Quote:
Originally Posted by FreedomofSpeech
Is this a joke? American taxpayers are the ones who help pay for NATO. The whole purpose of the alliance if for nations to fuffil their obligations that they 'signed up' for. If you want to leave, then LEAVE. Thats the problem with Germany-- they should just leave NATO instead of refusing to send troops.
But then again, if European nations left then NATO wouldn't be able to help them in a future hypothetical situation involving their country.
And don't mistake me, I'm against NATO. But if you're in, you're in! If you're out, you're out.
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In a way, you are formally right when you say: "If you are in the NATO, then fulfill obligations, or else leave."
But, but...keep in mind that all European countries are nowadays run by dictatorships of the "liberal democratic" elites. Even if there is a wish of the public to step out from the military alliance, the political elites will never allow that. The pattern of transatlantic alliance is something of a self-understood for the European and the American power structures. It has been in function since the end of the Second World War. That is the so-called "modern West", "Western alliance". Some call it a kind of great Soviet Union (USA, European Union, The British Commonwealth, NATO). NATO is sacrosanct for all European ruling cliques, including those of the post-Communist East which recently joined "the West". Whether the "left" or the "right" is in the office, makes really no difference.
So the structures of power aka governments are the problem. And this makes their behaviour even more hypocritical: the governments are trying to balance between being members of the sacrosanct NATO (this breed of politicians does not seem to be able to conceive any policy outside of the "Western aliance", they are shaped by that worldview) and the ever plummeting public support for NATO's adventures. The appearance of democracy must always be upheld.
And another factor in this dispute are American military bases in Europe. Would they just leave even if a country decided to step out of the NATO? The best possible outcome would be if America herself decided to pull out of the NATO. The alliance would be then dismantled by itself.