NATO is Dead
Or, more correctly, that which its European member states believed it to be.
Published: 2025-03-15
Europe’s Concept of NATO is Dead
A growing tremor, a reckoning with reality, is shaking the geopolitical foundations of NATO. A chasm has formed in the Atlantic between a realism in Washington D.C., slowly being recognized at NATO HQ in Brussels, and fiercely being resisted in the fantasies of leaders in palaces in London and Paris.
Ronald Reagan's US and Mikhail Gorbachov's Soviet Union grappled with nuclear horror at the peak of the Cold War through arms limitation treaties. The Soviet Union disbanded the Warsaw Pact, and with the promise not to expand NATO "one inch eastward", Germany was re-unified. The detente was quickly turned into an "End of History" victory by US historical revisionists. The Gulf War (Iraq 1.0) was used to by the US to recover from its "Vietnam syndrome".
The US, under William Jefferson Clinton, pretended that their Secretary of State Baker had made no "written" promises to Russian leadership and began the profitable expansion of NATO, eastward. The previously defensive alliance was converted into a geopolitical tool during the Yugoslav war, from March to June, 1999, when
For 78 straight days, NATO relentlessly blitzed civilian, government, and industrial infrastructure throughout the country, killing untold innocent people – including children – and violently disrupting daily life for millions. While the US oversaw the ruinous campaign, both publicly and privately, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was an ardent advocate of even greater belligerence against non-military targets, despite the grave concerns and warnings of government legal advisors.
In the quarter century thereafter, two parallel military/political projects developed. On the one hand, European NATO member states supported the US hegemon's use of violence for its geopolitical strategies, often to the advantage of Israel in southwest Asia and northern Africa. A key neoliberal element of this was the “Right To Protect” (R2P), a dictum which said that NATO could invade anywhere to “save” people. Hillary Clinton’s 2011 war in Libya was the primary test case. On the other, the European Community was converted from a free trade zone into the technocracy seen today in the European Union's Commission. While this conversion occurred with a centralization of power in Brussels, no lasting effort was made to create a European defense force, despite efforts from some elements in Washington to foster it. Ambassador Chas Freeman has spoken of this repeatedly in recent interviews.
Leaders of former European empires dabbled in geopolitical power projection by partnering with their US overlord, neither needing nor choosing to invest in their own militaries or their industries. The European side of NATO slept comfortably in US arms, expecting that the US would always be there to save Europe from itself.
Russia
Russia has been, since its early expansion, a resource prize. With its Communist government during the Soviet era it was constructed as an ideological enemy. There never was a "missile gap". Behind the Iron Curtain created by Churchill lay not a people suffering from dictatorial centralized power, but the evil hordes, reminiscent of the Mongol "Golden Hordes".
Today, Russia is not Communist but there is a "missile gap", in hypersonic technology.
The NATO-Russia Ukraine war was created by the US as a geopolitical operation to "weaken Russia" (and hopefully depose Vladimir Putin, and if lucky, begin the process of dividing the country into smaller, easier to control sub-states) in preparation for assaulting China. The neo-colonial playthings of Europe jumped on board, against wiser advice, to foment a war on their own continent. Now that Russia has defeated NATO, by defending itself economically with the support of the Global Majority, sick of US economic hegemony, and out-producing NATO's military industrial base by a factor of 4, the tables have turned.
The US recognizes that it has been defeated. Its European NATO allies refuse to accept this truth. Therein lies the gulf which is destroying NATO.
A recent RAND study warned the US government and military that the US military industrial base cannot meet the needs of the US military, let alone foreign orders. The US cannot "save" Europe. The Trump administration informed Europe of this via Hegseth’s remarks at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, using less explicit language
What is breaking is the EuroVassals perception of NATO. They have been told that they're on their own. The EU commission and various states are suddenly seeking debt financing to cobble together €800 billion of armaments to prolong the Ukraine war. The finance may well be issued, but the weapons do not exist. The European political elites are marooned on a continent in a war with Russia with no local resources to maintain it.
Reality
NATO spokesman, Secretary General Rutte, reinforced US Secretary of Defense Hegseth's statement from a month ago, just after being beaten around the ears by US President Trump. Ukraine is not getting into NATO, you idiots. By extension, neither is Georgia. The 2008 NATO Memorandum from Bucharest was an aspiration born in a bygone unipolar world.
NATO as a cheap circus ride for modern leaders of former European empires is dead. The US empire is waning, but its not dead yet, and its not going to sacrifice itself to save these nostalgic, wannabe Emperors.
Frankly, the European leaders are just jealous. They were told that they'd "won" the Cold War. Now, they're looking at Vladimir Putin with 80% popularity running a big country with the 4th largest economy who has just defeated them and their US sponsor. Its too much for their small minds to bear.
The US message is very clear:
Make peace with Russia, but don't you dare start buying their energy. That you buy, from US.
Postscript
The European Court of Human Rights have just found the (US installed) Ukraine government of 2014 guilty of all sorts of nasty for the handling, or lack thereof, of the massacre in the Trade Unions building in Odessa, on 2014-05-02.
or support this work via Buy Me A Coffee or Patreon.
Sources
Collapsing Empire: 'NATO Is Dead'; Kit Klarenberg; Scheerpost; 2025-03-14
Putin Is No Hitler; Craig Murray; Consortium News; 2025-03-14
Trump’s presidential diplomacy is surging; M. K. Bhadrakumar; Indian Punchline; 2025-03-14
Echoes Of The May 2 2014 Odessa Massacre; b.; Moon of Alabama; 2025-03-14
Regarding a Ceasefire, Putin says it is About 'Nuance'; Larry C. Johnson; SONAR21; 2025-03-14
NATO Chief: Membership for Ukraine Is Off the Table; Kyle Anzalone; Antiwar; 2025-03-14
Ukraine's accession to NATO is no longer under consideration, Rutte confirmed; News; News Pravda; 2025-03-14
Russia Defeated NATO; YesXorNo; 2025-03-10
[US] NATO v Russia: 2014 - 2025; YesXorNo; 2024-03-09
More resources to follow.
Copyleft: CC0
Thank you for your thoughts.