U.S. war plans for an assault on China are similar, involving missiles fired from ships and bases in the Pacific. China has not been as public about its defense plans, but if its existence and independence were threatened, it too would probably use nuclear weapons, as indeed the United States would if the positions were reversed. But they're notsince no other country has the offensive war machine it would need to invade the United States.
Michael Klare concludes that NATO 2030 "commits all alliance members to a costly, all-consuming military competition with Russia and China that will expose them to an ever-increasing risk of nuclear war."
So how do the European people feel about their role in America's war plans? The European Council on Foreign Relations recently conducted an in-depth poll of 15,000 people in ten NATO countries and Sweden, and published the results in a report titled "The Crisis of American Power: How Europeans See Biden's America."
The report reveals that a large majority of Europeans want no part in a U.S. war with Russia or China and want to remain neutral. Only 22% would support taking the U.S. side in a war with China, 23% in a war with Russia. So European public opinion is squarely at odds with NATO's role in America's war plans.
On transatlantic relations in general, majorities in most European countries see the U.S. political system as broken and their own countries' politics as in healthier shape. Fifty-nine percent of Europeans believe that China will be more powerful than the United States within a decade, and most see Germany as a more important partner and international leader than the United States.
Only 17% of Europeans want closer economic ties with the United States, while even fewer, 10% of French and Germans, think their countries need America's help with their national defense.
Biden's election has not changed Europeans' views very much from a previous survey in 2019, because they see Trumpism as a symptom of more deeply rooted and long-standing problems in American society. As the writers conclude, "A majority of Europeans doubt that Biden can put Humpty Dumpty back together again."
There is also pushback among Europeans to NATO's demand that members should spend 2 percent of their gross domestic products on defense, an arbitrary goal that only 10 of the 30 members have met. Ironically, some states will reach the NATO target without raising their military spending because COVID has shrunk their GDPs, but NATO members struggling economically are unlikely to prioritize military spending.
The schism between NATO's hostility and Europe's economic interests runs deeper than just military spending. While the United States and NATO see Russia and China primarily as threats, European businesses view them as key partners. In 2020, China supplanted the U.S. as the European Union's number one trading partner and at the close of 2020, the EU concluded a comprehensive investment agreement with China, despite U.S. concerns.
European countries also have their own economic relations with Russia. Germany remains committed to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a 746-mile natural gas artery that runs from northern Russia to Germanyeven as the Biden administration calls it a "bad deal" and claims that it makes Europe vulnerable to Russian "treachery."
NATO seems oblivious to the changing dynamics of today's world, as if it's living on a different planet. Its one-sided Reflection Group report cites Russia's violation of international law in Crimea as a principal cause of deteriorating relations with the West, and insists that Russia must "return to full compliance with international law." But it ignores the U.S. and NATO's far more numerous violations of international law and leading role in the tensions fueling the renewed Cold War:
- illegal invasions of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq;
- the broken agreement over NATO expansion into Eastern Europe;
- U.S. withdrawals from important arms control treaties;
- more than 300,000 bombs and missiles dropped on other countries by the United States and its allies since 2001;
- U.S. proxy wars in Libya and Syria, which plunged both countries into chaos, revived Al Qaeda and spawned the Islamic State;
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
2
1
