Trump: NATO Is ‘No Longer Obsolete’

Continues to Demand Nations Increase Military Spending

After fueling a lot of tensions with his comments during the 2016 campaign that NATO is an obsolete alliance, President Trump today declared that the alliance is “no longer obsolete” following meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Though Trump presented this in part as NATO having capitulated to his demands for the alliance to be reorganized around fighting against ISIS, the comments will also be seen in the context of soaring tensions between the US and Russia.

NATO was, after all, designed to fight the Soviet Union, and Trump’s comments on obsolescence were in the context of his call for improved US-Russia relations. Now that he seems firmly on the side of further hostility toward Russia, it appears to shore up his view of NATO.

But while Trump offered “praise” to some extent in saying the alliance was obsolete, he continued to complain about a number of members who don’t “pay what they owe” and “meet their financial obligations,” continuing to press for all NATO members to spend at least 2% of their GDP.

Despite presenting this as an obligation, there is nothing within the rules of NATO to compel members to spend so much, and many nations have openly refused to spend 2% of their GDP, despite the Trump Administration continuing to hype that as a goal.

Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz

ISIS Pushes Syrian Forces Out of Town Near Raqqa, Kills 34 Troops - August 25th, 2017
US Pilots Expect Even Heavier Airstrikes With Afghan Escalation - August 25th, 2017
Apple Purges All Iranian Apps From iPhones, Citing US Sanctions - August 25th, 2017
Iraqi Forces Reach Center of Tal Afar, Seize Neighborhoods - August 25th, 2017
Trump's New Sanctions Give Maduro Opportunity to Purge Opposition - August 25th, 2017

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz

Click here to hide comments

Adriaan de Leeuw

Of course the UN is more obsolete well the problem of Veto, the US cannot be sanctioned for their use of weapons in Syria, for their funding supplying materiel and training of Terrorists like Al Nusra Front (AL Qaeda in Iraq), just as the US complains that Russia uses the veto to stop actions related to Syria. America is complaining of the seven or so veto actions that Russia has put in place in relation to Syria, of course the US has put literally hundreds of vetoes in relation to Israel, Time for the stopping of the veto for every one, and an action which has one of the five permanent members of the security council dealt with exclusively by the full UN general council!
Don

campaign speech: Nato is obsolete.
Today: Nato isn’t obsolete

campaign speech: China is a currency manipulater
Today: China isn’t a currency manipulater

Two big ones fall in one day!

Once again bringing home to the Trump supporting mutts that Trump knew about as much as a 6 year old kid on foreign policy when he was shooting his mouth off.
- Ten Count Toronto
  
  Or maybe he knew there was an audience for that in this election and he decided to capture it.
  - Don
    
    No doubt he did know he could capture the hearts and minds of lowlife hillbillies who would grasp the message. But I’m saying that he was saying that which he actually believed in his ignorance of the real world.
    
    I think we’ve moved past the point of debating that now. Let’s not go back and encourage Raimondo to go back with ‘his’ audience.
    - dieter heymann
      
      There are plenty of well-educated Americans who supported and who still support Trump.
      - Neuromancer
        
        No matter. Don is smarter than all of them combined.
        
        Just ask him.
- Neuromancer
  
  Actually it was his campaign statements that showed a greater grasp of reality. His policy reversals show that he has been swallowing blue pills hand over fist.
  - Don
    
    Amazing that you’re still not getting it. Stop! Trump wanted to be president because he is a narcissist and a psychopath. He has no worthwhile human ideals because he simply didn’t have any understanding of what he was pretending to promote.
    
    Hasn’t that become obvious to you now as he’s reversing everything he said that was the least bit controversial? There’s just nothing left of his platform that can’t be shot down now.
    
    And you try to tell me that an American can understand this nonsense better than a Canadian??
    - Neuromancer
      
      I’m talking about his statements, not the motivation behind them.
      
      Maybe you have some special gift of looking into the mind and soul of people whom you have never met. Somehow you have a grasp on what Trump understands. You have delved so deeply into his psyche that you can bandy about glib terms like “narcissist” and “psychopath”. I salute you for your prescience and your overall excellence as a human being.
      
      As for me, I will believe someone until they give me a reason not to. Not knowing Trump personally I had no a priori reason to doubt his sincerity. Trump has now given me a reason (actually, multiple reasons) not to believe him.
      
      Your condescending attitude is what makes you so insufferable to many on this site. Every post of yours starts with “you don’t understand” or “you don’t get it.” Even when you make valid arguments they are couched in the expressions of your moral and intellectual superiority.
      
      God help you should you ever have to face the prospect that you are wrong.
  - dieter heymann
    
    You have apparently not listened enoungh to president Trump. These reversals show that he is the most flexible president we have ever had. His flexibility is a beauty! Better than that of Harding.
- Neuromancer
  
  So which is it, Don?
  
  NATO obsolete or not obsolete?
  China a currency manipulator or not?
  
  Even a broken Trump understands the excluded middle.
- Mazzel Stof
  
  The question is if this estimate is fair toward the average 6 year old. Most of them have had experience of learning things by that age.
Ten Count Toronto

This proves that like Iran, America has it’s own “revolutionary council” which has veto power over any deal made between an elected official and the voters. Blowing away whatever was left of the illusion that electorate can have any influence on the nation’s most critical & resource consuming policy direction.

Does anyone honestly believe it would have ended differently with another candidate who proposed significant departures, say Buchanan or Paul from the Right, or Gabbard from the left?

I’m not even sure which explanation is more depressing: that Trump has been subjected to some epic arm-twisting behind the scenes, or that he was phony all along, only allowed to stay in the nomination process based on guarantees he’d do a U-turn once elected.

Either way the conclusion is the same: The democracy of our countries is little more than a reality show with the script written in the backrooms. It is only fitting that a reality show actor & producer is the President who’s election drives the point home.
- Neuromancer
  
  I think things would have been much different with either a Buchanan or a Paul. These men argue from deeply held fundamental principles, and it is these principles which inform their positions on individual issues. Trump appears to consider each issue in isolation, and to come to decisions based on expediency.
  
  Without a core philosophy, who knows what he will do next?
  - dieter heymann
    
    The world’s history is replete with men with “deeply held fundamental principles” that were dangerous and often murderous criminals. One of my forebears met one named Torquemada. T. had him tortured then publicly burned alive at an auto da fe in Lisbon. My dad met another one more recently who locked him up for 12 years. I have become leery of fundamentalists. I try to avoid them.
    - Anna
      
      Having deeply held principles is a different matter than being an ideological zealot. Principles are arrived at through rational moral evaluation, where as the nutcases of your example (Torquemada etc.) are driven by emotional fanaticism. There may be some “philosophy” and education and “principle” in the atomic minutae of their original beliefs, but when beliefs swell into extremism it is not principle that is driving it, but perversion
      - Mazzel Stof
        
        That is an idealization of what is actually the case. People rarely decide rationally upon their deeply held beliefs. That is just how brains work, in a sense it is a certainty machine.
  - Don
    
    You might be starting to clue in but don’t get into speculation other possibilities such as Gabbard, Paul, or Buchanan.
    
    Rather, understand that there is an underlying rot in the minds of the American people that most likely can’t be eliminated except by a very hard lesson. Nazism survived right to the end.
    
    The core philosophy is missing in all American politicians and especially so in Ron Paul. Like so many other Americans who are desperate, he’s chosen libertarian pie in the sky nonsense instead of ‘socially’ responsible capitalism.
    
    If you are ever ready to contemplate going down that road then let me know.
    
    Or, sit down, have a beer and a big mac, and relax. You and your country are invincible! Your military is so powerful that you may even be capable of stopping most of Russia’s nucelar armed missiles!
    - Neuromancer
      
      God you have a high opinion of yourself.
dieter heymann

Obsolete means no longer useful for its designed purpose. At the time when Trump made his “obsolete” statement NATO was in charge of fighting the Taliban. Trump never demanded that this allegedly obsolete organization recall its troops from Afghanistan. Inference: more bs from an immensely ignorant man.
unam_sanctum

NATO will be obsolete when France and Italy leave.
comrade hermit

….And just in time for World War 3! What a convenient and total coincidence!
unam_sanctum

Repeat after Rick: ” Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down… never gonna run around, NATO, and hurt you. Never gonna say goodbye, never gonna make you cry, never gonna tell a lie or desert you”…