After the end of World War II, on August 25, 1949, the Western camp led by the United States was the first to establish the "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" . Then the Soviet Union did not show weakness and also established the Warsaw Pact to confront NATO.
It is the 70th anniversary of the founding of NATO, and the Warsaw Pact has been disbanded for nearly 30 years. How does NATO develop and who is its target? The world's largest military organization does not seem to be so scary anymore. As French President Macron said some time ago: "NATO is brain dead" . Although some NATO member states do not agree with Macron's statement, such as Turkey Erdogan, US President Trump and others are opposed.
Why he calls NATO "brain dead"
Macron publicly called NATO " brain dead " in an exclusive interview with Macron in the British "Economist" magazine on November 7, 2019. Malone believes that NATO is "brain dead" and hopes that European partner countries will be vigilant and sober and further play the EU's important role. Macron even criticized Trump in the United States. As a result, rumors about the contradiction between France and the United States spread again in Europe.
Macron believes that NATO allies lack strategic coordination. He particularly criticized the United States for insisting on withdrawing its troops from Syria despite the opposition of its allies. However, Turkey did not negotiate with NATO countries and also launched a military offensive against Kurdish areas in Syria. None of these actions will help eliminate the terrorist force of ISIS. Macron believes there is a coordination problem here.
Macron said that NATO is "brain dead", which is actually an obvious echo of his proposal of a "European Army" in 2017. When he talked about how to deal with NATO Article 5 in the interview, Macron thought that he didn’t know what NATO Article 5 would look like in the future. He believed that the United States and Turkey had not complied with it at all, and who would comply with it? Therefore, he called on European countries to have a clear understanding, take their destiny into their own hands, and restore Europe's "military sovereignty."
Macron also alluded to in the interview. If the EU has military sovereignty, it should no longer be governed by the United States. It must accept Russia and should no longer suppress Russia. It can be seen that what Macron calls "brain death" expresses two views: The first is the return of European military sovereignty, and the second is to accept Russia and no longer confront this dangerous power.
Why did the new country join at this time?
Just when Macron released a friendly message to Russia and was disappointed with the role of NATO, recently, NATO welcomed a new member. This country is the newly independent North Marston. This country was originally part of Yugoslavia , a small country that later split off.
Montenegro also joined NATO in 2017. Macron's disappointment with NATO does not seem to have discouraged some Soviet bloc countries from joining, and NATO's eastward expansion has not stopped.
North Macedonia is located in southern Europe, adjacent to Greece to the south and Serbia to the north. In the past few years, the country had problems with its name. It was only last year that the country changed its name to a new one, which was recognized by the United Nations. But after North Macedonia became independent, the country has always wanted to join NATO and the European Union.
North Macedonia’s intention to join NATO and integrate into Europe is not surprising. Because Serbia does not want to join NATO, and there are still ethnic conflicts between North Macedonia and Serbia, and the relationship between North Macedonia and Greece is also average. Therefore, North Macedonia has become a small country sandwiched between two regional powers. For its own security, it must join NATO, a military organization, to find a security barrier for itself.
There is information that North Macedonia joins NATO and the West further suppresses Russia's strategy. In fact, if North Macedonia serves as the frontier of NATO's eastward expansion and directly confronts Russia, it will inevitably become cannon fodder. Therefore, North Macedonia's participation is mainly to find a security support for the country itself.
What is the future trend in Russia?
There is an online article saying that North Macedonia joins, NATO will not only deter Serbia, but also further suppress Russia. Because the addition of North Macedonia has added another barrier for Russia to move south from the Balkans to the Mediterranean .
Russia is not afraid of North Macedonia joining NATO, but Russia is worried about Ukraine joining. If Ukraine joins NATO, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia will further escalate. Only then will Russia directly confront NATO. It will be a multi-country war against one country, which is not a good thing for Russia.
However, Russia is also relieved, because from Macron's speech, Russia saw the current status of NATO and its existing contradictions. Russia believes that NATO is not monolithic, and that there are many contradictions in this organization, especially the role of the United States in NATO, which makes the old European empires dissatisfied. Macron revealed in advance that Merkel supported NATO on the surface, but also hoped for the independence of European military sovereignty. Of course, the United States does not want to see an independent European military organization that excludes the United States from NATO. Then Russia will dominate Europe. This is an outcome that the United States does not want to see. Therefore, at the summit commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of NATO, Trump and Macron also refused to give in to each other. This rivalry also reflects the growing unwillingness of Europe’s established empires to be constrained by the United States.
Conclusion
Old empires such as France and Germany have now woken up. If they follow the United States to impose sanctions on Russia, they will actually be used as a weapon by the United States. Everyone knows that Russia is not a powerful country, but its military strength is enough to be scary. Especially the number and power of Russia's nuclear bombs are enough to destroy Europe three times, while the United States, which is far away from Europe, will not suffer any losses. So Macron is willing to accept Russia, which is the smart thing about France. But will the United States agree?
It doesn’t matter whether the United States agrees or not, because Russia has seen clearly that even if NATO expands eastward to the Russian border, Russia will not be afraid, because NATO, a military organization, is no longer a "unity" organization alliance, and Russia is completely They can be differentiated one by one, among which "Beixi-2" is a good strategy.
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