The End of NATO? Macron Laments "Brain Death" and Pushes for a European Military by Joaquin Flores!
(2019-11-10 at 07:03:36 )

The End of NATO? Macron Laments "Brain Death" and Pushes for a European Military by Joaquin Flores

With less than a month until the next big NATO meeting, scheduled for the first week of December, Frances Macron has jumped into public relations mode to prepare the public for some big changes on the horizon. Indeed, Macrons major interview with the Economist on November 7th on the question of the United States alleged wavering commitment to NATO is a stunning sign of the times.

Europe wants its own Army

Cutting through a lot of intentionally confusing messaging, is that France and Germany are just fine with any end to NATO because it helps justify the coming European Army - one that they want, and believe they need anyhow.

It only happens to be part of the same reality that United States hegemony, and its ability to finance NATO in turn, are coming to an end. In sounding more like a radical post-structuralist international relations theorist than a fiscally conservative leader of a capitalist democracy, Mr. Macron shocked the world when he stated in no uncertain terms that this period we are in marks the end of "Western Hegemony".

The real facts of motives behind big changes have an odd way of ultimately making themselves known for what they are at the end of the day. Often these are cloaked in the underlying framework of the politics of the time.

Revealing these in the case of France and NATO can show some top-level word salad at play: justify independence not on the basis that being controlled is not fair, but rather that those doing the controlling are not doing it well enough and do not seem committed to it as much as they ought to be. Mr. Macron is doing this very well, and mirrors Mr. Trumps own discursive games.

Occupiers are not doing their job - the End of Trilateralism

Imagine if you will a French argument against the Nazi occupation not because it placed Germany in control of Frances fate, but rather on the basis that the Wehrmacht was decreasing its troop presence in France, or conversely appeared to be wavering on the Eastern Front, and as a consequence France was worried about Germanys commitment to the Reich. This is, in short, what Mr. Macron is arguing today regarding the United States and NATO.

Imagine likewise, that the Wehrmacht said it was considering abandoning its occupation of France not because it had to move resources to the Eastern Front, but because France was not giving enough to the war effort. This is the crux of Mr. Trumps argument for public consumption.

Under any other prior historical iterations, the United States moves to reduce its NATO commitments to Western Europe would be hailed by progressives in the Democratic Party in the United States as a step in the right direction.

Yet now in this exciting time, one in which the United States Empire is down-sizing and adjusting itself to its real force potential, progressives in the United States are making geopolitical realism into a partisan issue: since the most obvious or observable stage is happening under a nominally conservative, Republican administration, it must therefore be a Democratic Party talking point to oppose this in principle.

The matter is of course deeper than this, and the Democratic Partys investment in the trilateralism (US + EU + Japan) of Rockefeller and Brzezinski has been at odds with the unilateralism of the neoconservatives.

We will recall when President George W Bush attacked Iraq, it came not long after moves by the Iraqi government to do their oil dealings in Euros. The Europe-wide hatred for Mr. Bushs war on Iraq seemed to the politically naive as an expression of social-democratic pacifism, but in reality was an expression of Europes sovereign financial interests versus dollar hegemony. These questions really have not gone away.

When NATO came onto the stage, it was couched in terms of protecting Western Europe from the growth of the Soviet sphere of influence which the latter had won from its victory over Germany in WWII.

The idea that NATO was not a collaborative and mutual effort of freely-acting European states in defense of market freedoms and Western values, but instead more like a United States led and sustained military occupation in Western Europe, in the past could be criticized as either Communist or even neo-Nazi propaganda.

Against this view the entire media-academic industry was mobilized, assuring the public that all the European countries of NATO were members of their own accord and will: an outgrowth of the democratic mandate from the peoples of the member states, arrived at through fair parliamentary processes.

Mr. Macron still needs to make everyone look good

All this places Mr. Macron in an odd position. NATO is the military component of economic Atlanticism, but this transatlantic relationship experienced a major breach of trust in the years following the United States market crash in 2007.

This was because United States based banks and government colluded to deceitfully push a significant portion of its liabilities onto the EU all the while claiming these were investments - who in turn placed an undue burden in PIIGS countries, in particular Greece. This all in turn has fueled a marked increase in Eurosceptic and "exit" movements across the beleaguered EU.

Then on top of that, the Trump administration makes the EUs commitment to NATO a cornerstone of his Europe policy, along with a brewing trade war. These two are intimately connected.

And so Mr. Macrons apparent lamentations over the "brain death" of NATO is quite revealing.

In this, he refers to truths that everyone knew, but could not say: "NATO is essentially a military occupying force against European sovereignty - for the EU to be a geostrategic entity, it must be in control of its own military forces".

This sounds like it could have been said by de Gaulle, even Petain, and while the notion easily fits with Marine Le Pens platform, the reality of France forces Mr. Macron to hold it.

Europes not in love with Atlanticism

The problem is that even though transatlantic financial dealings have increasingly less to offer the EU, the United States side of this equation needs to maintain the relationship and all the appearances and structures that go along with it, in order to leverage itself in any future potential dealings.

In short, one way that the United States believes it can hold onto things longer, or decrease the tempo at which they are losing them, is by keeping up appearances. And these appearances are more than just superficial - they are real existing financial obligations which in all reality do not work well for European institutions.

Mr. Macron has iterated the call for an EU army a number of times. But his statements in the economist represent a skillful if distorted way to couch the EUs real situation within the accepted discourse of our time: Atlanticism is good.

This mirrors Mr. Trumps method and reasoning - and to be clear, it is not certain that Mr. Trump is very much committed to trans-Atlanticism, at least not in its present iteration.

Back in August, speaking on how isolating Russia is a mistake, Mr. Macron explained that "Western hegemony" is over.

This leave us an interesting formula: Western hegemony is over, European regional hegemony must begin. This implies that Western hegemony had always meant Europe plus the United States together. Without the United States, there is no Western hegemony.

Mr. Trumps calls that EU countries increase its funding of NATO on the rationale that Europe is not doing their share, could only have been to provoke a reaction from Europe to speak its own truth - "we do not like NATO either" - and to justify the United States own eventual reorganization or dismantling of NATO.

Like Imperial Japan told its puppet-state Manchukuo: it is only natural that you should pay for the cost of your own occupation.

If NATO member states no longer want to pay for their own occupation, then they will no longer get to enjoy it.

Mr. Macron masters Mr. Trumps Discursive Trap

Mr. Macron, likewise, plays a similar game - and his discourse is aimed at being acceptable to multiple audiences, who themselves have greatly divergent interests and positions.

The realists in the United States, of which Mr. Trump is the most evident representative, know that the United States simply cannot afford to continue with its NATO obligations.

Underneath this is the fact that the United States cannot offer Europe better deals than it can get elsewhere.

The days of forcing Europe to work through the United States through various ways, wherein using the United States dollar as the primary transaction currency and the global reserve currency in the past meant that the United States was middle-in to every deal.

Those days are just about over. Rather than disclose that all this is about decreasing United States influence, power, and wealth on the global scene, it is more prudent to make this about fairness - that the EU is not doing its part.

And to wit, as we have said, for Mr. Macrons part of the dance - he knows he needs to keep the trans-Atlanticists happy, they still exert tremendous political control in Brussels and are interwoven into Europes financial sector - the most important sector in capitalist Europe.

There can be no doubt: Mr. Macron was the banking establishments choice against Le Pen. The question as to whether he was some Manchurian candidate from beyond the financial sectors grasp, or whether there is some pro-European sovereigntist faction within the European side of this transatlantic financial sector, is a fascinating question for later investigation.

But sufficed to say, those transatlantic deals are not the best deals, but these institutions are using whatever influence and capital they still have to force a political position. Mr. Macron, nominally, wants to keep them happy.

Thus Mr. Macrons "warnings" and "lamentations" that the United States under Mr. Trump has abandoned its NATO commitments in controlling Europes military are anything but.

These "lamentations" will serve a perfect pretext for France and Germany to work together to organize a Europe-wide military force.

In reality, this has been brewing for many years under the rubric of NATO command. In essence, all the structures are there, it is only necessary to remove United States command from the structure and change some patches and flags.

In speaking to the Economist regarding NATOs Article V provision (in which NATO members must rally on the side of a NATO state if it is attacks and invokes the article), Mr. Macron seems to imply, in some twisted and round-about - really convoluted way - that he questions the United States commitment to NATO because of the way it abandoned its allies, the Kurds.

This is doubly odd - the adventure in Syria was not a NATO operation, and it is Turkey, the force attacking Kurdish separatists in Syria, that is the NATO ally. Turkey is NATOs second largest army after the United States.

Mr. Macron is not wrong then to imply - what is NATO without the United States and Turkey? It is the European Army. This is the view which both France and Germany enter into the December meeting with.

So while Mr. Trump hides that the United States simply can not afford its empire anymore by blaming Europe for not doing its share, Mr. Macron hides that Europes been pushing for its own army for years before Donald Trump assumed office.

Indeed, the EUs CSDP, known also as the European Defense Union, has been around in in developing form since 1999, the same year the currency was launched. This has been a part of the plan, it would seem, for quite some time.

Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump can not be faulted for the word salad they are serving: it is only a reflection of what is acceptable in our day.

The United States president and European leadership appear to agree that NATOs days are over.

It seems the transatlantic financial institutions are the primary team expressing deep concern of this, and are looking to slow the process down by reversing the most overt policies of President Trump by ousting him from the White House in 2020.

Doing so could drag the process out for another decade, but doing so would be more painful and costly for everyone in avoiding the inevitable.

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