Friends, with the British general election just days away, and Trump ally Boris Johnson comfortably ahead in the polls, President Trump's visit to London for the NATO summit couldn't come at a more sensitive time. On this week's Newsmaker Show, Brian and I discuss whether NATO is up to the challenge, and whether Trump will be on his best behavior. Much is at stake, because a Boris win would seal both Brexit AND, in all likelihood, a U.S.-U.K. trade agreement. The "special relationship" could be special-er than ever!
Brian and I also talk about the latest impeachment machinations, the many permutations of what could happen after a hypothetical House vote to impeach the President, and the legacy of smog -- once a grave ecological and medical threat, and now a non-issue in most Western countries.
Listen in, and be enlightened!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GlgkerGaSg&feature=youtu.be
Dr. Waddy: I listened. NATO: would we go to war for them? Would they go to war for us? It may be that the Soviets were convinced we would. Had they advanced on Berlin or West Germany they would have engaged the American garrison and that would surely have clinched it. And what other invasion route is available to the Bear than the Polish and German plain? What, an amphibious descent on the Low Countries? The Royal Navy alone could have stopped that.
ReplyDeleteIf Venezuela were to attack us I doubt that Estonia would send support. But NATO persists against the yet existing threat of Russian power. I Think we have put small American forces in Poland and that they could have a trip wire effect similar to that of the Berlin garrison in the Cold War. That really doesn't involve much spending on our part and it assures Russia that any ill advised move beyond Ukraine will be met by US. As it did during the Cold War, that should be enough. Does NATO still have some utility? Oh yeah, I think, because if the Bear menaces, they would come mewing to us for succor anyway. The more Dutch, Belgian, Hungarian etc troops who participate, the fewer Americans are hazarded. More below on that:
The British election appears to be headed on a very positive course and I agree: President Trump would do well to stand clear: any consequent enhancement of the special relationship between us and our mother country is very much to be wished for.
I have been reading, In Tuchman's The Proud Tower, how 1890's Great Britain simply did not care how the rest of the world regarded it, so confident was it in its deserved and justified power. In considering your observation that President Trump is widely despised in Western Europe I am reminded of that. President Trump is one so unapologetically convinced that his country is, on balance (the only measure by which any country may be judged) a posiitve
Dr. Waddy: . . . influence, that he suggests in his attitude one similar to that of Britain in that day. The left, EVERYWHERE, including the U.S. cannot abide this!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy: Smog: I know about that having grown up in Buffalo, N.Y., a center of traditional heavy industry and I worked right in the middle of it.
ReplyDeleteThe Buffalo of today is very much cleaned of the resultant toxics. Of course that took the elimination of thousands upon thousands of jobs and pensions and yes, I know from first hand experience, a very way of life. OK,MAYBE that was justified on balance but the present day environmental movement is oblivious to it. "Why this is just the beginning" they urge. Its not nearly enough that the Buffalo River was purged of its pollutants and that fish once more enjoy their leisure thereby. The next step is to erase all human influence within some thousand feet of the river and if that destroys your neighborhood, well . . . .
This is but an example of the "environmental" movement's consummate motivation and purpose and how this fits into the American left's determination to assume full and dictatorial power.
The "environmental" movement is not satisfied(the human generated global warming campaign shows this)and it never will be; when it is consumed by the murderous left for whom it now runs interference, it will be dealt with, decisively and completely.
"Relief from smog?" "Why we haven't begun to fight!". "Perfection is our goal and don't you doubt it for one minute!"
Jack, you're absolutely right about US forces in Europe during the Cold War: they were effectively a trip wire that would guarantee US support for Western Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion. Where things get a little hazy, however, is nukes: would we have been willing to incinerate THE WORLD, including ourselves, in fidelity to our NATO allies? It's a good thing that bluff was never called! Today, though, I agree that US and Western European forces in the Baltic states should be enough to keep the Russian bear at bay. You can still argue, though, that NATO in the present day represents an American commitment to Europe. There appears to be no meaningful European commitment to us, or to Europe either!
ReplyDeleteExcellent point that, when the leftist utopia arrives, the environmentalists will be the first to be sent to the gulags. Their nagging will be seen as an obstacle to "progress," and not without reason. And I believe you're correct that environmental regulation is often excessive and job-killing. We should remember that corporate lobbyists often write the regulations -- not to protect "Mother Earth," but to criminalize the competition.
Dr. Waddy: Would we have gone nuclear to save Western Europe? The Soviets might well have thought us capable of it. It could have started with K's hardliners pushing him to take just Berlin,the allied presence in which galled them no end. I wonder if the garrison would have been ordered to fight? Could an exchange of battlefield nukes have been kept just to that?
ReplyDeleteKnowing President Trump, if the rest of NATO (except for the Brits)keeps expecting us to bear most of the burden, he may take action.
Gads: I never thought about lobbyists writing the regs to beat their competition. I don't understand the business world.
Oh yes, Jack. It's a myth that "big government" is a burden to business. Many businesses thrive on it. Those that refuse to play the game of crony capitalism, on the other hand, wither and die.
ReplyDeleteClearly, the Soviets BELIEVED we were willing to use nukes. Why else would they keep their 70,000 tanks idling for 40 years? It's not clear that we would have, though. And you're right: a limited nuclear exchange was always a possibility, with results that could have been very messy indeed, strategically and otherwise.
Dr. Waddy: The utility of battlefield nukes for us would have been to reduce the mass of the Bolshevik horde. But they wouldn't have needed legions to take Berlin, so maybe, just maybe, it would have stayed conventional.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, indeed! Who can say. Presumably WWIII would have led to escalation...until one side blinked. The Soviets might have assumed that we bourgeois weaklings would have blinked first. They might have been right...but the more important point is that, by never utilizing their vast conventional superiority in the first place, even in a region unprotected by NATO like the Middle East, they blinked preemptively. Ergo, we rule and they drool.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: It may have been that many in the Soviet leadership would have, out of doctrinaire Marxist contempt for those in the prosperous middle class who perversely support the system which enabled their well being, assumed we would blink first but in their military there cannot have been but many who recognized and respected American and British resolve, demonstrated in WWII. And in the later stages of the Cold War, I think our continued effort in Vietnam may have convinced them that we, like bull dogs, simply don't let go. Our insurgent domestic left in the '60's may have been unimpressive to them. Its one thing to abandon a backwater like Vietnam; Western Europe is a much different case and I think wise Russians knew it.
ReplyDeleteHistory proves you right, Jack. The Russians had opportunities to call our Cold War bluffs and consistently refused to do so. They had a healthy respect for American and Western power, occasioned in part by their, uh, intimacy with German arms in the 20th century!
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