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Sorry. I had to stop at "countries like France and Switzerland, that aren't a part of NATO". I guess Mrs. Hélène Duchene, the French Ambassador to NATO, didn't get the memo.
The United States and Russia are natural allies. Remember it was Russian intervention that tipped the scales toward the defeat of ISIS in Syria.
Sorry. I had to stop at "countries like France and Switzerland, that aren't a part of NATO". I guess Mrs. Hélène Duchene, the French Ambassador to NATO, didn't get the memo.
France is not part of the military function of NATO, and hasn't been since the 60s. They just sit at the table and go, "Non!"
That is not the point. France is still a part of NATO. Thus, the statement:As was mentioned, France removed their military from the integrated structure of NATO in 1966. While they never left NATO, they did keep their military separate and the US has had no troops stationed in France as they did prior to that time. In 2009, they agreed to rejoin the Integrated structure; except for the Nuclear component, where France still remains separate. France is 5th in military spending for 2018, behind the US, China, Saudi Arabia, and India.
is false. I think that it is safe to say that without the United States carrying the brunt of the defense load for NATO, NATO wouldn't last very long before it collapsed.Additionally, countries like France and Switzerland, that aren't a part of NATO
Actually, that was Iranian intervention. The Russians gave the Iranians air support. And if you recall, the US and the Russians almost came to blows a couple of time over control of airspace.
Russian planes had business being there; Russia had permission to intervene from Syria's legitimate government. The US didn't. Furthermore, Russian air support was actually significant militarily - it was crucial in the liberation of Aleppo. Most US sorties didn't even drop their payloads.
Lets be real here. If not for the United States:
1. Russia would invade Eastern Europe.
2. China would invade Taiwan.
3. North Korea would invade South Korea.
4. The middle east would be one giant proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
5. Pakistan and India would be bombing each other back into the stone age.
And while all this things are unfolding, the EU and NATO would be sitting on their butts arguing about who is going to what to resolve the issues.
Obviously not. But the motives of the United States is not what's important here. The point is that America is practically the only thing keeping the world from falling into complete chaos. If left to EU or NATO, there would be no hope of stability. We saw how useless the EU was in Kosovo and Serbia.And it's in the best interest of the US and American capitalism for none of that to happen.
The US is not operating altruistically.
Lets be real here. If not for the United States:
1. Russia would invade Eastern Europe.
2. China would invade Taiwan.
3. North Korea would invade South Korea.
4. The middle east would be one giant proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
5. Pakistan and India would be bombing each other back into the stone age.
And while all this things are unfolding, the EU and NATO would be sitting on their butts arguing about who is going to what to resolve the issues.
That's not true at all. I don't think some idiot college kid or whatever like in the last panel can really be compared to the organized and state-sponsored war machines of the Axis. I don't recall Tojo or Rommel or whoever ever having to resort to beating people up with bike locks or sucker-punching their opponents. The Axis powers represented a real threat that needed to be confronted militarily, as they were making alarming territorial gains across Europe and Asia. They were in no way comparable to a bunch of rioting idiots, be they rioting idiots in Portland or rioting idiots in Charlottesville.
If real, honest-to-God fascists or nazis ever end up taking over the United States, I don't think it's going to be because the 'wrong party' is in power (at least not in the sense that you often hear that talked about, where everything went to hell because party X did/n't get in, or we hate such and such candidate), but instead because we sat around calling each other fascists and nazis so often that the people in charge of the political landscape of the country were pushed into more and more extreme positions in response to the perceived demands of their constituents to do something about all the horrible and dangerous authoritarians in the other party.
After all, what's the first thing that Hitler and Co. did, psychologically, to the bulk of the Germans that laid the groundwork for the 'final solution'? He made dehumanizing Jews into the default approach that the society should take to its myriad of problems in the post-WWI context. Everything bad became somehow the fault of the Jews, and everything good would come with their elimination. If we're honest, we've probably heard something very similar come out of our friends' mouths or maybe even our own mouths (or maybe only in our brains) about "the other side", because they/we hate _____ so much. It doesn't bode well for the future of our society.
It's hard to soar like an eagle as a nation when you're dealing with turkeys.We're the greatest at locking up our own people: we have the highest incarceration rate in the world.
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