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7/2/2025, 1:24:19 PM
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NATO'S POTEMKIN SUMMIT SENDS LETHAL SIGNALS
>Overshadowed by Trump, the alliance’s meeting concealed disunity and indecision in Europe
>Cowardice ill befits a military alliance. But it dominated yesterday’s Nato summit in the Hague. The alliance leaders who gathered in the Dutch city showed that they were more frightened of Donald Trump than of Vladimir Putin.
> To appease the US president, they cut the agenda short, sidelined Ukraine, downplayed the threat from Russia, made empty promises and dodged urgent decisions. It worked — for now.
> Prince Grigory Potemkin would have approved. To impress Catherine the Great and her hangers-on during her tour of newly conquered Crimea in 1787, the Russian courtier erected (according to legend) portable fake villages. Behind the facades was empty space. Now his modern counterparts are striving to impress another potentate, the emperor Donald I.
THE SEETHE.
>Foremost among them was Nato’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte. The former Dutch prime minister took the national characteristic of pragmatism to new levels in his obsequious treatment of the US president.
>Measured against the scale of the challenge, not the potential for disaster, the scorecard looks different. The intense focus on Trump’s mood and choice of words highlights the alliance’s vulnerability to the president’s caprice. Nato relies on the US to plug numerous holes. They include skimpy stockpiles of munitions and spare parts, air and missile defence, long-range firepower, and the vital “enablers” such as intelligence and logistics. These assets are already thinly stretched: “only one of everything” says General Ben Hodges, the former US army commander in Europe. The best that can be said is that if allies find Trump’s approach confusing, Putin will too. Sometimes ambiguity trumps clarity.
THE COPE
https://archive.md/9DoiI
NATO'S POTEMKIN SUMMIT SENDS LETHAL SIGNALS
>Overshadowed by Trump, the alliance’s meeting concealed disunity and indecision in Europe
>Cowardice ill befits a military alliance. But it dominated yesterday’s Nato summit in the Hague. The alliance leaders who gathered in the Dutch city showed that they were more frightened of Donald Trump than of Vladimir Putin.
> To appease the US president, they cut the agenda short, sidelined Ukraine, downplayed the threat from Russia, made empty promises and dodged urgent decisions. It worked — for now.
> Prince Grigory Potemkin would have approved. To impress Catherine the Great and her hangers-on during her tour of newly conquered Crimea in 1787, the Russian courtier erected (according to legend) portable fake villages. Behind the facades was empty space. Now his modern counterparts are striving to impress another potentate, the emperor Donald I.
THE SEETHE.
>Foremost among them was Nato’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte. The former Dutch prime minister took the national characteristic of pragmatism to new levels in his obsequious treatment of the US president.
>Measured against the scale of the challenge, not the potential for disaster, the scorecard looks different. The intense focus on Trump’s mood and choice of words highlights the alliance’s vulnerability to the president’s caprice. Nato relies on the US to plug numerous holes. They include skimpy stockpiles of munitions and spare parts, air and missile defence, long-range firepower, and the vital “enablers” such as intelligence and logistics. These assets are already thinly stretched: “only one of everything” says General Ben Hodges, the former US army commander in Europe. The best that can be said is that if allies find Trump’s approach confusing, Putin will too. Sometimes ambiguity trumps clarity.
THE COPE
https://archive.md/9DoiI
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