NATO: A Dangerous Paper Tiger

Authored by Patrick Armstrong via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The Chinese have a genius for pithy expressions and few are more packed with meaning, while immediately understandable, than "paper tiger". NATO is one, but paper tigers that overestimate their powers can be dangerous.

Some Russians are concerned that there are today more hostile troops at the Russian border than at any time since 1941. While this is true, it is not, at the moment, very significant. The Germans invaded the USSR with nearly 150 divisions in 1941. Which, as it turned out, were not enough.

Today NATO has – or claims to have – a battle group in each of the three Baltic countries and one in Poland: pompously titled Enhanced Forward Presence. The USA has a brigade and talks of another. A certain amount of heavy weaponry has been moved to Europe. These constitute the bulk of the land forces at the border. They amount to, at the most optimistic assessment, assuming everything is there and ready to go, one division. Or, actually, one division equivalent (a very different thing) from 16 (!) countries with different languages, military practices and equipment sets and their soldiers ever rotating through. And, in a war, the three in the Baltics would be bypassed and become either a new Dunkirk or a new Cannae. All for the purpose, we are solemnly told, of sending "a clear message that an attack on one Ally would be met by troops from across the Alliance". But who"s the "message" for? Moscow already has a copy of the NATO treaty and knows what Article V says.

In addition to the EFP are the national forces. But they are in a low state: "depleted armies" they"ve been called: under equipped and under manned; seldom exercised. The German parliamentary ombudsman charged with overseeing the Bundeswehr says "There are too many things missing". In 2008 the French Army was described as "falling apart". The British Army "can"t find enough soldiers". The Italian army is ageing. Poland, one of the cheerleaders for the "Russian threat" meme, finds its army riven over accusations of politicisation. On paper, these five armies claim to have thirteen divisions and thirteen independent brigades. Call it, optimistically, a dozen divisions in all. The US Army (which has its own recruiting difficulties) adds another eleven or so to the list (although much of it is overseas entangled in the metastasising "war on terror"). Let"s pretend all the other NATO countries can bring another five divisions to the fight.

So, altogether, bringing everything home from the wars NATO is fighting around the world, under the most optimistic assumptions, assuming that everything is there and working (fewer than half of France"s tanks were operational, German painted broomsticks, British recruiting shortfalls), crossing your fingers and hoping, NATO could possibly cobble together two and a half dozen divisions: or one-fifth of the number Germany thought it would need. But, in truth, that number is fantasy: undermanned, under equipped, seldom exercised, no logistics tail, no munitions production backup, no time for a long logistics build up. NATO"s armies aren"t capable of a major war against a first class enemy. And no better is the principal member: "only five of the US Army’s 15 armoured brigade combat teams are maintained at full readiness levels". A paper tiger.

This reality was on display – for those who could see – in the "Dragoon Ride" of 2015. Intended "to assure those allies that live closest to the Bear that we are here", it was a parade of light armoured vehicles armed with heavy machine guns. Although breathlessly covered in the US media ("Show the world some of the firepower the United States and its NATO partners have in Eastern Europe"), it is unlikely that any watcher who had served in a Warsaw Pact army was impressed by what was in effect a couple of dozen BTR-50s. And neither was the US Army when it thought about it: a rush program was put into effect to give the vehicles a bigger weapon. The first one was delivered a year later. So now the US Army has a few lightly armoured vehicles with cannons. Something like the Soviet BTR-80 of the 1980s. Meanwhile, the Russians have the Bumerang-BM turret. Years of kicking in doors and patrolling roads hoping there are no IEDs are poor preparation for a real war.

No wonder NATO prefers to bomb defenceless targets from 15,000 feet. But there too, the record is unimpressive. Consider NATO"s last "successful" performance against Libya in 2011. No air defence, no opposition, complete freedom of movement and choice of action; and it took 226 days! Kosovo, a similar air action against a weak opponent, took 79 days. Meanwhile the years roll by in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Not, in short, a very efficient military alliance even when it is turned on against more-or-less helpless victims.

But there is one obvious question: does NATO take all its Russian threat rhetoric seriously, or is it just an advertising campaign? A campaign to bring in £240 million from the Baltics, an extra eighty billion for the US military-industrial complex, US$28 billion for Poland, Patriot missiles for Sweden, billions for F-35s for Norway (but no hangars for them), spending increases in the UK, Germany, France, Canada, Czech Republic and so on. A Russian threat is good for business: there"s poor money in a threat made of IEDs, bomb vests and small arms. Big profits require big threats. As I have written elsewhere, Russia was thought to be the right size of threat – big enough, but not too big. And they thought it was a safe target too – remember Obama in 2015 and his confidence that Russia didn"t amount to much?

Or so they thought then. What is amusing is that NATO is starting to worry about what it has awoken: "aerial denial zones", British army wiped out in an afternoon, NATO loses quickly in the Baltics, unstoppable carrier-killer missile, "eye-watering" EW capabilities, "black hole" submarines, generational lead in tanks, "devastating" air defence system, "totally outmatched". Russian actions, both diplomatic and military, in Syria gave NATO a taste: the Russian military is far more capable than they imagined. And far better wielded. The phantom conjured up to justify arms sales and NATO expansion now frightens its creators. A particularly striking example comes from General Breedlove, former NATO Supreme Commander who did much to poke Russia: he now fears that a war "would leave Europe helpless, cut off from reinforcements, and at the mercy of the Russian Federation." Not as negligible as they thought.

To what should we compare this weak, incompetent but endlessly boastful and belligerent alliance? In the past I have suggested that NATO is a drunk that drinks to cure the effects of its last bender. Is it a child in an endless tantrum, frightening itself with the stories it tells itself? Like the Warsaw Pact it is frightened of contradicting information or opinion and insists they be blocked. Certainly it is an exemplar of complacent self delusion: "Projecting Stability Beyond Our Borders" boasts about the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. The unicorns roam free in NATOland.

There is no reason to bother to read anything that comes out of NATO Headquarters: it"s only wind. There is one response. And that is Libya. When they say stability, respond Libya. When they say terrorism, respond Libya. When they say peace, respond Libya. When they say dialogue, respond Libya. When they say values, respond Libya. NATO is dangerous in the way that the stupid and deluded can be. But, when its principal member starts demanding its members "pay their share", and the people of five members see Washington a greater threat than Moscow, maybe its final days are upon us.

But incessant repetition becomes reality and that"s where the danger lies. Hysteria has reached absurd proportions: 2014"s "gas station masquerading as a country" decides who sits in the White House; directs referendums in Europe; rules men"s minds through RT and Sputnik; dominates social media; every Russian exercise brings panic. This would all be amusing enough except for the fact that Moscow doesn"t get the joke. While the NATO forces on their border may be insignificant at the moment, they can grow and all armies must prepare for the worst. The First Guards Tank Army is being re-created. I discuss the significance of that here. When it is ready – and Moscow moves much faster than NATO – it will be more than a match, offensively or defensively, for NATO"s paper armies. And, if Moscow thinks it needs more, more will come. And there will be no cost-free bombing operations at 15,000 feet against Russia. NATO"s naval strength, which is still real, is pretty irrelevant to operations against Russia. And still the paper tiger bares its paper teeth.

In other words – and I never tire of quoting him on this – "We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way". NATO has been kiting cheques for years. And rather than soberly examine its bank account, it writes another, listening to the applause in the echo chamber of its mind.

"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." We can only hope that NATO"s coming destruction does not destroy us too.

US, Sweden, Finland Launch New Format Talks: Dancing To Washington"s Tune

Authored by Peter Korzun via The Stratgeic Culture Foundation,

US Defense Secretary James Mattis visited Helsinki on Nov. 6-7 to attend a meeting of the Northern Group, a multilateral forum of 12 countries: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Before the event, the secretary was received by Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and then met his counterparts from Sweden and Finland. This is the first time a US Defense Secretary held talks in this format. Looks like the tripartite format talks are going to become a regular event as a similar meeting was announced to be planned for 2018.

Finnish Defense Minister Jussi Niinistö explained that the goal of this format was meant to supplement, rather than replace, Finnish and Swedish bilateral relations with Washington. According to him, no new alliance is being built despite the expanded military cooperation with the United States. The minister also invited the US military to participate in large-scale military drills in 2020 or 2021. According to him, Finland started preparations for a major military exercise of a scale it had not arranged since the end of the Cold War. “If there’s a crisis, it will be good for us to practice receiving help,” Jussi Niinistö said. Formally a neutral country, Finland is offering a scenario which envisages receiving US-led NATO reinforcements, like if it were a full-fledged member of the North Atlantic Alliance to be defended in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty!

Erkki Tuomioja, a former foreign minister and member of the Social Democrat Party, said he believes the defense minister is skirting parliamentary procedures in pushing to host such a large exercise and that he intends to oppose the drills.

A poll published on Nov.5 suggested 59 percent of Finns are opposed to NATO membership. Only 22 percent support the idea. Finland is to hold presidential election on January 28, 2018. None of the current presidential candidates support NATO membership except for Nils Torvalds of the Swedish People"s Party, who is polling a meager 1 percent. Sauli Niinistö, the incumbent who enjoys 76 percent support ahead of the election, has pushed to keep the prospect of NATO membership open to be backed by a majority of Finns, possibly via a referendum. But Finnish Defense Minister Jussi Niinistö keeps on stubbornly pushing his country into NATO’s arms without taking political reality into consideration.

He also said that cooperation to combat hybrid warfare was a priority item on the agenda. The term hybrid warfare is used in the West to label Russia. The Helsinki-based hybrid threat center - the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats - commenced its operation on Oct.4. 11 European governments plus the United States have joined forces to build it. Similar centers exist in other countries but this one is the first to link NATO with the auspices of the EU. Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said the center is a sign that the two organizations are cooperating at “an unprecedented level,” as evidenced by Finland, an EU country that is not a NATO member, being the host.

Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist, a tripartite talks participant, sent a very important security policy message. Following the meeting with Mattis, the Swedish defense chief informed the parliamentary defense committee that the government had chosen the US missile system Patriot as a replacement for the current outdated defense Robot System 97. The idea is to equip Sweden"s two air defense battalions with Patriot missiles until 2025. Sweden — Finland’s closest military ally and another non-NATO member — remilitarized the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea for the first time since the end of the Cold War and reintroduced conscription, among other things, to gradually move the country to war footing.

Some US-NATO deployments take place in the region for the first time ever. For instance, Baltops-2016 was the first NATO exercise to be held on Finnish territory. In September, US military made their first appearance on Swedish soil during the Aurora 17 military drills, the country"s largest training event in decades. Norway, a NATO member, welcomed an extended deployment of US Marines in June. It"s the first time a foreign force had been posted on Norwegian soil since World War II. Thus, Norway has actually shifted from the “no foreign forces on national soil” true-and-tried policy with political implications to follow. The Marines also have large stockpiles of tanks, artillery and other weaponry, which fill a network of caves. The equipment can accommodate roughly 14,000 troops, or a full Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

In June, Sweden and Finland joined the United Kingdom-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) - a rapidly deployable unit capable of conducting the full spectrum of NATO operations.

The countries of Northern Europe, including non-NATO Sweden and Finland, support the Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO, to pull together at least 20 EU countries in jointly planning, developing and coordinating weapons and equipment for military. The initiative is complementary to the operations of NATO. According to the Financial Times, more than half the EU’s member states are expected to sign up within days to a landmark joint defence effort at a meeting of European foreign and defence ministers on November 13 and launch the project in December.

The militarization of Northern Europe rarely hits headlines, but a look at the facts shows the trend is gaining momentum. It does not go unnoticed in Russia, prompting it to take appropriate measures. The recent Zapad exercise is an example. There is little wonder that Russia is concerned about the growing US influence in Northern Europe. After all, Russia belongs to the region, while the United States has no territorial or any other justification for its military presence there.

There will be a reaction if Sweden or Finland joins the North Atlantic Alliance. Even without formal membership, there is very little space between "being in NATO" and "being outside the alliance.” Evidently, no such thing as military neutrality on the Scandinavian Peninsula exists anymore to make the abovementioned countries priority targets for Russian response in case a military conflict sparks. Russia did not start it but it has to react as the countries of the region appear to abandon traditional good neighbor policies in favor of dancing to US tune.

Sweden, Submarines, And Propaganda

Authored by Brian Cloughley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Sweden’s most recent military cooperation with the US-NATO military alliance involved hosting armed forces of the many countries which participated in Exercise Aurora in September.

As noted by Euronews, “Sweden is undertaking its biggest military exercise amid fears of Russian military build up,” and NATO headquarters announced that “In the current security context with heightened concerns about Russian military activities, NATO is stepping up cooperation with Sweden and Finland in the Baltic region.”

NATO is anxious, even desperate, to justify the existence of one of the least-needed and most confrontational military alliances of modern times. In January, before he arrived in the White House, President Trump called NATO “obsolete” but in April went into reverse and said “It"s no longer obsolete,” which was fair warning of what lay ahead in the erratic administration of the most vulgar and spiteful president the United States has ever had. 

The fact remains that NATO is indeed ineffective and irrelevant (the notion of Russia invading Sweden is preposterous and, as Der Spiegel observed on October 20, “to be sure, hardly anyone really thinks that Russia might attack a NATO member state”), but its nominal leader, Jens Stoltenberg (the real chief is the US General titled “Supreme Allied Commander Europe”), has assumed the air of a national head of government and whisks expensively round the world making statements that have nothing whatever to do with NATO

One of NATO’s “concerns” in its obsession with Russia is to persuade Sweden to not only increase its already substantial collaboration with the alliance, but to actually become a member - although defence minister Peter Hultqvist is not in favour of such a commitment, in spite of having increased military spending and reintroduced conscription. 

Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

There is to be a general election next year, and Britain’s Financial Times is of the opinion that “Nato membership is set to be one of the most contentious topics in Sweden’s elections in [September] 2018. The opposition Moderates and their three centre-right allies have all pledged to seek Nato membership, ending more than a century of being outside a military alliance. They lead in the polls and are flirting with the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, which would solidify their lead further.” And according to a poll by the Pew Research Centre in May 2017, “about half of Swedes support Nato Membership.”

Given the NATO-joining aim of those likely to be in power in a year’s time, it is relevant to examine Sweden’s recent association with Russia, which is regarded as an enemy by a regrettably large number of Swedes. 

As reported by Swedish Radio, Ekot, there was an alleged incursion into Swedish waters by a Russian submarine in October 2014. The story was plastered all over the Western media, and in one example of disinformation Britain’s Daily Mail, a garbage newspaper, but with a large circulation, informed its readers of “Sweden’s History of Hunting Russian Vessels in its Waters” by recording that the most recent such incursions had taken place in 2011 when on April 13 “a possible foreign submarine is noticed in Baggensfjärden in Nacka, but later is identified as a raft frozen in moving ice” and on September 11 when the Swedish Navy had “investigated reports of an unknown object outside the harbour of Gothenburg.” 

Curiously, very few western news outlets reported later, as did Ekot, that the October 2014 alleged incursion was a load of nonsense. (Russian submarines, incidentally, are referred to as “U-Boats” in Sweden, but NATO submarines are called submarines.)

Ekot stated that “in October 2014, an intensive U-boat hunt took place in Stockholm’s archipelago” which had spurred Time magazine to speculate that the object of the hunt might be Russian because “Sweden’s military said Sunday it had made a total of three credible sightings within two days and released an image taken by a passer-by showing a partially submerged object...

 

A suspicious black-clad man was also photographed wading in the waters outside the island of Sandön.”

 

It was stated by the armed forces that “a [miniature] foreign submarine violated Sweden,” and in April 2015 Business Insider went so far as to state that “the Swedish military still believes that Russia was indeed sailing submarines around Swedish waters last year: ‘The assessment that Swedish territory was violated in October 2014 remains correct in its entirety’.” 

And so on and on went the stories, until, as reported by Ekot, “the Armed Forces suddenly announced in a press release [in September 2015] that this most important evidence [presumably the “three credible sightings”] no longer applied, but nothing was revealed about the background or what happened. And Ekot can now tell us that the Armed Forces’ deeper analysis showed that the sound did not originate from any foreign submarine... but from a Swedish source.” 

So there was collapse of an absurd allegation that had been seized upon by the West to illustrate the supposedly nefarious designs of Russia. But the propaganda machine had worked well.

The “Russian U-Boat” reporting farce was in a way similar to an incident in the Irish Sea in April 2015 when Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that “a trawler that nearly capsized when its nets became snared near the Isle of Man may have been hit by a Russian submarine, a fishermen’s organisation has claimed . . . Naval sources said there were no British submarines in the area at the time of the incident on Wednesday afternoon. The incident took place amid concern about increasing Russian submarine operations off the Scottish coast . . .”

These dreaded Russians, again and again. Would their dreadful provocations never end? 

But there wasn’t an end, because there was never a beginning. 

On 10 June 2015 a British Member of Parliament, Margaret Ritchie, asked the defence minister “What reports he has received of submarine activity in the Irish Sea on 15 April 2015.” The reply was that “Following reports of damage to the fishing vessel Karen on 15 April 2015, Ministers were advised of the Royal Navy’s confidence that no UK submarine was responsible. We do not comment in detail on submarine operations as this would, or would be likely to, prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of the Armed Forces.” In other words they were lying in their teeth and trying to disguise this unpleasant fact by employing the usual disguise of national security. (This happens all the time in US-NATO. It’s the best weapon they have.)

On July 13, 2015, Ms Ritchie returned to the fray and asked if the matter could be followed up because the Ministry of Defence had “confirmed that it was not a vessel belonging to the Royal Navy” that had been responsible for the incident that threatened the lives of the fishermen. She was fobbed off with the reply that “the Royal Navy takes its responsibilities very seriously.” Indeed it does, and I have the greatest regard for Britain’s Senior Service which knows exactly where its vessels are at any given moment, and doesn’t tell lies 

But politicians tell lies although sometimes these fail to stand the tests of time and truth, and eventually, five months after the incident, the UK’s defence minister was forced to admit that “I now wish to inform the House that, on the basis of new information that has become available, the Royal Navy has now confirmed that a UK submarine was, in fact, responsible for snagging the Karen’s nets. The incident, the delay in identifying and addressing the events on that day, and their consequences, are deeply regretted.”

“New information”? After five months? 

It had been known all along that it was a Royal Navy submarine that accidentally snagged the boat’s fishing nets, but the first instinct of politicians in matters like this is to try to disguise the truth until it becomes impossible to continue such trickery. If deception works, that’s fine; if it doesn’t work, then there is always the fall-back of “national security” to justify anything — especially when there’s a good chance that the blame assigned to Russia, by casual implication or calculated insinuation, will continue to stick. That is what propaganda is all about. Just as in Sweden, unfortunately, many people continue to believe that there was a Russian “U-Boat” in Swedish waters in 2014, as they were meant to do. 

Such non-incident stories are absurd - but they can’t be dismissed as amusing trivia. They are used to persuade ordinary decent citizens that there is a threat to their security, and no matter how many subsequent admissions may be made that prove the stories unfounded and ridiculous, there will be very many people who will continue to believe them. Watch how the Swedes vote next year.

Just as nobody found a submarine in the Stockholm archipelago, nobody has ever identified the “suspicious black-clad man” who was “photographed wading in the waters.” Let’s hope he’s got a vote.

NATO Launches New Black Sea Force To Target Russia

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

NATO has announced the launching of their multinational Black Sea Force, based in Romania, and including an entire Romanian brigade of 4,000 troops.

“We are sending a very clear message: NATO is here, NATO is strong and NATO is united,” Stoltenberg told assembled Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers.

The force is there to target Russia in the Black Sea region.

Romania insisted the deployment is “not a threat to Russia” and that the purpose of having more troops there to “target” Russia is “peace, not war.”

“We are not a threat for Russia. But we need dialogue from a strong position of defense and discouragement,”

900 US troops were deployed to Romania to participate in this force.

Since Russia doesn’t border NATO anywhere in the Black Sea region, the force appears to be largely pointless, except for additional grandstanding about NATO’s “readiness” for a fight with “invading” Russian forces, in an invasion that’s been predicted for years.

This appears to be an attempt to mirror the creation of NATO’s much larger Baltic forces, which are all deployed at or near the Russian frontier, and which see large western military contingents placed in tiny Baltic states.

Massive Russian, NATO Wargames Set To Begin Amid Mutual Accusations Of Provocation

As the two old, cold war adversaries, Russia and NATO, prepare to begin massive war games to show off their respective military strengths, it was the UK"s turn to accuse Russia first of "testing the West" by conducting war games on NATO’s eastern flank in its biggest military exercise in four years. Speaking on BBC"s “The Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday, U.K. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said that Russia"s exercise "is designed to provoke us, it’s designed to test our defenses, and that’s why we have to be strong. Russia is testing us and testing us now at every opportunity. We’re seeing a more aggressive Russia. We have to deal with that."

In a testament to our hyperbolic times, Fallon"s statement also contained just a "little bit" of fake news: while Fallon said that more than 100,000 Russian and Belorussian troops are at the borders of North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said last month that the so-called Zapad 2017 exercise Sept. 14-20 involves 13,000 troops, and that the drills are “purely of a defensive nature" according to Bloomberg.

Zapad 2017 preparations

To this end, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also told BBC today that Russia should allow western monitors to access the proceedings, in line with rules that require international observation of all exercises involving more than 13,000 troops. “We have seen before that Russia has used big military exercises as a disguise or a precursor for aggressive military actions against their neighbors,” Stoltenberg said. “That happened in Georgia in 2008 when they invaded Georgia, and it happened in Crimea in 2014 when they illegally annexed Crimea. So we call on Russia to be fully transparent.”

Stoltenberg also said that Russia has a history of “under-reporting” the number of troops in its exercises and “using loopholes in international agreements to avoid international observation,” although it was not clear just which country Putin had an intention of invading next.

Meanwhile, what the NATO commander forgot to mention is that just days before the dreaded Russian "Zapad 2017" exercise is set to begin, NATO"s own Steadfast Pyramid 2017 military exercise kicked off in Latvia on Sunday, with 40 senior commanders from NATO states, as well as Finland and Sweden. They are expected to train how to “plan and conduct operations” amid the bloc’s buildup in the region.

Steadfast Pyramid 2017 and Steadfast Pinnacle 2017, involving more than 40 senior officers from NATO member states, plus Finland and Sweden, will take place at the Riga-based Latvian Defense Academy, the country’s national news agency LETA reported on Sunday.

Covering the duration of Russia"s drills, Steadfast Pyramid, the first part of the exercise, will last until September 15. It is reportedly “to improve the ability of top-level officers and commanders to plan and lead joint operations,” according to LETA. Steadfast Pinnacle, the next stage of the drill, will last from September 17 until September 22. Steadfast Pyramid and Steadfast Pinnacle were first held in Latvia in 2011.  British General James Everard, the NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, is expected to arrive in Latvia to oversee both stages of the exercise, Latvia’s Defense Ministry said, according to LETA.

NATO soldiers participating in East European war games.

Meanwhile, not much is known so far about NATO"s war games. A NATO fact sheet says Steadfast Pyramid and Steadfast Pinnacle are focused on “further developing the abilities of commanders and senior staff to plan and conduct operations through the application of operational art in decision making.”

Latvia, a former Soviet republic, has seen a major NATO buildup over the past months. Recently, NATO deployed four multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland as part of Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP). These combat-ready battlegroups, led by the UK, Canada, Germany, and the US respectively, are meant to demonstrate “the strength of the transatlantic bond.” A 1,100-strong battlegroup led by Canada is stationed in Latvia, comprising a number of mechanized infantry units as well as a tank company and some support elements, according to NATO.

While NATO has denied it, Moscow has repeatedly accused NATO of offensive behavior, and justifies its own defensive buildup and posture on NATO"s encroachment on Russian borders.

Meanwhile, blissfully unconcerned about the Russian response, Poland and the Baltics have been calling for a stronger military presence in their countries, claiming it is necessary to deter “assertive” Russia. Lithuania has gone so far as suggesting developing a “military Schengen project that would facilitate the movement of troops in Europe.” Earlier this week, Lithuanian Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis said the Benelux countries – Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg – as well as Finland and Estonia, support the plan, which includes “simplifying procedures and investing in infrastructure.”

At the same time, Moscow has consistently said the ongoing buildup threatens Russian and European security. In mid-July, Russian envoy to NATO Alexander Grushko said the alliance is pushing forward for “an intensive mastering of the potential theater of military operations, accompanied by the development of the necessary infrastructure.”

To underscore his point, Grushko added that from July to November, NATO will hold 15 drills complementing each other, “which are held in the same operative field and aimed at providing a vast range of support measures.”

Finally, Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said that Moscow will not remain silent facing emerging threats on its western borders. NATO’s saber-rattling leaves Russia no other choice than to “give a suitable response to all of these actions,” he said, noting that Moscow’s countermeasures will be “much cheaper,” if not quite as technologically advanced, Putin told award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone.

Who's Contributing How Much To Financing NATO?

While the U.S. outspends all NATO allies when it comes to overall defence spending in relation to her GDP, Statista"s Dyfed Loesche notes - and President Trump is very well aware of - the U.S. is also the prime direct financer of NATO.

However, direct contribution are more evenly split between the major NATO powers. Germany for example, spends only 1.19 percent of her GDP into defence (USA = 3.61 percent) but seemingly pulls its weight when it comes to direct funding of NATO. This does not include contributions to particular military operations.

This chart shows direct financial contributions to the running of NATO (in million U.S. dollars)

You will find more statistics at Statista

As George Friedman recently noted, Europeans must face two facts...

First, the wars that matter to the US are being fought in the Islamic world. Second, Europe is not struggling to recover from World War II. Its military capabilities should be equal to those of the US.

NATO is obsolete if it defines its responsibility mainly to repel a Russian invasion. Especially since it refused to create a military force capable of doing that. It is obsolete in that it regards the US as the guarantor of Europe’s security when Europe is quite capable of incurring the cost of self-defense.

If European nations are free to follow their own interests, then so is the United States.

When we step back, we see a broader truth. First, the European Union is breaking. Europe is in no position to do unanimously supported NATO operations. For the Europeans, NATO is important because it means that, in the rare chance of a European war, the US must be there.

The United States wants to stop Russian hegemony over the European Peninsula. But the US can deal with that by placing limited forces in the Baltics, Poland, and Romania. The Europeans have devolved NATO into bilateral relations between the US and each NATO member. So, the United States can do the same. Also, the US can accept the status quo in Ukraine, written or unwritten. The US is not going to war in Ukraine. Russia is not going to war there either.

Trump’s approach to NATO has been forced on the US by the Europeans. NATO doesn’t work as an alliance. It is a group of sovereign nations that will respond to American requests as they see fit. The US knows this and at some point, someone was going to point out that NATO is obsolete.

The matter can be summed up the following way. What is the commitment of European countries to the United States? And what is the US commitment to Europe?

It is not clear that there is a geopolitical basis for this commitment any more. Interests have diverged. NATO is not suited to the realities of today.