by Oui
Sat Dec 8th, 2018 at 02:31:03 PM EST
"It took 15 years for the UK to be admitted because the French saw it was the English intention to compromise that plan."
[Comment by oldremainmer48]
To be specific, it were French president Charles de Gaulle and Dutch FM Joseph Luns (1956-1971) who kept the British out. They envisioned the British as troublemakers for the European Economic Community. Joseph Luns became NATO SG from 1971-1984.
With authority and a keen sense of humour, Luns chaired Council meetings rather informally compared to his predecessors. He called Ambassadors by their first name and put on slippers during lengthy Council discussions. However, Luns could become rather confrontational with those he felt were not supportive of the American view. High-minded yet visionary, he made it clear that staunch Atlanticism and a united Europe were complementary and expected others to get on board.
○ 1967: De Gaulle pulls France out of NATO's integrated military structure
More below the fold ...
Now the US feels threatened by the economic might of the EU, tables are turned and the two have become adversaries. The Americans are aware of their new role to keep the empire of exceptionalism riding high. Europeans still do not realize the European community should prevail and open de window to Russia. With Brexit, a third union is a new dawn: North America with the UK - Europe - Russia/China.
In the previous Cold War with Communism and the dictatorship of the Soviet Union, the NATO battleground plan was confrontation on the northern plain in Germany. In US premonition of Cold War 2.0 with mini-nukes, it will be the same battleground to defeat the Russians in order to gain regime change.
NATO in it's new role to attack Russia in a scenario of Cold War 2.0 has undermined the goal of peace envisioned by the founders of the EEC.
○ The US as nuclear rogue state. Part I of II by Sirocco @EuroTrib on Aug. 2, 2005
○ Georgia: oil, neocons, cold war and our credibility by Jerome a Paris @EuroTrib on Aug. 9, 2008
○ Russia to Meet NATO Challenge, Nukes As Last Resort (Dec. 2014)
Further reading ...
The Pentagon Is Planning a Three-Front 'Long War' Against China and Russia
In 2006, when the Department of Defense spelled out its future security role, it saw only one overriding mission: its "Long War" against international terrorism. "With its allies and partners, the United States must be prepared to wage this war in many locations simultaneously and for some years to come," the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review explained that year.
Twelve years later, the Pentagon has officially announced that that long war is drawing to a close -- even though at least seven counterinsurgency conflicts still rage across the Greater Middle East and Africa -- and a new long war has begun, a permanent campaign to contain China and Russia in Eurasia.
"Great power competition, not terrorism, has emerged as the central challenge to U.S. security and prosperity," claimed Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist while releasing the Pentagon's $686 billion budget request in January. "It is increasingly apparent that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian values and, in the process, replace the free and open order that has enabled global security and prosperity since World War II."
Of course, just how committed President Trump is to the preservation of that "free and open order" remains questionable given his determination to scuttle international treaties and ignite a global trade war.
○ EU-NATO Alignment After Brexit | Carnegie Europe |
○ President Trump predicting the European Union could be on its last legs
○ John Bolton pushing Trump to withdraw from Russian nuclear arms treaty
○ Rex Tillerson reflects on firing, working for "undisciplined" Trump | CBS News |
UN Ambassador Nikky Haley's last BIG defeat:
○ UN to vote on Haley's last stand: Condemning Hamas | The Israel Times |
○ US fails to win enough support at UN to condemn Hamas
Concluding its work for the main part of its seventy-third session today, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) approved 12 draft texts, of which 9 relate to ...
○ Israeli practices in the occupied Arab territories and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
