Global Review

70 years NATO – China for the first time as a „possible threat“

December 19, 2019
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The 70th Anniversary of NATO was marked by many disagreements in the Alliance. Macron’s statement that NATO was brain-dead and needed a policy debate was only one point of controversy, alongside Erdogan’s rapproachment to Russia and his call to brand the Kurdish YPG fighters in northern Syria, hitherto supported by the West, as terrorists. What was surprising about the meeting was that Trump rejected Macron’s comments, pushing for a burden-sharing and higher defense spending by the Allies but attesting NATO’s progress over the past three years, contrary to his earlier statements that NATO was „obsolete“. Macron intends to move closer to Russia, start a new detente with Putin to prvent a Sino-Russian alliance and to relieve pressure on the European central front to get more NATO resources for the South: Africa and the Near and Middle East. France has long pushed for a Mediterranean Union in the EU and is now trying to do so in NATO.

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Source: AP Photo/Frank Augstein
The Eastern Europeans, on the other hand, see NATO’s main area of ​​activity as against Russia in the east, and Trump wants to withdraw from the Middle East, with the exception of Iran. Trump sees Russia as Macron not the main enemy of the Alliance, is also considering a detente with Putin-Russia, especially as he wants to prevent that in the Sino-American conflict Russia allies with China and for Africa, he sees especially the AFRICOM in Stuttgart responsible.

Macron, some European countries and Trump would like to make a detente with Russia and also strengthen the European pillar inside NATO except Great Britain. But most European countries don´t think that an European military could replace NATO as Macron, Joschka Fischer or the Spinelli Group inside the European Parliament want. At this point, it´s more Grand Nation thinking of Macron who wishes an European military with France as the leading power. Most European countries do not believe that a European military could replace NATO, but Macron, Joschka Fischer, or the Spinelli faction in the European Parliament warn that Europe should not wait for the next Trump tweet, in which he dissolves NATO and then be unprepared and defenseless. Therefore, Joschka Fischer suggests that Europe should now behave and act as if Trump had already disolved the alliance and quickly build their own European force More engagement in Africa and the Near and Middle East is what the South Europeans, France , Great Britain and Germany want, but not the East Europeans. The refugee crisis, resources and markets and Islamism is the reason for it as well as these powers don´t want that these regions become exclusive spheres of influence for China and Russia. And France and Great Britain also have traditional interest in and connections with their former colonies –be it the Commonwealth or the francophone zone.

Trump’s main focus is on China and Iran. It was also significant that for the first time NATO declared China a potential threat. Trump has thus brought an important point in the Sino-American conflict now also in the Western Alliance. However, this is overdue, as NATO can no longer ignore the rise of China. In the military sense, this does not mean anything, because NATO will not have the Indo-Pacific and Asia as its area of ​​operations, but more diplomatic and economic support for the USA is needed, including 5 G , Huawei and security issues. Similarly, there is only talk of a possible threat, so it remains vague, as well as China is defined as a challenge and as an opportunity. The NATO leader meeting also emphasizes that China is not an enemy. It was also stressed that China should be included in an arms control agreement between the West and Russia.

The NATO leader meeting was accompanied by the scandal over the exiled Chechen murdered in Berlin. Although the murder is already older date now the scandal seems to come as timely as the Skripalaffair in London during the Olympic Games in Sochi. A Russian hitman was arrested, two Russian diplomats expelled and Russian spies were arrested in France. Two possibilities: Putin wants to show similar to the Soviet Union with the assassination of the Ukrainian dissident Bandera in Munich that his power is sufficient even against protests of the West to terminate dissidents in exile or anti-Russian forces wanted to counteract a detente with Moscow and propel a change of mind in the Western public.

A former diplomat commented on this:

„The Moabit case is becoming virulent not only in connection with the NATO summit, but in the immediate forefront of the FRA-GERMANY-RUS-UKR meeting in the so-called Normandie format. Cui bono?

The case is reminiscent of the Bandera murder in Munich during the Cold War. The Chechen in Berlin (no Georgians) was in close contact with Georgian (Saakashvili) offices and also US institutions. He was one of the sharpest opponents of Kadyrov and its protectors. After it was no longer safe for him in Tbilisi, he came to Berlin in 2017. Here he received material and political support from the Heinrich Böll Foundation (Fücks and Marie-Luise Beck), from the funds of a cooperation program of the HBS with the Soros Foundation (all data of the Tagesspiegel shortly after the murder).

So a gray zone. But it would be a scandal of the first order, if, for example, the GRU would use contract killers here in Berlin.

We live in a peace on the brink of war. Wolfgang Ischinger is right when he writes that the situation has long since ceased to be as unstable and dangerous as it is today. And I admit: you were right when you wrote that the biggest risk is a major Sino-American conflict. “

In addition, there is also the Ukraine summit and an Ukrainian oligarch was arrested in Germany who is supposed to have incriminating evidence against Trump in the impeachment process. Everything is a bit opaque. Anyway, Merkel drove undisturbed to the Ukraine summit in Normandy format and stressed that she wanted to wait quietly for further investigations.

In the meantime, the Ukraine summit has been completed, a ceasefire has been agreed, a prisoner exchange and the withdrawal from the front line. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has demanded a tougher line against Russia, Putin now expelled German diplomats in return. Putin also seems to have indirectly endorsed the murder of the exile „Chechen“ in a press conference. Putin said the murdered exiled „Chechen“ had been involved in the bombing of Russian civilians in the Moscow subway, making him a terrorist and outlaw. However, what sort of freedom fighter and Democrats are Beck, Fücks, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Soros and the USA supporting?

While Putin speaks of a Chechen, Western media speak of a Georgian. However, it seems that the so-called Georgian was connected to the Neocon-Victoria Nuland-Kagan-CIA- Saakashvili network which promotes anti-Russian activities in Chechenia, Georgia and Ukraine form colored revolutions to armed struggle and was fighting in Chechenia against Kadyrov and the Russians. Maybe some sort of foreign fighter, volunteer, spy or mercenary. Maybe Western media want to pronounce the Georgian identity as a Chechen identity wouldn´t be that favorable.

The Chechen resistance is a crude mix of hardcore jihadists who once attacked the Moscow opera with black widows or children at the Beslan school and wanted to kill Russian hostages, Islamists, militant nationalists and a few secular Democrats. And in the West, in the past, people never looked so closely who they actually supported. At the time of the Cold War, support was extended even to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden or, in the case of Syria, to the Muslim Brothers and other Islamists who wanted to topple Assad with their Islamist assassination militia to establish an Islamist dictatorship. Israel also liquidated Palestinian terrorists of the Black September after their attack on the 1972 Olympics in Munich including the „red prince“ aka Ali Hassan Salameh , without there being any complaints from the West.

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