NATO

“I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Kurt Vonnegut’s famous novel about the World War II bombing of the German city of Dresden appeared the year I graduated from West Point. While dimly […]

Joe Biden

Could Putin woo Turkey from Biden and NATO?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – The Turks seem to be weary of the alliance with the United States. Although it is still a NATO member, and has the second largest army in the organization, Turkey is strengthening military, political and economic ties with the US “major geopolitical rival” – Russia. According to a recent […]

Featured

44% of People in World Fear US will interfere with their Democracy, fearing China or Russia Less

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new Alliance of Democracies Poll conducted around the world with 50,000 people in 53 countries earlier this year finds that “Nearly half (44%) of respondents in the 53 countries surveyed are concerned that the US threatens democracy in their country; fear of Chinese influence is 38%, and fear of […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan pullout: Nato betrays its own values if interpreters and other local staff are left at risk

The Conversation

By Sara de Jong | – The announcement of the US and Nato military withdrawal from Afghanistan later this year has elicited many responses, not least expressions of concern about the plight of interpreters and other local staff employed by western military forces. These concerns are not new but now have renewed urgency. The release […]

Donald Trump

As Washington retreats, Eastern Mediterranean conflict further marginalizes NATO

Ramzy Baroud

Middle East Monitor – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an alliance in name alone. Recent events notwithstanding, the brewing conflict over territorial waters in the Eastern Mediterranean indicates that the military union between mostly Western countries is faltering. The current Turkish-Greek tension is only one facet of a much larger conflict involving, aside […]

Featured

At NATO, Trump irrelevant as France’s Macron Confronts Turkey on Invasion of Syrian Kurds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 70th anniversary of NATO was commemorated with a low-key meeting rather than a summit and was not the united show of success hoped for by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, reports Al Jazeera. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan made waves. And a CBC camera crew caught some NATO leaders, including Canada’s Justin […]

NATO

Trump Stuns NATO with Demand to Double Defence Spending

Damon Wake

US President Donald Trump shocked allies at a fraught NATO summit on Wednesday by suddenly demanding that members double their defense spending

Climate Change

Only Putin is happy with Trump’s NATO Bull-in-China-Shop Catastrophe

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) Back in 2016 the talking heads on tv kept expecting candidate Trump, who made headlines almost daily saying racist and offensive things, to “transition.” Their theory was that he was acting out for his base in the GOP primaries but then would dial it back in the general election. […]

Donald Trump

Trump feuds with Merkel, EU, BMW, NATO, China, CIA but not with Putin

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump picked a fight with almost everyone but his buddy Vladimir Putin this weekend. His continued tweaking of China over its claims on Taiwan produced a sharp rebuke from Beijing. John Brennan, head of the CIA, pushed back against Trump’s branding of the agency as […]