Asking the Wrong Questions

Cannot give you the right answers

Victor Davis Hanson asks a question: Europe in the Balance? The context is NATO, rearmament and defending their borders.

It’s an irrelevant question.

Trump regularly is touted from the right for getting the NATO countries that we defend (no – they don’t defend themselves; they can’t and won’t and see no reason to – more below) to pony-up the treaty-required 2% of GDP for their military. Lately he, and they, have been yammering in celebration about 5%, using Putin’s Special Military Operation as rationale.

Before discussing the whys and wherefores of these budgetary requests/demand, it’s important to understand the purpose of NATO. Conventional wisdom says that NATO is “the most successful defensive alliance in history.” While that’s certainly nice PR, it has nothing to do with reality. NATO has never defended anything, so its claim to be the “most successful” must be taken with a huge grain of salt right off the bat.

NATO was designed to counter the USSR which dissolved in 1991-2. Its tactics, strategy, weapons and manpower were designed to counter the Warsaw Pact, which dissolved with the USSR. America put medium range ballistic missiles (nukes) into NATO to counter what was sold as the threat of massive waves of tanks rumbling through the Fulda Gap. As we can see from Ukraine, Russia has neither the tanks to create said waves, nor the manpower to run them. And drones are showing that a strategy based on expensive armor can be defeated by cheap drones from WalMart^TM.

For all the European – and American neocon – whining about Putin rolling into Europe once he’s done with Ukraine, one might notice that he doesn’t look to be “done with Ukraine” anytime soon. The idea he could roll into Europe is neocon marketing fantasy lacking any hold on reality. He’s been fighting a 2^nd-rate military for three years and hasn’t defeated it. The only people interested in holding land in Europe are the conquering muslims invited to do so by the “leaders” of Western Europe. Russia has enough of a problem with domestic muslims not to go abroad searching for more muslim monsters to destroy, which is all and exactly what he would get in “rolling over” Western Europe.

NATO has been used, although “successfully” certainly is arguable, in the America-run campaigns in S Asia. When the North Atlantic militaries need to go to S Asia to find a war to fight, their utility in or need for their core mission is more than suspect. And since they (we) surrendered to a bunch of illiterates in sandals and pajamas with only small arms, touting NATO as “successful” may be just a tad over the top.

One reasonably can ask what, exactly, is the use of the most modernized military force in history in fighting a rag-tag militia with AK47s? Especially if we don’t plan to defeat the opponent. Anyone actually thinking America has planned, or even wanted, to win any of its wars since 1945 has no clear grasp of geopolitics, military history, or capability.

If countering a non-existent USSR/Warsaw Pact, or defeating a third world tribal militia is not on the American or NATO agenda, again: What is the purpose of NATO and the trillions of taxpayer dollars and euros spent on it?

I’ll list two answers and make mine known. Both start with this fact: No one buys bullets for won wars.

Due to the need for and the desire of interoperability, NATO forces share much of the weaponry and mobility of the American forces that dominate the alliance. This necessitates buying from American manufacturers. Trump wants to re-industrialize America, so why not expand NATO’s purchases of America’s industrial output? It’s essentially a captive market. Did you think that extra 3% of GDP was going to Saab?

If we want both an industrialized Europe capable of contributing significantly to their own defense, and a Europe with a future, why not encourage their domestic defense industries? Our doing so might actually ensure a serious look by their governments at the cost of energy, at fertility rates, at workers able to understand complex systems, and at raising the general standard of living – and the safety – of Europeans.

So why don’t we encourage their domestic manufactures?

Because Congress is a money laundry; that’s why.

Congress cannot stop their addiction to the immoral capture of taxpayer dollars. Does anyone actually think that we blew-up Nordstream for any reason other than ensuring Europe’s reliance on the US for NatGas for electricity generation, and for manufactures? If Europe had cheap electricity, they could – and would – compete with America on arms and other industrial products. Competing economically against America was the entire point of the creation of the EU. How would that help the robber clan in Congress?

Congress spends about one trillion dollars annually on “defense.” And everyone in congress knows – in advance – where those dollars are going to be spent. So they point those dollars at the companies they like – the ones whose lobbyists have written the spending bills and bought the congressmen/women – invest in those companies before the contracts are announced, sell if a contract is about to be terminated, and make serious bank along the way.

No one in congress any longer writes legislation; it’s all done by lobbyists; congressdopes simply are salesmen and women for corporations and NGOs, endlessly recycling taxpayer dollars to their own benefit, not to the benefit of America and Americans. You don’t really think an AOC was hired for her ability to craft legislation do you? You don’t think that $37T debt was for OUR improvement, do you?

And, contrary to calls to jail these legislators for insider trading, people can’t seem to grasp that congress exempted themselves from insider trading laws precisely for this purpose: To enrich themselves off the taxpayers and not go to jail for doing so. The underhanded part of this is in the exemption from the laws, not in the trades they have legitimized for themselves, alone.

If America gets NATO countries to buy a few dozen F35s, who profits? Who needs them? Is an F35 (or F22 or F15 or F18 or F16) needed to shoot tribesmen in Afghanistan or Yemen? No. Is a B2 a nice-to-have to drop a few bombs on Iran? Sure. But the bombs are GPS-guided and could have been dropped by B52s (the testbed aircraft for the bomb) or C17s (parachute dragging it out the back). Just in case, however, we are building a B21 for another few hundred billion (borrowed) dollars…

And guess who is profiting off that?

Congress.

The purpose of NATO today is to enrich the American congressdopes, period.

It is NOT to win wars. It is NOT to deter an opponent that expired decades and over a generation ago. It is NOT to keep the West “free.” If it were the latter, we’d see domestic security forces preventing waves of illiterate, low-IQ, ideologically opposed, violent, angry, knife-wielding, illegal alien rapists and murderous men crossing the shores and borders of Europe. These waves are far more dangerous than the waves of Soviet tanks that never materialized. In fact, we see the opposite: State forces used to arrest and imprison the domestic population aghast and infuriated that their governments are destroying their communities, populace, and countries, and aiding the angry men carrying the knives.

NATO does not need F35s, B2s, HIMARs missile systems or Abrams tanks to defeat its invaders. It needs only what the North Vietnamese and Taliban had and have: Willpower and small arms. Historians will note: THEY WON, NOT the advanced Western militaries…

Which leaves the question: Is Europe worth saving? A question with one answer, delivered in two contexts.

No.

Its leaders know this and, aside from Italy, Poland and Hungary, Europe’s leaders have no interest in saving Europe. It’s a nice museum of the founding of Western Civilization, but its leadership has no interest in Western Civilization. In fact, they will lock you up if you ask for it back.

But the other answer is, perhaps, more pertinent and poignant: the people of Western Europe do not want to be saved. Not a single country in Europe has women ready and willing to birth and raise the next generation. The fertility rate of every country in Europe is below replacement. It’s silly to spend money to defend the free future of a people who don’t want freedom (ask the 14-yo Scots girl), or who are refusing to have the babies necessary even to have a future at all.

NATO is an absurd cost, especially for European taxpayers. The NATO countries have become the anti-free-speech authoritarians NATO was designed not to defend, but to defend against, and its own people don’t believe in the future enough to populate it.

The logical thing to do is to abandon NATO as a waste of money, time, effort, energy and, for those who still believe in civilization – like that little Scots girl – an expectation that no on in power has any interest – at all – in fulfilling.

Why won’t we do that?

Because no one buys bullets – or enriches themselves in congress – for won wars… Congressdopes make BANK off of killing people in useless wars they demand to fight but refuse to win.

Expecting them to stop it is to hold back the tides.