately despite promising not to there would not have been no Georgian or Ukrainian situation in the first place.

 

"
the debate about the enlargement of NATO evolved solely in the context of German reunification. In these negotiations Bonn and Washington managed to allay Soviet reservations about a reunited Germany remaining in NATO. This was achieved by generous financial aid, and by the “2+4 Treaty” ruling out the stationing of foreign NATO forces on the territory of the former East Germany. However, it was also achieved through countless personal conversations in which Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders were assured that the West would not take advantage of the Soviet Union’s weakness and willingness to withdraw militarily from Central and Eastern Europe.

It is these conversations that may have left some Soviet politicians with the impression that NATO enlargement, which started with the admission of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999, had been a breach of these Western commitments. Some statements of Western politicians – particularly German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher and his American counterpart James A. Baker – can indeed be interpreted as a general rejection of any NATO enlargement beyond East Germany. However, these statements were made in the context of the negotiations on German reunification, and the Soviet interlocutors never specified their concerns. In the crucial “2+4” negotiations, which finally led Gorbachev to accept a unified Germany in NATO in July 1990, the issue was never raised. As former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze later put it, the idea of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolving and NATO taking in former Warsaw Pact members was beyond the imagination of the protagonists at the time.


Yet even if one were to assume that Genscher and others had indeed sought to forestall NATO’s future enlargement with a view to respecting Soviet security interests, they could never have done so. The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 later created a completely new situation, as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were finally able to assert their sovereignty and define their own foreign and security policy goals. As these goals centered on integration with the West, any categorical refusal of NATO to respond would have meant the de facto continuation of Europe’s division along former Cold War lines. The right to choose one’s alliance, enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Charter, would have been denied – an approach that the West could never have sustained, neither politically nor morally."
https://www.nato.int/docu/review/20...o-crisis/nato-enlargement-russia/en/index.htm

This was a complex time and situation that can be seen in many ways but, Russian aggression is undeniable. There has been no NATO aggression but perhaps should have been though the captured nations/territory were not members so......

 

If by chance Project Hammer had failed and the US had not installed Yeltsin, things might be very different today between the US and Russia.

 

Dayum….I had no idea the United States had so much power over Russian affairs. I had always assumed that Yeltsin rose to power and got elected.
"Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Е́льцин, IPA: [bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn] (listen); 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. During the late 1980s, Yeltsin had been a candidate member of the Politburo, and in late 1987 tendered a letter of resignation in protest. No one had resigned from the Politburo before. This act branded Yeltsin as a rebel and led to his rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin

I have no idea what "Project Hammer" might be beyond conspiracy theory.

 

You don't think Ukraine was threatened in a hostile manner?

 

Sarc! I was being facetious.

 

The US was deeply involved in the Maidan overthrow as evidenced Nuland, McCain and Keagans involvement right at the scene in real time. This US support was embraced by the deeply corrupt ultra-nationalist factions without the Ukraine in order to foment destabilization on the Russian border in a state with deep ties to Russia and whose eastern provinces are overwhelmingly ethnic Russian. Luhansk and Donbass where the major conflict is happening are Russian and none of the people there want to live under the corrupt proto-fascist regime in Kiev.

Crimea has been the seat of the Russian Black Sea fleet since the time of Catherine. What was Russia supposed to do? Just let this deeply strategic and historically Russian area be taken over by hostile forces right on it's border? It would have been suicide.

What would happen if a hostile foreign alliance had taken over Mexico right on the US border? How would they have reacted?

 

The Clinton Admin thought that by spending millions to get Yeltsin elected in '96 they could enpower the oligarchs who ended up grabbing up state assets for pennies on the dollar and get in on the firesale as the former USSR moved to a more capitalist economy:

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...dling-doing-years-vladimir-putin-donald-trump

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-us-intervention-foreign-elections-20161213-story.html

 

That is an interesting theory...I don't suppose you have any data that might help it seem true besides it being discussed?

 

Did you read the links. It is more than theory but I can pull up more information when I get some time. Or you could google it yourself. It is not a huge secret.

 

I assume you refer to this:
"The U.S. also attempted to sway Russian elections. In 1996, with the presidency of Boris Yeltsin and the Russian economy flailing, President Clinton endorsed a $10.2-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund linked to privatization, trade liberalization and other measures that would move Russia toward a capitalist economy. Yeltsin used the loan to bolster his popular support, telling voters that only he had the reformist credentials to secure such loans, according to media reports at the time. He used the money, in part, for social spending before the election, including payment of back wages and pensions. "

Not quite what you claim it to be.

 

Kind of busy right now but I found a Time article that outlines the whole affair: Rescuing Boris; how four US Advisers used polls, focus groups, negative ads and all the other techniques of American campaigning to help Boris Yeltsin win:

https://ccisf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/201612201405.pdf

If you read the article it should give you all the background you need. So all those American campaign techniques take cash, right?

 

Helping a candidate is a far cry from "Installing Yeltsin" as you said.
"If by chance Project Hammer had failed and the US had not installed Yeltsin, things might be very different today between the US and Russia. "
Like I said....a very complicated time and of course the U.S. wanted perestroika to succeed.

 

Yeltsin's poll numbers were like 6% before the American intervention. (more or less) You would not consider this meddling in the affairs of another nation?

Not sure it was as much wanting Perestroika to succeed as taking part in the firesale of state assets and a play on oil reserves. But yes, having a compliant western friendly oligarchy would certainly have been part of the calculus.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/18/...implicationa-runoff-is-yeltsin-s-to-lose.html

While it was happening.