When I was deployed to Mosul, Iraq, we were running non-stop missions out of a forward operating base in the North that was set up by the local Kurdish fighting force known as the Peshmerga. To get from this forward operating base to where we needed to go, typically we had to cross the Mosul Dam, which, at the time, ISIS had sworn to blow up.
At any rate, my first time crossing this dam I saw something weird. Sitting at the South end in one of OUR American Humvees was some idiot sitting in a turret, supposedly guarding said dam, with a giant feather sticking out of his helmet. Confused, I asked our intelligence asset who this clown was and what he was doing there. His reply, “The French are part of NATO so they technically have to be here.” Needless to say, this made the entire vehicle burst out laughing because we thought he was joking. He wasn’t.
Contrary to common belief, it is true that NATO has been “involved” in every major conflict involving its members since WWII. Of course, you wouldn’t know it because when it comes to these conflicts they are, historically speaking, just the guy sitting in the corner with a blue helmet and a drink in his hand watching while America does the heavy lifting. Given this fact, and the fact that President Trump, someone who is not necessarily friendly with NATO, is now running the United States, two questions need to be answered for his base. Why does NATO even exist at this point, and more importantly, why hasn’t an American ever been in charge of this, in many ways, useless organization?
Beginning with the first question, the answer is actually twofold. The origins of NATO began with then-UK Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin trying to find a solution for Joseph Stalin’s post-WWII communist expansion; something most Americans today would probably agree was a smart play.
Bevin’s ambitions eventually led to something called the Brussell’s Treaty (a collection of nations all agreeing to the same alliance), and that, then, became The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on April 4th, 1949. The goal, throughout this metamorphosis, though, had always remained the same. I.e., form a coalition to stop Stalin’s anti-West influence. Again, a noble and righteous pursuit to pretty much any sane person at the time.
Moving on to today, I don’t know if you have noticed, but Stalin no longer exists. For that matter, neither does the Soviet Union. Therefore, what is NATO’s purpose now?
In many ways, NATO exists as a sort of quasi-new world order, only impotent. In other words, NATO doesn’t actually do anything these days except use the US as a big brother when they want to bully non-NATO countries. And this is probably part of the reason they hate Trump so much, I might add.
If the world were a metropolis, NATO would be essentially an inner city gang that is trying to keep everyone in line by using the US as their enforcer. Case in point, they wouldn’t allow Russia into the organization back in the early 2000’s, yet they also ignored that 1991 “Iron Clad Agreement” to avoid expanding to Russia’s border. Why, you ask? Because they know they don’t have to fight Russia if their political games turn into a full scale war. They will just call America and we will do the fighting while they reap all the rewards. Honestly, it’s kind of a smart play, which I’m sure is part of the reason why President Trump called them out for “taking advantage of us.”
Anyway, when it comes to the second question, this is where President Trump could really make a big impact on NATO. More specifically, and I don’t blame you if you are shocked that you didn’t know this, no American has ever been the leader of NATO. Yes, you heard that right, the small plot of land known as Denmark, the internationally irrelevant nation of Norway, and the wine drinking country of lovers-not-fighters known as Italy have all stood atop the NATO mountain and wielded its power. Not the United States though. Rather, we just sit back and pay for the whole damn thing to the tune of billions of dollars, or, at the low-end, 16% of their entire revenue and at the high end 64%. I digress.
Given that NATO does nothing for the United States except take our money and get us into wars, and that the Soviet Union died an un-ceremonial death almost three decades ago, President Trump's new administration should do something about this parasite in allies clothing. To elaborate, since allies who require a treaty aren’t really allies anyway, he should either pull us out of NATO entirely so that they cannot use our young men and women’s lives as their enforcement mechanism, or we should be at the helm.
Since pulling out of NATO is unlikely at this time, I think that the path of least resistance is simply putting pressure on NATO to install an American Secretary General, since, after all, America is NATO and NATO is the fish swimming around the shark looking for scraps and/or protection. But what do I know, I am just a grunt who laughs at French guys on a dam.
