All in all, I don't quite get Europeans who are simultaneously pro EU integration, pro international stability, pro better EU-Russia relations, and anti-NATO. The last of these policy choices implies giving up on at least one of the first three.

This is a claim that requires elaboration. There is no clear way that support for NATO is pro-European integration or pro better EU-Russian relations, so it would seem to be that the claim hinges strongly on the notion that NATO is pro-international stability.

This is, of course, the military-industrial complex line ... that a base network of 700+ overseas bases accumulated in part as a result of fighting and winning WWII and then pursuing an encirclement strategy against the USSR, and accumulated in part just because it was possible to get a base in the country ... is somehow pro-international stability.

I think "international stability" here is a euphemism for Pax Americana, and if so it is one of those Orwellian terms that means its opposite, as Pax Americana seems to be one of the primary instigators of international conflict in the world at the moment.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.