Why Europeans don’t need NATO (and the falsehood of partnership with the US)

«They tell us that Europeans and North Americans (US) are partners, but there are unquestionable facts that dismantle this fallacy», says Luis Gonzalo Segura, a former lieutenant in the Spanish Army, in an analysis of NATO.

In an opinion article, Segura explains that on European soil, 70,000 US soldiers are normally deployed in military bases distributed throughout the geography of the Old Continent, a figure that currently rises to more than 100,000 troops.

In addition, there is a multitude of US weapons in Europe, including weapons of mass destruction – but not like the ones the United States claimed existed in Iraq, but the real thing.

Now, having confirmed this fact, ask yourself how many European military bases there are in the United States. The answer is known to all: none.

Let’s go to the other two great world powers: China and Russia. How many Chinese military bases are there in Russia or how many Russian military bases are there in China? Indeed, none. Not only are there no bases, neither of the two countries even think of allowing the other to install military bases on its territory.

There will be those who can reply that there is an asymmetry in the association between Europe and the US, but the truth is that what exists is an abnormality. An abnormality if we consider Europe and the European countries as sovereign and independent, but an absolute normality if we assume reality: Europe is a territory militarily subjected to the United States.

This is the first obvious thing that we must reveal before we can continue.

A non-defensive military organization commanded by the US.

NATO is a military organization. This is the second thing that needs to be made clear. And that is not a small thing. If we are already clear that Europe is a territory militarily submitted to the United States and that NATO is a military organization, the next step is obvious: NATO militarily submits Europe.

Unfortunately, there are still those who deny it, but history harbors little doubt about it. When the Americans did not want to vacate Europe after World War II, many personalities, especially French, vigorously protested against it. They understood, and they understood well, that European sovereignty could be in serious danger. When German reunification was being negotiated between 1990 and 1991, it was the Americans who refused to create a pan-European defense association in Europe in which the United States would not have a place.

But, if they were in Europe to protect Europeans from the vicious Soviets, what was the point of staying on European soil when they no longer represented a danger? Protection? The answer would be no. And when Emmanuel Macron declared NATO «brain dead» and called for the formation of a European Army and the Americans refused, were they also doing it to protect us? Oh yes, to protect us from the Russians… Really?

Europe does not need NATO

The problem with the need to protect Europe from the Russian threat is that if we go to the data we find some interesting facts:

1,Military spending: Europe as a whole spends four times more than Russia on Defense (about 198,000 million euros per year for about 51,000 million euros, figures that have increased in both cases with the beginning of the war).

2,Military contingent: As far as the military contingent is concerned, in Europe there are 1.3 million soldiers for about 900,000 in Russia, not all of whom are professionals.

3.Demographically: Europe is almost four times bigger than Russia, which goes, rounding, from 550 million inhabitants to 150 million. This aspect is essential in terms of the mobilization of potential recruits and the economic potential in case of war.

4.Economically: Europe (21 billion) has a GDP almost twenty times that of Russia (1.5 billion).

5.Nuclearly: Russia has more than 6,000 nuclear warheads, while Europe has almost no nuclear weapons and this is reduced to a few hundred nuclear weapons.

Therefore, Europe does not need anyone’s help to confront Russia in military terms: it quadruples its military spending, almost doubles the contingent of professional soldiers, quadruples its population and its economy is twenty times larger. Russia will never be able, nor will it pretend, to conquer the old Eastern Europe, let alone confront Europe or NATO. Such a statement is supine stupidity, since there is only one section in which Russia can intimidate Europe, the nuclear one, and, truthfully, to protect ourselves from that threat we do not need the United States, since a Russian nuclear attack would end the planet .

One might think, after World War II, that the US military presence was necessary as a way of dissuading the fearsome Red Army —and this is more than debatable—, but to think that Europe currently needs or has needed in recent decades the United States or NATO to defend itself against Russia is, in objective terms, unsustainable and absurd. If the difference between the two powers is not sufficiently dissuasive, nothing will be.

There will be no peace while NATO or the US are in Europe

Europe needs neither NATO nor the US military, much less military budget increases, to keep the peace in Europe. What Europe needs is to accept and assume that there will be no peace in Europe until it takes Russia into account, until it considers that it must agree with Russia and establish geopolitical neighborly relations. Until it respects Russia in geopolitical terms. As peace was not possible for decades in Europe while Germany was not taken into account and it was pretended that it did not acquire the role that corresponded to it. 

In the case of Germany, we Europeans needed two world wars and more than a hundred million deaths to understand it, so it is to be hoped that we will not need so much this time.

This does not mean surrendering to Russia or antagonizing the United States, it means becoming independent, making our own decisions, being an actor in the international context, having a European Army and not having a single American soldier on European soil. An actor who does what is best for him and not what is best for his lord, the United States. Because sometimes the interests of the United States and those of Europe are different, as in the case of Ukraine, where the North Americans are interested in the opposite of what Europe is interested in: war, tension, the wall, hatred. The wear of Russia. Just what they’re gazing at right now, as they sit comfortably on the other side of the ocean eating popcorn. Don’t forget: the United States will not stop until it humiliates Russia.

We don’t know if the Americans will win or not, but we do know that we Europeans are going to face a scenario of growing instability in which anything is possible. As everything was possible in the past. If we know that after World War I, empires collapsed and that, after World War II, European countries became vassals, thinking about what could happen makes us shudder. But even more shocking is that great certainty that too many want to ignore: there will be no peace in Europe as long as NATO exists.

NATO: the fine print in the negotiations which made Türkiye changing its position on the accession of Sweden and Finland to the bloc