No. of Recommendations: 3
They are not. Yes, they are. The US bases ships in Qatar. Do you think that we would not cover an active Naval base? Or any one of the many air bases that house US jets and personnel in the region?
Anywhere a US asset goes, so goes the American nuclear umbrella. Do you think we have basing rights in so many countries because they love us that much?
Which doesn't require denying that Trump has things he wants in Greenland - it simply means that there are countervailing wants that have dissuaded him from just taking what he wants in Greenland.Erm, okay. If you seriously want to believe we're going to have the Marines seize Greenland sometime soon, you're certainly free to believe that. But in actuality Trump wants NATO to
-Work to secure the Arctic, because as the ice shifts/opens up that means vulnerable sea lanes open up
-As more countries acquire ballistic missiles, passage over the Arctic to reach the US requires more radars and missile defense stations up north
...and then if there are western hemisphere-sourceable rare Earth minerals, we of course want those to lesson our dependence on China.
It's not a matter of perspective. We weren't actually in a hot war. If the neighborhood thug routinely spray paints your house, kicks your dog, steals from your neighbors and occasionally pushes the nice old lady from across the street down a flight of stairs, you may try to convince yourself that you don't have a problem but the reality of it is that you do.
And then you have to decide if you're winning to tune up the neighborhood thug or not. And if you're willing to tune his a$$ up, how far are you willing to go? Who can you count on to help you? Who has the neighborhood thug cowed into submission? Who is willing to stand with you?
We're learning who's who in real time right now. NATO flunked the test:
https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/...When NATO members in the past have operated unilaterally to defend their own national interests, they have often called on the U.S., as NATO's strongest member, for overt help.
For nearly 40 years, the U.S. had offered logistical, intelligence, reconnaissance, refueling, and diplomatic support to the French in their unilateral and postcolonial efforts to protect Chad from Libya and, later, Islamists.
During the 1982 Falklands War, a solitary Britain faced enormous logistical challenges in steaming halfway around the world to eject Argentina from its windswept and sparse islands.
U.S. aid was critical to the effort.
So America stepped up to help with intelligence, reconnaissance, the supply of some two million gallons of much-needed gasoline, and crucial restocking of Britain's depleted Tomahawk missiles.
The American tilt to Britain prompted anger from most Latin American nations of the shared Western hemisphere, as well as from many Hispanic American citizens at home.
No matter – President Ronald Reagan rightly saw the importance of solidarity with a NATO member and a long-time American ally. So he gave Britain a veritable blank check for American aid.As I said, a test. A test they've more or less failed. Allies that won't even step up to defend their own interests aren't allies at all:
Europeans are far more vulnerable to Iranian-inspired Islamic terrorism. They are more reliant on foreign oil from the Middle East, some of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
All the U.S. had initially asked for was basing support in disarming a common Western enemy that, for nearly half a century, has slaughtered American diplomats and soldiers and tried to kill a U.S. president and secretary of state.
But most NATO members could not even offer tacit help. Some damned the U.S. effort as either illegal or unnecessary.
The American public watched the British waffle for days over permitting Americans to use their Diego Garcia base.
The Spanish banned American use of their NATO bases and airspace.
The Italians refused a request from American bombers to land and refuel at a Sicilian NATO base.
Many NATO heads of state rebuked the U.S. to their domestic audiences while, in typical two-faced fashion, publicly offering empty verbal support for the U.S. effort.
The NATO response to an Iranian missile aimed at fellow NATO member Turkey was anemic.
Even worse was the pathetic British reaction to another Iranian missile launch at a British base at Akrotiri, Cyprus. As I've posted on this board, the reality is that our NATO "allies" have by and large allowed their militaries to atrophy to the point of uselessness.
