I think much more likely (and the best possible outcome now) is the US just leaving.
That would leave the existing organisation and structures in place for the rest to use. And then the western democracies can keep their alliance.
Altho it would come at the security risk of america still knowing a lot of secrets that they wouldnt know if it were a new alliance built from scratch.
The obvious one is that there is an invasion from Russia or some other provocation and the US (or other country) does not honour its article 5 commitments.
NATO will not disband. It makes very little sense. Would take decades to re-create all the structures and common policies.
So the US would have to inform the US that it wants to leave, the US informs the other members and then one year later the US is no longer a member. It’s in Article 13.
It doesn’t matter. The only thing Orange Dictator has to do is say he won’t support Art. 5.
I think there are 3 plausible scenarios – from super likely to less likely:
Orange Dictator uses NATO as leverage against Europe. If tariff on tech, then we will pull back. If you don’t buy US equipment, we will pull back. If you don’t give us Greenland, Etc.
There is a real Art. 5 situation in Europe (say, Russia invades the Baltics), and Orange Dictator ignores it.
The US starts a new military adventure in Taiwan, Panama, Iran, claims it’s article 5 and then other nations are confronted with a dilemma, while Orange Dictator can say “YOU SEE COMMIE EUROPOORS, IS THIS NATO TO YOU?”
In all 3 scenarios, NATO can continue to exist – but it just becomes irrelevant.
Either way, we (Europe, but perhaps also Canada) should just consider the US non-existent. We’re on our own now, we have to do it ourselves. We should gradually move out of US military equipment, US LNG, out of US products as a whole (including tech), wave the 100k soldiers on our soil goodbye. We should not accept blackmail. Will cost us 5% of GDP in trade, but that is overseeable. The EU has so much potential for the future in a world without the US, it’s almost hard to wrap your mind around. Given population, Universities, democracy, and so on. But that brings me to the real problem.
The only problem is our own governmental setup, the incompetent and toothless tiger that is the EU. We need a supranational body, more federalization, but not lead by the Germans (they made enough of a mess already), and not in its current Kafkaesk form.
The EU must be able to overrule Member States. If not, then it has no right of existence.
Of course it can be formally disbanded, but that’s moot, it’s already “disbanded” in practice as 1/ the US government has said they would not honour article 5 even though they were the only ones to invoke it in the past and the other members did honour it, and 2/ the vast majority of the other members are EU members who have their own article 5 in the EE treaties so it wouldn’t matter other than losing 60/70% of your firepower…
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I think much more likely (and the best possible outcome now) is the US just leaving.
That would leave the existing organisation and structures in place for the rest to use. And then the western democracies can keep their alliance.
Altho it would come at the security risk of america still knowing a lot of secrets that they wouldnt know if it were a new alliance built from scratch.
The obvious one is that there is an invasion from Russia or some other provocation and the US (or other country) does not honour its article 5 commitments.
A treaty unhonoured is no treaty
NATO will not disband. It makes very little sense. Would take decades to re-create all the structures and common policies.
So the US would have to inform the US that it wants to leave, the US informs the other members and then one year later the US is no longer a member. It’s in Article 13.
NATO is already functionally useless.
The US is not going to come to the defence of any European country if attacked by Russia
Europe needs to come up with a command structure that can operate without the US within the next five years
It doesn’t matter. The only thing Orange Dictator has to do is say he won’t support Art. 5.
I think there are 3 plausible scenarios – from super likely to less likely:
In all 3 scenarios, NATO can continue to exist – but it just becomes irrelevant.
Either way, we (Europe, but perhaps also Canada) should just consider the US non-existent. We’re on our own now, we have to do it ourselves. We should gradually move out of US military equipment, US LNG, out of US products as a whole (including tech), wave the 100k soldiers on our soil goodbye. We should not accept blackmail. Will cost us 5% of GDP in trade, but that is overseeable. The EU has so much potential for the future in a world without the US, it’s almost hard to wrap your mind around. Given population, Universities, democracy, and so on. But that brings me to the real problem.
The only problem is our own governmental setup, the incompetent and toothless tiger that is the EU. We need a supranational body, more federalization, but not lead by the Germans (they made enough of a mess already), and not in its current Kafkaesk form.
The EU must be able to overrule Member States. If not, then it has no right of existence.
Of course it can be formally disbanded, but that’s moot, it’s already “disbanded” in practice as 1/ the US government has said they would not honour article 5 even though they were the only ones to invoke it in the past and the other members did honour it, and 2/ the vast majority of the other members are EU members who have their own article 5 in the EE treaties so it wouldn’t matter other than losing 60/70% of your firepower…