{"id":147155,"date":"2019-11-11T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=147155"},"modified":"2019-11-09T08:10:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-09T08:10:10","slug":"nato-is-suffering-brain-death-argues-french-president-macron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/11\/nato-is-suffering-brain-death-argues-french-president-macron\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO Is Suffering ‘Brain Death’, Argues French President Macron"},"content":{"rendered":"

7 Nov 2019 – French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed NATO was undergoing \u201cbrain death”,\u00a0lamenting a lack of coordination between Europe and the United States and unilateral action in Syria by key member Turkey, in an interview published today. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kZCPB2WxWCc<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,\u201d Macron<\/a> told The Economist magazine.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s explosive comments, appearing to question the very future of NATO<\/a>, threatened to send shock waves through the alliance ahead of a summit in Britain next month.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its NATO allies. None,\u201d said Macron.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have an uncoordinated aggressive action by another NATO ally, Turkey, in an area where our interests are at stake,\u201d he added, according to an English transcript released by The Economist.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s latest military operation against Kurdish forces<\/a> in northern Syria was staunchly opposed by fellow members like France, but made possible by a withdrawal of US forces ordered by President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been no NATO planning, nor any coordination,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n

And while NATO works well in communicating between armies and commanding operations, \u201cstrategically and politically, we need to recognise that we have a problem”,\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should reassess the reality of what NATO is in light of the commitment of the United States,\u201d he warned, adding that \u201cIn my opinion, Europe has the capacity to defend itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

French President Emmanuel Macron<\/p><\/div>\n

‘Drastic Words,’ Says Merkel<\/strong><\/p>\n

Macron said that while \u201cit\u2019s not in our interest\u201d to expel Turkey from NATO – as has been urged by some politicians – member states should \u201creconsider what NATO is\u201d.<\/p>\n

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday rejected\u00a0Macron\u2019s view that NATO was experiencing \u201cbrain death\u201d, saying that such comments were not necessary.<\/p>\n

Macron \u201cused drastic words, that is not my view of cooperation in NATO”,\u00a0said Merkel after talks with visiting chief of the translantic defence alliance Jens Stoltenberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that such sweeping judgements are necessary, even if we have problems and need to pull together,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Stoltenberg meanwhile stressed that \u201cNATO is strong\u201d, adding that the United States and Europe \u201cwork together more than we have done for decades\u201d.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking during a visit to the German city of Leipzig as part of anniversary events for the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago, also dismissed Macron\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think NATO remains an important, critical, perhaps historically one of the most critical strategic partnerships in all of recorded history,\u201d he told a press conference.<\/p>\n

That was why it was \u201can absolute imperative that every country participate and join in and contribute appropriately to achieving that shared security mission,\u201d he added, in a nod to Washington\u2019s longstanding gripes about some member countries not paying their way.<\/p>\n

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, speaking at the same press conference, also said he believed strongly in the military alliance \u201cespecially as we face ever more and ever greater global challenges\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, Moscow on Thursday hailed Macron’s comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are golden words… a precise definition of the current state of NATO,\u201d Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page.<\/p>\n

\u2018Strategic Dialogue with Russia\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the interview, Macron also\u00a0emphasised it was crucial to seek a rapprochement with Moscow, which regards NATO and its expansion into ex-Communist bloc states with huge suspicion since the alliance was set up to counter the USSR.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to reopen a strategic dialogue, without being naive and which will take time, with Russia,\u201d said Macron, who is seeking to broker an end to the conflict in Ukraine and has courted President Vladimir Putin<\/a> as a partner.<\/p>\n

He said NATO did not reexamine its future in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and \u201cthe unarticulated assumption is that the enemy is still Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the question about the present purpose of NATO is a real question that needs to be asked,\u201d especially by the United States where Trump sees the alliance as a \u201ccommercial project\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

And Macron said he believed that Putin, for all the anti-Western bombast from the Kremlin, would find his strategic options limited, in the long term, to \u201ca partnership project with Europe”.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we want to build peace in Europe, to rebuild European strategic autonomy, we need to reconsider our position with Russia,\u201d said Macron.<\/p>\n

He praised the stance on the issue of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban<\/a> – criticised by many in Europe for being authoritarian and close to the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s quite close to our views and has a key intellectual and political role\u201d in central Europe, said Macron.<\/p>\n

\u2018Edge of a Precipice\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The French president, seen by analysts as Europe\u2019s most prominent leader amid Brexit and the looming exit of Merkel in 2021, has sought to stand tall on the foreign policy stage and implement a vision of reforming Europe.<\/p>\n

But he said the European Union had been brought \u201cto the edge of a precipice\u201d by a dwindling focus since the mid-1990s on the bloc\u2019s political integration.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope has forgotten that it is a community, by increasingly thinking of itself as a market, with expansion as its end purpose,\u201d said Macron, who recently blocked expanding the EU to include North Macedonia and Albania.<\/p>\n

He also said he wanted European nations to break the \u201ctaboo\u201d against using deficits to stimulate growth and investment, and scrap a strict limit on eurozone deficits.<\/p>\n

Macron said it was a time of turmoil with Europe losing track of history, a risk of the US and China becoming the sole global powers, and authoritarian regimes emerging in its neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this has led to the exceptional fragility of Europe which, if it can\u2019t think of itself as a global power, will disappear, because it will take a hard knock,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 france24.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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