Speaking PURPOSEFULLY and DIRECTLY into the CLOUD ...
Regarding the truly scary Fox News sponsored Tucker Carlson / Donald Trump interview (Tue, July 17, 2018) about letting the U.S. unilaterally walk away from our NATO obligations
(1) Let’s be clear, bowtied Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump are NOT really talking here of Montenegro but rather of the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
(2) Neither Tucker Carlson, nor his son Buckley, nor famously “bone spur” Donald Trump served or serve in the military. So the scenario they propose would involve sending other people’s parents and children to war.
(3) NATO exists precisely to KEEP THE PEACE.
a. Wars start as a result of miscalculations. BOTH the 1950-53 Korean War and the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War BEGAN as a result of, let’s be kind, “unfortunate” / “poorly worded” / “not thought-through” statements by U.S. Government officials of MUCH LOWER RANK than the President, which _suggested_ that the United States did not think South Korea / Kuwait were worth defending. Even Serbia which doesn’t necessarily consider Montenegro to be a “real country” may take a crack now at Montenegro. But more to the point again, the Russians may now think they’ve been given permission to destabilize and take over the Baltic Republics.
b. Even little countries under threat can come up with their own strategies / defenses. Think Israel…
i. If I were Poland today, if I don’t ALREADY have a dozen or so nuclear weapons quietly given to it a few years ago by the outgoing Obama Administration I’d be looking build them or acquire them now.
ii. I’m more or less certain that the Czechs have made similar contingency plans and acquired the necessary materials during the Vaclav Havel administration. The current Czech President Zeman is basically the Czechs’ equivalent of Trump (and almost certainly supported by Putin). Nevertheless even if Zeman is a stooge of Putin it’d be doubtful that the Czechs would easily give up any nuclear material that they’ve husbanded during Havel’s time (and perhaps even previous to Havel’s time) because it would give the Czech leadership more options. And even if the Czechs did not have weapons grade nuclear materials in their possession, with operating nuclear power plants they CERTAINLY have access to all the fissionable material they’d ever need to make a good deal of dirty bombs.
iii. With regard to the Baltic States. Perhaps they already have nuclear materials themselves from “stray” tactical, etc nuclear weapons left on their soil, with the collapse of the Soviet Union to make / maintain a number of true nuclear weapons on their own. Then, as in the case of the Czechs (and the Poles), the Baltic States would _certainly_ have enough fissionable materials to make a whole series of dirty bombs to (1) certainly make the centers of St. Petersburg and Moscow and (2) possibly make the centers of _every single one of the cities_ that just hosted the World Cup uninhabitable IF the Russians chose to try to take them over again.
Think about it. THIS IS WHY NATO EXISTS … to help make the individual countries of Europe secure so that they wouldn’t have to “go their own way.” I’LL say it with absolute certainty, a Russian adventure in the Baltic would bring with it World War III or large scale destruction / poisoning across Russia itself to make it utterly not worth it. But if NATO remains around, such a conflict remains simply unthinkable and I would think that for the sake of the whole world (and even of Russia) THAT WOULD BE A GOOD THING.
So Tucker and Donald… DON’T BE IDIOTS. Chamberlain was an IDIOT. He dressed like you Tucker and had the intelligence / naiveté of you Donald. If you proceed to destroy NATO those of us left to tell about it will HATE YOU and LAUGH YOU TO SCORN. You’ll be remembered as being even stupider than Chamberlain was.
