The Ongoing War Against Trump

ERIC ZUESSE | 22.01.2017 | WORLD

The Obama-Clinton (and Democratic Party newsmedia) war against Donald Trump — a war to delegitimize him as the U.S. President, and to soften the country up for installing instead a President as rabidly hostile toward Russia as Hillary Clinton would have been — continues on every front. 

The New York Times headlined on Inauguration Day, Friday the 20th of January, «Donald Trump’s Inauguration Becomes a Time to Protest and Plan». That news-report said:

The American Civil Liberties Union announced on Thursday that it had filed its first legal action against Mr. Trump, a Freedom of Information Act request for documents about his potential conflicts of interest, and it released a seven-point plan to challenge every aspect of the incoming president’s agenda.

«It’s a first shot across the bow to underscore the fact that no one, not even the president, is above the law, and that there are serious concerns about the president’s disregard for existing laws and statutes,» said Anthony Romero, the executive director of the organization, which is adding 100 staff members — a 10 percent increase — in anticipation of taking legal action against Mr. Trump. »We need to go on offense from the very beginning, and we will litigate everything that we possibly can, we will try to deny them momentum, we’ll try to rob them of time and bandwidth».

The libertarian-liberal ACLU is financed mainly by Democratic Party aristocrats such as the hedge-fund gambler (euphemistically called ‘investor’) David Gelbaum ($19 million donated annually to ACLU until George W. Bush’s economic crash hit him hard in 2009 and forced him to stop), David Trone ($15 million in 2015), and George Soros (now in the fourth year of a $50 million total donation). Also, some Republican families such as the Kochs and the Waltons were mentioned, although that poorly written Washington Post article merely suggested, but failed to make clear whether, those families had donated anything to ACLU. Furthermore, the libertarian neoconservative (otherwise known as neoliberal neoconservative, or as imperialistic libertarian, or, more simply, as «war-mongering») Democrat Soros’s Center for Media & Democracy has exposed the fact that almost all of the libertarian Republican Kochs’ donations on criminal justice are actually to weaken laws against CEO and other white-collar crimes — so as to benefit the aristocracy, at the public’s expense. Furthermore, one of the much-pumped Koch ‘charitable’ involvements that helps poor ex-convicts, had actually received from the Kochs only a donation «in the six figures» — pocket-change, cheap lipstick on their enormous financial pig.

Soros himself, moreover, does far more to stir war against Russia than to ‘do good’ inside America or anywhere else; and so, for all aristocrats, ‘non-profits’ (such as ACLU) are likelier propaganda-vehicles to put a kindly face upon their unlimited greed (and partisan political campaigns), than they are actual agencies for the public’s good. Of course, the millions of small donors (who don’t own any ‘charities’) take no tax-deductions for their far more sincerely intended sacrifices of their personal donations; and all tax-deductions for ‘charitable donations’ are less of an actual generosity than they are a political scam on the rest of society, by the wealthiest Americans, to receive both good PR and lowered taxes, while the lower 90% become yet poorer than they were before, with no tax-deduction for their authentic generosity, and so those non-rich individuals end up being the people who pay the tab for it all, in taxes, low wages, and crumbling infrastructure. It’s a vast societal scam worldwide, by the top 0.1% actually, against the bottom 99.9%, in order that (for example) «Eight men now own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world», and yet it somehow won’t be considered to be unearned wealth, theft (however subtly) by the richest few, from the less-fortunate half of the population. (No? Eight men are as worthy as are the 3.75 billion who constitute the world’s poorer half? Those eight earned as much as those 3.75 billion? Or do they simply take as much?) (What actually stands behind, and sustains, any such enormous concentration of wealth, is power, which is composed of deceit and violence — deceit if a ‘democracy’, violence if a dictatorship. It’s theft, either way. That’s just a fact. But, of course, myths, from the aristocracy, constantly deny it.)

So: who are Gelbaum and Trone? David Gelbaum ‘earned’ his fortune in high-frequency trading, using algorithms to identify moment-to-moment stock trends, at Princeton Newport Partners. David Trone is a strong believer in the fascist principle that money is speech, so that billionaires have thousands of times more ‘free speech’ ‘rights’ than normal people do, and this favoritism for the super-rich fits the Republican Supreme Court’s rulings that political campaigns should be one-dollar-one-vote instead of one-person-one-vote — or that no one’s political spending should be limited, a principle the ACLU has backed strongly. Trone’s own personal political contest, to become the Democratic candidate to replace the retiring Democrat Chris van Hollen in the U.S. House, spent more money, $393 per vote, than anyone in U.S. history had spent, and it was all his own money — and yet he was so lousy that he didn’t win the nomination anyway. Like most mega-donors, these ‘philanthropists’ join with others of like mind, to control their government (both political Parties), for their collective class benefits, the super-rich class against everybody else — but not against their ‘philanthropies’, their own tax-advantaged PR organizations. And yet some of them can’t win a Congressional nomination even paying $393 per vote; so, all that remains to them for swaying the government, is to use the propaganda-cover of «ACLU,» or some other ‘idealistic’ ‘charity’, to front their ‘philanthropy’.

America’s aristocracy just don’t like Trump, and they overwhelmingly — even Republican ones — preferred Hillary Clinton to become President. In the final tally for the 2016 Presidential election, Trump’s campaign spent $340 million for 62.98 million votes, and Hillary’s campaign spent $581 million for 65.84 million votes. Trump spent $5.39 per vote, while Hillary spent $8.82 per vote (much of Hillary’s being wasted in states like California where she clobbered Trump by 60% or more, whereas Trump focused only on the states that were toss-ups, which latter states decided the contest). (In America’s Electoral College, winning a given state by 1 vote is the same as winning it by 100% — it’s «winner take all».) (Yes, like throughout Hillary’s entire career, she was plain stupid, notwithstanding that she was articulate.) (Of course, both of the candidates were liars, but neither of them was nearly as skillful at that craft, as was Barack Obama, a supreme master of deceit.) Excluding $66 million which Trump himself had paid for his campaign (Hillary spent nothing on hers), his campaign received a mere $274 million from donors — less than half of the $581 million that Hillary’s donors gave to hers. (As regards the average size of the donations that any candidate has received, the American system is set up so that no such figure can be calculated, and the only sources on the matter come from the campaigns themselves and cannot be verified from any reliable source.) In any case: Clinton was overwhelmingly (by more than two-to-one) favored above Trump by America’s aristocracy.

Consequently, whereas the U.S. aristocracy were willing to finance George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and (in 2016) Hillary Clinton, into the White House, they provided far fewer funds to their fellow-aristocrat Donald Trump, who wants to end the Cold War on the U.S. side now — 25 years after George Herbert Walker Bush and all of his successor-Presidents until Trump had consistently refused to end the Cold War, even though it ended on the Soviet side in 1991, when the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact military alliance all ended, even while America’s anti-Russia NATO military alliance continues to this day. Ending that war by the U.S. side would mean steep declines in some of the aristocracy’s major investments: they therefore resist it implacably.

Trump is offering, to his fellow-aristocrats, a deal, and we’ll soon know whether enough of them accept it, for him to be allowed to serve out his term: generous opportunities to scam the American public, in some ways even more than Obama and Bush did. So far, it seems that America’s aristocrats simply will not accept anything less than the precise type of scam that GHW Bush instituted and laid the groundwork for: rule of, by, and for, America’s military-industrial complex (themselves), focused specifically upon conquering Russia (mainly because that’s not only the most resource-rich target, but also because it’s the only ‘enemy’ that to ‘compete’ against with new weaponry would keep their own mega-arms firms soaring).

Trump has given these people a national-security team that is rabid to conquer Iran; but, apparently, even this aggressive intent is not sufficient to win their support. Nothing but conquering Russia will suffice, for them; so, they are now pressing forward with their scheme to portray Trump as being ‘Putin’s puppet’.

They have thus thrown down the gauntlet, and they stand a reasonably good likelihood of being able soon to replace him with his current Vice President, Mike Pence, who has no such rebellious tendency. Perhaps the Republican establishment would have gone all-in for Hillary Clinton (and Trump wouldn’t even have gotten that $274 million) unless Trump offered them a Vice Presidential candidate, a back-up, whom they approved of (such as Pence); but Trump’s having made this concession to them could end up as his un-doing. What more concessions could he offer them than he has already done by his rabidly anti-Iranian Cabinet-appointments? Only time will tell, and it could tell soon.

So, now comes the moment when the answer — whether Trump rules his aristocracy, or his aristocracy rules Trump — will likely soon become clear.

FINIAN CUNNINGHAM | 21.01.2017 | OPINION

British Fingerprints in Dirty Tricks Against Trump

Britain’s divisive Brexit politics are playing out through the new US presidency of Donald Trump. It seems that a faction within the British political establishment which is opposed to Britain leaving the European Union has joined forces with American intelligence counterparts to hamper Trump’s new administration.

By hampering Trump, the pro-EU British faction would in turn achieve a blow against a possible bilateral trade deal emerging between the US and Britain. Such a bilateral trade deal is vital for post-Brexit Britain to survive outside of the EU. If emerging US-British trade relations were sabotaged by disenfranchising President Trump, then Britain would necessarily have to turn back to rejoining the European Union, which is precisely what a powerful British faction desires.

What unites the anti-Trump forces on both sides of the Atlantic is that they share an atlanticist, pro-NATO worldview, which underpins American hegemony over Europe and Anglo-American-dominated global finance. This atlanticist perspective is vehemently anti-Russian because an independent Russia under President Vladimir Putin is seen as an impediment to the US-led global order of Anglo-American dominance.

The atlanticists in the US and Britain are represented in part by the upper echelons of the intelligence-military apparatus, embodied by the American Central Intelligence Agency and Britain’s Military Intelligence (Section) 6 (MI6).

Notably, incoming US President Donald Trump has expressed indifference towards NATO. This week he repeated comments in which he called the US-led military alliance «obsolete».Trump’s views are no doubt a cause of grave consternation among US-British atlanticists.

It is now emerging that British state intelligence services are involved much more deeply in the dirty tricks operation to smear Trump than might have been appreciated heretofore. The British involvement tends to validate the above atlanticist analysis.

The dirty tricks operation overseen by US intelligence agencies and willing news media outlets appears to be aimed at undermining Trump and, perhaps, even leading to his impeachment.

The former British MI6 agent, named as Christopher Steele, who authored the latest sexual allegations against Trump, was initially reported as working independently for US political parties. However, it now seems that Steele was not acting as an independent consultant to Trump’s political opponents during the US election, as media reports tended to indicate.

Britain’s Independent newspaper has lately reported that Steele’s so-called «Russian dossier» – which claimed that Trump was being blackmailed by the Kremlin over sex orgy tapes – was tacitly given official British endorsement.

That endorsement came in two ways. First, according to the Independent, former British ambassador to Russia, Sir Andrew Woods, reportedly gave assurances to US Senator John McCain that the dossier’s allegations of Russian blackmail against Trump were credible. Woods met with McCain at a security conference in Canada back in November. McCain then passed the allegations on to the American FBI – so «alarmed» was he by the British diplomat’s briefing.

The second way that Britain has endorsed the Russian dossier is the newly appointed head of MI6, Sir Alex Younger, is reported to have used the material produced by his former colleague, Christopher Steele, in preparing his first speech as head of the British intelligence service given in December at the agency’s headquarters in London. That amounts to an imprimatur from MI6 on the Russian dossier.

Thus, in two important signals from senior official British sources, the Russian dossier on Trump was elevated to a serious intelligence document, rather than being seen as cheap gossip.

Excerpts from the document published by US media last week make sensational claims about Trump engaging in orgies with prostitutes in the presidential suite of the Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel while attending a Miss World contest in 2014. It is claimed that Russian secret services captured the alleged lewd activity on tape and will now be able to leverage this «kompromat» in order to blackmail Trump who becomes inaugurated this week as the 45th president of the United States.

Several informed analysts have dismissed the Russian dossier as an amateurish fake, pointing out its vague hearsay, factual errors and questionable format not typical of standard intelligence work. Also, both Donald Trump and the Kremlin have categorically rejected the claims as far-fetched nonsense.

While most US media did not publish the salacious details of Trump’s alleged trysts, and while they offered riders that the information was «not confirmed» and «unverifiable», nevertheless the gamut of news outlets gave wide coverage to the story which in turn directed public attention to internet versions of the «sensational» claims. So the US mainstream media certainly lent critical amplification, which gave the story a stamp of credibility.

US intelligence agencies, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA chief John Brennan, appended the two-page Russian dossier in their separate briefings to outgoing President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump last week. Those briefings were said to mainly focus on US intelligence claims that Russian state-sponsored hackers had carried out cyber attacks to influence the US election last November.

Therefore, US intelligence, their British counterparts and the mass media all played a concerted role to elevate low-grade gossip against Trump into a seemingly credible scandal.

Trump has been waging a war of words with the US intelligence agencies, snubbing them by cutting back on presidential briefings and rubbishing their claims of Russian hacking as «ridiculous». Recently, Trump appeared to shift towards accepting the US intel assessment that Russia had carried out cyber attacks. But he balked at any suggestion that the alleged hacking was a factor in why he won the election against Hillary Clinton.

At a news conference before the weekend, Trump turned up the heat on the US intelligence agencies by blaming them for leaking to the media their briefing to him on the notorious Russian dossier. Trump compared their tactics to that of «Nazi Germany». CIA chief John Brennan couldn’t contain his anger and told media that such a comparison was «outrageous».

Trump may have savaged the Russian blackmail allegations as «fake news». But there are indications that US and British intelligence – and their reliable media mouthpieces – are not giving up on their dirty tricks operation, which has all the hallmarks of a vendetta.

Pointedly, James Clapper, the outgoing US Director of National Intelligence, has said that the secret services have not arrived at a judgment as to whether the Russian blackmail claims are substantive or not. British state-owned BBC has also reported that CIA sources believe that Russian agents have multiple copies of «tapes of a sexual nature» allegedly involving Trump in separate orgies with prostitutes in Moscow and St Petersburg.

In other words this scandal, regardless of veracity, could run and run and run, with the intended effect of undermining Trump and crimping his policies, especially those aimed at normalizing US-Russia relations, as he has vowed to do. If enough scandal is generated, the allegations against Trump being a sexually depraved president compromised by Russian agents – a declared foreign enemy of the US – might even result in his impeachment from the White House on the grounds of treason.

Both the American and British intelligence services appear to be working together, facilitated by aligned news media, to bolster flimsy claims against Trump into allegations of apparent substance. The shadowy «deep state» organs in the US and Britain are doing this because they share a common atlanticist ideology which views Anglo-American dominance over the European Union as the basis for world order. Crucial to this architecture is NATO holding sway over Europe, which in turn relies on demonizing Russia as a «threat to European security».

Clamping down on Trump, either through impeachment or at least corrosive media smears, would serve to further the atlanticist agenda.

For a section of British power – UK-based global corporations and London finance – the prospect of a Brexit from the EU is deeply opposed. The Financial Times list of top UK-based companies were predominantly against leaving the EU ahead of last year’s referendum. Combined with the strategic atlanticist ideology of the military-intelligence apparatus there is a potent British desire to scupper the Trump presidency.

But, as it happens, the American and British picture is complicated by the fact that the British government of Prime Minister Theresa May is very much dependent on cooperation and goodwill from the Trump administration in order for post-Brexit Britain to survive in the world economy outside the EU.

The British government is committed to leaving the EU as determined by the popular referendum last June. To be fair to May’s government, it is deferring to the popular will on this issue. Premier May is even talking about a «hard Brexit» whereby, Britain does not have future access to the European single market. Fervent communications between Downing Street and the Trump transition team show that the British government views new bilateral trade deals with the US as vital for the future of Britain’s economy. And Trump has reciprocated this week by saying that Britain will be given top priority in the signing of new trade deals.

In this way, the British establishment’s divisions over Brexit – some for, some against – are a fortunate break for Trump. Because that will limit how much the British intelligence services can engage in dirty tricks against the president in league with their American counterparts. In short, the atlanticist desire to thwart Trump has lost its power to act malevolently in the aftermath of Britain’s Brexit.

That might also be another reason why Donald Trump has given such a welcoming view on the Brexit – as «a great thing». Perhaps, he knows that it strengthens his political position against deep state opponents who otherwise in a different era might have been strong enough to oust him.

Trump and Brexit potentially mean that the atlanticist sway over Europe is fading. And that’s good news for Russia

MICHAEL AVERKO | 20.01.2017 | WORLD

Does Russia Pose a Threat to the US?

Because it's not in Russia's best interests to do so, the Kremlin hasn't sought an unnecessary confrontation with the West. The suggestion that some Russians live in a Cold War era mindset easily applies to the US military industrial complex reared folks, harping on the supposed threat posed by Moscow. Thinking along their lines, some other Americans are subconsciously duped by their reliance on the overall US mass media image of Russia.

We're living in interesting times, which see the conservative leaning Fox News channel having on (albeit comparatively limited) reasonable left leaning observers like Glenn Greenwald and Stephen Cohen (individuals who second guess some of the negative claims against Russia), as the more left (to Fox News) MSNBC and CNN favor neocons like David Frum and Michael Weiss. Besides Cohen and Greenwald, there're some conservative minded Americans second guessing the perceived Russian threat, contrasted with the US establishment left and right critics of Russia. There're also the more eclectic types, who don't neatly match either of the left and right categories. As is true with the left and right, this eclectic grouping is by no means monolithic.  

From within and outside his party, Donald Trump continues to face lingering attempts to have him take a confrontational stance towards Russia. His recent comments indicate positive and not so positive stances towards the Kremlin. Meantime, others like the outgoing CIA Director John Brennan, openly take issue with Trump's more upbeat approach towards Moscow.

The term «bad actor» has been used to characterize Russian President Vladimir Putin and some other world leaders. Brennan and Florida Senator Marco Rubio engage in bad acting, with their pious inaccuracies, that are very much coddled among a good number in US mass media.

Brennan's use of «outrageous» towards Trump is chutzpah, given how the former has described Russian military action (as targeting civilians and non-military assets) to what the US has done (the opposite) - a matter refuted in my last Strategic Culture Foundation article of January 11. The legally educated Rubio scornfully addressed Rex Tillerson(Trump's choice for Secretary of State) for refusing to call Putin a «war criminal», relative to Russian military actions and the deaths of individual Russians.

Tillerson said that an accusation like that should've clear evidence. Rubio suggested the presence of dead bodies as proof. Rubio knows all too well that corpses alone don't prove a guilty party. Over the decades, many civilians have died as a result of US and other non-Russian military actions. War can regretfully come to civilian areas, which in turn could lead to innocent deaths. The hypocrisy of selectively highlighting these situations is most disingenuous. The issue of murders in Russia don't conclusively lead to the Russian government. As has been true in the US: post-Soviet Russia is faced with some people who take criminal action (murder and otherwise) on their own and not by a proven clandestine government effort.

Whether at Moscow State University, Russian newsstands and elsewhere, there's noticeable opposition to Putin in Russia - leaving one to reasonably ask why the need for him to order the liquidation of Boris Nemtsov, Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, when the numerous other critics of the Russian president continue on and without much (if any) fear? The murders of Nemtsov (with extremely limited popularity in Russia) and Politkovskaya (who had non-Russian government opponents) aren't clear indications of Putin ordered hits. 

Factually, it remains unclear who poisoned Litvinenko with Polonium - a rather expensive/cost ineffective way to kill someone over other means. A point that has led some to believe that he might've accidentally poisoned himself. Litvinenko reportedly became sympathetic to the Chechen separatist cause and sought to become a Muslim. His Italian Intel connected contact Mario Scaramella was arrested for illicit arms trafficking and violating his country's state secrets - without the accusation of a Kremlin connection. Scaramella was infected with Polonium on the same day (November 1, 2006) that Litvinenko met Andrey Lugovoy. Without clear evidence, the former KGB bodyguard, Lugovoy has been accused of murdering Litvinenko. The ties between Litvinenko and Scaramella remain a comparatively (to Lugovoy) limited point of follow-up.

The belief that a Putin involved Russian government was behind a series of apartment bombings to gain public support for a war in Chechnya is along the lines of believing that the Bush administration was directly complicit in the 9/11 tragedy. The lawlessness which led to the second Chechen war of the 1990s was such that the Russian government didn't need to create an excuse for military action in Chechnya. Given the nature of security operations, it's understandable why Russian security forces don't want their anti-terrorist training exercises in vacated buildings to be publicly detailed. The Moscow theater and Beslan school terrorist attacks underscore this reasoning.

As times passes, there has yet to be conclusive proof provided on the claim of a Russian government attempt to influence the 2016 US presidential election in favor of Trump. If true, any such activity didn't appear to affect the result of that election.

The foreign interference in another country's election is a slippery slope, which I don't support. According to a Carnegie Mellon based study, the US is ahead of Russia, when it comes to election interference in other countries. If the claim of Russian government meddling in the last US election is true (once again noting the lack of disclosed supporting evidence), it was done (as claimed) to prefer Trump over his main rival Hillary Clinton, who was the preferred candidate of the anti-Russian neocons. Hence, the unproven Russian government interference was (if true) motivated by the preference for improved US-Russian relations.

On the geopolitical front, the claim of a threatening Russia is quite weak to reasonably substantiate. The faulty divisiveness include Barack Obama's overly simplistic depiction of a game involving Putin who is on a different team - the suggestion being that Americans differing with that perception are traitors. CNN's Jim Sciutto serves as another example, when he depicted a clear (in his mind and that of some others) Russian adversary with the examples of Crimea and US warships getting buzzed by Russian fighter jets as examples.

Crimea isn't in the US national interest. Sciutto doesn't have a good comeback to the hypocritical hoopla over Crimea versus the northern Cyprus and Kosovo situations. The pro-Russian majority in Crimea clearly and understandably prefer Russia over Kiev regime controlled Ukraine.

The aforementioned buzzing of US warships is something short of war and the result of increased tensions that see a US military build-up near Russia. Consider the buzzing of Soviet military assets in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis. Only this time around, post-Soviet Russia isn't ideologically driven to act well beyond its boundaries.

Russian activity in Syria seeks to prevent an increased Muslim fundamentalist/anti-Russian advocacy with terrorism. What happens in Russia's «near abroad» (the non-Russian former Soviet republics) isn't a simple matter of Russia always being wrong. Why do the Abkhaz and Ossetians seem to prefer Russia over Georgia? Why hasn't Transnistria jumped on the opportunity to join pro-EU forces in Moldova? Noting that Moldova doesn't fully buy into the Russian threat mantra.

The talk of a possible Russian takeover of the Baltics is dubious. These former Soviet republics are NATO members. They'd have to do something extremely provocative to warrant the Kremlin to consider an attack on them. Are any or all of the Baltics likely to have political turmoil, which lead to a regime or regimes that increase hostility towards Russia and Russian speaking Baltic residents? If so, this is something that responsible observers in the West should warn against.

In Russia, there doesn't seem to be much of an inclination to attack the Baltics. At the same time, there's understandable Russian discontent with the anti-Russian posturing of some key Baltic officials. Comparatively speaking, that manner is relatively on par with how some past and present Latin American politicians have been aghast at the Gringo's domineering role in the Western Hemisphere. Keeping in mind that the Baltics have been used as an invasion route against Russia in some major conflicts that brought considerable suffering to that nation.

The Russian view of NATO has been misrepresented. As the Soviet Union was breaking up and for a short period thereafter, Russia openly inquired about possibly joining that organization. That expression was met with astonishment. Shortly afterwards, NATO expansion for some non-Russian states was enthusiastically supported, along with anti-Russian rhetoric portraying an inherently evil Russia that needed to be contained - adding that Russia should never be considered as a NATO member. The bombing of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 1999 by (the Clinton administration influenced) NATO targeted a pro-Russian entity. The basis for that attack was hypocritical. Turkey and Israel could've been bombed on the same questionable human rights basis. The faultiness concerns siding with one party in a situation with embattled sides each having valid and not so valid points. 

Russia's military capability has decreased the chance of it being bombed like Yugoslavia. Indeed, some have suggested that Russia could've been bombed over Chechnya for the same reason that Yugoslavia was attacked in reply to the upheaval in Kosovo. The 1999 NATO bombing campaign nurtured the idea of might making right and how pro-Russian advocacy hasn't received a fair hearing. Despite this occurrence, Russia has continued to seek improved ties with the West.

In actuality, US-Russian relations haven't been inherently adversarial towards each other. Compare Russia's stance during America's revolution, war of 1812 and civil war to Britain. Contrast the stances of Russia with Germany during two world wars. The present targeting of nuclear weapons between the US and Russia is an unfortunate Cold War relic, that shouldn't be used as a talking point to oppose better Washington-Moscow relations. This improved relationship can serve to decrease the desire for nuclear weapons.

The Russian consensus of welcoming a US president who seeks better relations with Russia, along with the Kremlin being the first government to console the US in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy aren't indicative of threatening behavior. The incessant Putin and Russia bashing in neolib, neocon and flat out Russia hating circles are justifiably opposed by pro-Russian realists desiring improved Russia-West ties.

NATO and Obsolescence: Donald Trump and the History of an Alliance

by Binoy Kampmark / January 17th, 2017

It should be a point of some delicious reflection for peace activists who have fought for decades against the nature of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.  It brought the US deep into West European affairs, turning European states into garrisons.  It involved the stationing of nuclear weapons. It compelled member states to go to war if the security of any one was threatened or breached.

Donald Trump, however, has little time for it.  Selecting the Bild newspaper and the Times of London as forums to expand on his views on NATO, the President-elect decided to shake the tree that much more.

America First as an idea means that the alliance system needs to be reviewed.  For one, Trump took issue with military spending from the members, suggesting that it did not even make 2 percent of gross domestic product.

But for Trump, the core issue was utility.  What had the alliance actually done?  Ever in the zone of the next news entertainment cycle, Trump felt that the alliance had done little on the issue of dealing with terrorism.

It was, in his carefree words, “obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror.” It had been “designed many, many years ago.”  Just to confuse readers, and perhaps himself, Trump then explained that NATO was still “very important to me.”

Obsolescence is probably not quite the term. If it had just been a museum piece, a historical reminder, little fuss would be made.  In actual fact, this was an alliance which ballooned with aggressive enthusiasm, one that was treated as a mechanism, not merely as a defence against the old Soviet Union and its allies, but offensively to operate in theatres far away from the area.

The one thing that stands out here is the momentum NATO developed at the end of the Cold War, doing its bit, less for stability than aggravating instability. With gloating hubris, the US-led alliance began to move into areas of influence in eastern Europe.  Russian strategists, ever sensitive to threats on its borders, wished to prevent that matter in negotiations in 1990 which also featured the re-unification of Germany.

As an old foe was set to merge, Washington and Moscow were debating where traditional alliances would go. Would a reunified Germany join hands with NATO, or embrace the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact?  The third option, that it would have nothing to do with either in middle-European distance, was also considered.

Meetings that took place in February 1990 show US Secretary of State James Baker discussing that a cooperative arrangement with Germany could be bought by making “iron-clad guarantees” that NATO would not enlarge “one inch eastward.” Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was sufficiently moved by the suggestion to begin reunification talks within a matter of days.

The picture soon changed.  US policymakers were wondering whether they had given too much unnecessary ground.  An initial concession was made: the former German Democratic Republic would be designated as an area where NATO forces would have limited influence.  This was not a “status” that would last.

By March 1990, the State Department was pretending it had never proffered an enticing olive branch to Soviet officials. Eastern Europe, breathing gusts of the post-communist air, would be gathered to Washington’s large bosom.  The odd remark would still be issued to reassure Moscow that this process would take place in a cooperative way.

None of this got away from the objective, as noted in a National Security Council memo from October 1990, that the US should “signal to the new democracies of Eastern Europe NATO’s readiness to contemplate their future membership.”  In what seemed like a giddying rush, old Soviet foes – the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary – became card carrying NATO members, happy to become forward bases for Washington’s weapons.  Murmurs of encouragement were then sent on their merry way to Georgia and Ukraine.

As the sole superpower, and the Soviet Union unravelling, promises were there to be ignored. The Russian bear had repaired to the forest of desperate isolation to lick its wounds, powerless to hold any sway over the decisions being made to its west. Now resurgent, that bear remains curious to see how a Trump administration will deal with NATO.

Trump’s comments, for all their worth, will have to bear up against the views of his own appointee for Defense Secretary,retired Marine Gen. James Mattis. As he reasoned in his Senate confirmation hearing last week, “If we didn’t have NATO today, we’d need to create it.  NATO is vital to our interests.”

Mattis also sees old threats in newly fashioned bottles.  “We recognize that [Vladimir Putin] is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance, and that we take steps – the integrated steps, diplomatic, economic, military and the alliance steps – working with our allies to defend ourselves where we must.”

Members of Congress, among them Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, have already told European allies that the alliance will be a business as usual affair, though German Foreign Minister Frank-Walker Steinmeier concedes to there having been “no easing of tensions.”  It is hard to envisage that much will change on the ground, though it adds to the delightful dysfunction that is abound to descend upon Washington and various European capitals.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

L'OTAN i l'obsolescència: Donald Trump i la història d'una Aliança

per Binoy Kampmark 17a / Gener de 2017

Ha de ser un punt de reflexió per a un deliciós activistes per la pau que han lluitat durant dècades contra la naturalesa de l'Organització del Tractat de l'Atlàntic Nord. Es va dur els EUA profundament en els assumptes d'Europa Occidental, convertint els estats europeus en guarnicions. Es tractava de l'emplaçament d'armes nuclears. Es va obligar als Estats membres a anar a la guerra si la seguretat de qualsevol ser amenaçada o violada.

Donald Trump, però, té poc temps per a això. Selecció del  Bild  diari i el  Times de Londres  com fòrums per expandir sobre els seus punts de vista sobre l'OTAN, el president electe va decidir sacsejar l'arbre que molt més.

Amèrica primer com una idea vol dir que el sistema d'aliances ha de ser revisada.D'una banda, Trump no va estar d'acord amb la despesa militar dels membres, el que suggereix que ni tan sols fan un 2 per cent del producte intern brut.

Però per Trump, el problema principal era la utilitat. El que en realitat havia fet l'aliança? Mai a la zona del següent cicle de notícies d'entreteniment, Trump va estimar que l'aliança havia fet poc en el tema de la lluita contra el terrorisme.

Era, en les seves paraules sense preocupacions, "obsolet a causa de que no estava cuidant de terror." Hi havia estat "dissenyada fa molts, molts anys." Només per confondre els lectors, i potser a si mateix, Trump va explicar llavors que l'OTAN seguia sent " molt important per a mi ".

L'obsolescència no és probablement bastant el terme. Si hagués estat només una peça de museu, un recordatori històric, es va fer poc soroll. En realitat, es tractava d'una aliança que es va disparar amb un entusiasme agressiu, que va ser tractat com un mecanisme, no només com una defensa contra l'antiga Unió Soviètica i els seus aliats, però l'ofensiva per operar als cinemes lluny de la zona.

L'única cosa que es destaca aquí és l'impuls de l'OTAN va desenvolupar al final de la Guerra Freda, el seu granet de sorra, no tant per l'estabilitat d'agreujar la inestabilitat. Amb delectació arrogància, l'aliança liderada pels Estats Units va començar a moure cap a àrees d'influència a Europa oriental. estrategs russos, sempre sensibles a les amenaces a les seves fronteres, desitjaven evitar que la matèria en les negociacions el 1990, que també va comptar amb la reunificació d'Alemanya.

Com un vell enemic es va establir a fusionar-se, Washington i Moscou estaven debatent on anirien les aliances tradicionals. Seria una Alemanya reunificada unir les seves mans amb l'OTAN, o abraçar el Pacte de Varsòvia dominada pels soviètics? La tercera opció, que no tindria res a veure amb ja sigui en la distància mitjana europea, també va ser considerat.

Reunions que van tenir lloc al febrer de 1990 mostren la secretària d'Estat, James Baker, discutint que un acord de cooperació amb Alemanya podria ser comprat per fer " garanties fèrries " que l'OTAN no ampliaria "una polzada cap a l'est." President soviètic Mikhail Gorbatxov estava prou mogut pel suggeriment d'iniciar converses de reunificació en qüestió de dies.

La imatge va canviar aviat.   Els polítics nord-americans es preguntaven si havien donat massa terreny innecessària. Una concessió inicial es va fer: l'antiga República Democràtica Alemanya seria designat com una àrea on les forces de l'OTAN tindrien una influència limitada.Això no va ser un "status" que duraria.

Al març de 1990, el Departament d'Estat estava fent veure que no havia ofert una branca d'olivera atractiu per als funcionaris soviètics. Europa de l'Est, les ràfegues d'aire postcomunista per respirar, es va reunir a grans si de Washington. L'estrany comentari encara s'emetria per tranquil·litzar Moscou que aquest procés es duria a terme d'una manera cooperativa.

Res d'això es va escapar de l'objectiu, com s'ha assenyalat en una nota del Consell Nacional de Seguretat d'octubre de 1990, que els EUA han de "senyal a les noves democràcies de la disposició d'Europa de l'Est de l'OTAN per contemplar la seva futura adhesió." Pel que semblava ser una carrera vertiginosa , vells enemics soviètics - els Estats bàltics, Polònia, la República Txeca i Hongria - van esdevenir la targeta que porta membres de l'OTAN, feliç per convertir-se en bases avançades per a armes de Washington . Els bufs d'alè van ser enviats en el seu alegre camí a Geòrgia i Ucraïna.

Com l'única superpotència, i la desintegració de la Unió Soviètica, les promeses hi eren per ser ignorat. L'ós rus havia reparat fins al bosc d'aïllament desesperat per llepar-se les ferides, sense poder sostenir qualsevol influència sobre les decisions que es prenen al seu oest.Ara ressorgiment, que segueix sent ós curiós veure com una administració Trump s'ocuparà de l'OTAN.

Els comentaris de Trump, malgrat la seva valor, hauran de suportar en contra de l'opinió de la seva pròpia persona nomenada pel secretari de Defensa,Marina retirat general James Mattis.Com ell  va raonar  en la seva audiència de confirmació al Senat la setmana passada, "Si no tinguéssim l'OTAN avui, hauríem de crear-lo.L'OTAN és vital per als nostres interessos ".

Mattis també veu en ampolles velles amenaces de nou encuny. "Reconeixem que [Vladímir Putin] està tractant de trencar l'aliança de l'Atlàntic Nord, i que prenguem mesures - els passos integrats, diplomàtic, econòmic, militar i dels passos de l'aliança - treballant amb els nostres aliats per defensar-nos quan hem de fer-ho."

Els membres del Congrés, entre ells el president del Comitè de Serveis Armats del Senat, John McCain, ja han dit als aliats europeus que l'aliança serà un negoci com a assumpte de costum, encara que el ministre d'Exteriors alemany, Frank-Walker Steinmeier  concedeix  al fet que hi hagi hagut "cap alleujament de les tensions."  És difícil imaginar que molt canviarà a terra, tot i que se suma a la deliciosa disfunció que és abunden descendir sobre Washington i diverses capitals europees.

Binoy Kampmark va ser becari de la Commonwealth a Selwyn College. És professor de la Universitat RMIT, Melbourne i pot ser contactat a: bkampmark@gmail.com . Altres articles per Binoy .