Many of his European Partners in the alliance certainly dont agree though they call is words drastic and dangerous in an interview with the economist magazine the french president blamed the us saying its commitment to nato is weakening micro cited the u. S. Failure to consult it before pulling its forces out of Northern Syria he also questioned whether the alliance is still committed to collective defense and he called on europe to think of itself as a geopolitical power and ensure its in control of its destiny microns remarks come ahead of a summit in the u. K. Early next month to mark nato 70th anniversary u. S. Secretary of state mike pompei or says nato must change or risk irrelevance. They dont run is always the risk that it will become obsolete now because the partnership now because the political commitments for ever become i dont think is between in the transit and those commitments between our countries will ever become obsolete. But it does run that risk if it doesnt do the things it needs to do to confront the challenges of today in a way that is a fact. Of the german chancellor Angela Merkel rejected what she called microns drastic words germanys foreign minister is warning against undermining nato in a column in the speaker magazine he said neither germany nor europe will be able to effectively protect themselves without the us and in an interview with the Financial Times polands Prime Minister viewed macross questioning of nato as commitment to mutual defense as dangerous the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization the n stoltenberg on the other hand stressed the coalition while strong and the u. S. And europe are working closer together than in the past decades Incoming European Commission president sort of on the layer hailed nato as a protective shield of freedom and said the most powerful Defense Alliance in the world. I welcome on this now im joined by our guests we have in brussels John Laughlin or fur and consultant on International Law john is also a lecturer at the University Institute of st pius 10th on skype from philadelphia Alexander Vershbow now former deputy secretary general of nato and the former u. S. Ambassador to nato and russia and in moscow Pavel Felgenhauer defense and military analyst and columnist for no via guess at or a warm welcome to iran lets start with john then is nato dying. Well i think. In many ways michaels remark that it was brain dead is not exactly hot news. Nato has been braindead i would say since 1901 when the warsaw pact was dissolved it was of course created as we all know to supposedly face down the the soviet threat but when that threat disappeared logically nato should have been dissolved as well instead of which for reasons of institutional selfinterest and above all for reasons of geopolitical selfinterest and when i refer to that im talking about the United States of america in complicity of course with its european allies but we see from emmanuelle michaels remark and from the from the reactions to it that the truth is that nato is simply an instrument for my marital geopolitical i could jump in here and so is im the counterargument that would be im sure by by nato and its supporters that hey weve seen russia make moves in crimea you know there are plenty of reasons why nato is still relevant and not you cant you cant simply you cant simply start the story in crimea in 2014 this came 20 years after relentless remorseless western jugulator collect expansionism which included the attack on yugoslavia in 1909 the orange revolution in 24. 00 obviously the iraq war of 2003 so whether or not these things were involved with nato or whether nato itself was officially involved there has been an immense pushback and it just so happened john reaction when he came in again 40 and there are those who would say lets not forget naders intervention yugoslavia because a genocide was being committed in the acts you this live picture on the side was not being committed on your knees lower him if there hasnt it on the. That was war propaganda which has been proved false since there was never any genocide committed in kosovo indeed nobody in kosovo was even accused of genocide so im sorry that was just war preferred it was the us and i say it was only as i say the i. C. J. Rulings talk about it werent. Near that was not in kosovo that is x. Yugoslavia has been a serious those is in bosnia it is in a cause of obvious thing which is only in the army or you know drive or so on you could slavia in 1990 is one of the states the and you just said it happened on the use of the 999 war im sorry you are confusing 2 separate things which were 4 years apart in time you cannot deny that there was there has been no im sorry it was it is part of the axis and they dont and you just said that nato carried out a raid on x. Yugoslavia should we question is should we not keep in the context of the the horrible massacres which i. C. J. Rulings of our held. That were committed in yugoslavia and so you notice action in that context. I dont im sorry i dont think you know what youre talking about when your sat question stripper occurred in 1905 things had come down 4 years later. A war a civil war started in kosovo and yugoslavia was attacked and so i think they were actually continuing day 19 and also introducing ones i havent said anything as serious i suppose you dont need to go and committed the time fred york im confusing kosovo i have not brought kosovo into this discussion ok lets move on i think ive made the point is. That many would say nato was of what im talking about 391999. 00 it was then talking over kosovo which you mentioned lets bring in alexandra if we can what do you make of this is nato role really irrelevant or is it a vital instrument that has been used since the end of the cold war whether its in yugoslavia or in other places for a useful purpose. You know i dont want to get into relive again the past im a strong believer in nato and i think natos adaptation after the end of the cold war was extremely important for increasing security stability and spreading democracy and free market reforms across the formerly satellite countries of eastern europe. Has nato solve other problems no there are still challenges facing the last day and emanuel not wrong has raised some legitimate issues that people are sometimes afraid to speak out loud and this kind of a paradox nato has continued to strengthen itself in terms of rebuilding deterrence and defense since the so of the russian aggression against ukraine 5 years ago a lot of the good things that have happened and now dont let me jump in here if i could as well and that nails speak as i think maybe from johns perspective is that really the role that nato has played since the end of the cold war hasnt been the role that it was initially created for it may be one thing in order to push back against serbia nationalism as it. Manifested itself in the next yugoslavia but nato was created to counter the threat of the soviet union. Thats right and nato. Decided in 1991 that it should adapt itself rather than go out of business and i think that was the right decision ending genocide in bosniaherzegovina where we saw for the 1st time since world war 2 concentration camps and ethnic cleansing and i think and i would defend that nato did in kosovo and dealing with war crimes which were documented by the International Criminal tribunal for the for the former yugoslavia and it adapted again after 911. 00 and became part of the worlds response to International Terrorism lets focus on what nato needs to do now and in this discussion it does need to adapt again europe does need to play a bigger role in nato dont trump isnt totally wrong when he hammers the allies over defense spending but at the same time the u. S. Needs to really rebuild its own leadership role and thats what macross i think attention to when he said nato was brain dead he was basically saying u. S. Leadership which is the sort of essential foundation for nato can no longer be relied upon based on what weve seen trump do in the north in syria but also some of the statements hes made over the last few years calling into question whether the United States would be there if and how i fell under attack so. The bigger question is what are we going to do about it. There the french dont have any great answers as to how to. Erosion of u. S. Leadership within nato lets bring in pavel then from russias perspective pavel weve seen pretty positive comments for unofficial tweets after we heard the comments from micron the french president calling that a golden comment do you think does russia see that any sort of admission of the irrelevance of nato any crumbling or weakening of nato is a game for russia. Well nato is seen as moscow as a kind of terror no bogeyman i mean the concentration of and the russian sentiment and ranty Russian Military power and the threat and of course then you kind of internal tensions and this agreements and inside nato and the weakening of the transatlantic link between washington and the european allies is always welcome but there is also a kind of funder aligning with do that that if indeed nato begins to crumble that would not be good news for a lot of people in moscow to the military to the Intelligence Community Defense Industry i mean those who are called c levy key in russia because they have been reducing and nato threat very important argument for bargaining for more money from the budget increasing their role for internal propaganda and for internal. Intergovernmental discussions with more wilber all economic block of the government right thats all that made out that might be that the sentiment within some of the military industry within russia but from the have some more national perspective. A sort of national geo political perspective is it is a mistake and to say that putin is probably happy to see the sorts of. Voices being raised within nato that say this organization may be irrelevant now. Well most likely yes but putin is given and our daily briefings about the growing that a threat at the same time by his intelligence people in the military who are saying that nato is very strong and grating threats and you know are 3 units and threats appearing all the time so its a kind of doublethink picture and course not the 1st time that the french undermined nato under president general shall they go france france out of nato kicked nato headquarters out of france an american bases out of france and this was very welcome in moscow at the time in the sixtys but well nato didnt disappear nato has been an internal coup different kind of steps of crisis for a lot of time as the European Union is i mean such an organization of so many states as there is all the time internal tensions but its not going away any time soon and thats maybe good for the see will be key in moscow d to john even if nato is irrelevant even if as you said it should have dined at the end of the cold war is not the reality that europe would form another kind of common defense mechanism. Well i think yes i actually i think kami have asked some writers some good good questions but i think hes given the wrong answers i think hes asked a good question because as i said earlier he has identified the fact both he and the people whove responded to him that in reality nato is nothing but a vector or a vehicle for American Power its not in that sense an alliance its simply one in a long series in Human History of hedging monic arrangements spare but whereby one country dominates a whole series of others and those other countries may decide that they have an interest in joining this monica lions and in being project project protected by the by the heck im on that is a in some cases a rational calculation but nonetheless that is the reality the reason why i think mccoy is giving the wrong answer to a good question is that he says that nato is dead now because of american and turkish unilateralism and because turkey and trump im not playing the game but by definition any kind of Permanent Alliance is always going to be victim to the same danger there would be exactly the same danger of the free rider which identified and of divergent policy choices which he also identified within the European Alliance so politically speaking and above all militarily because the sheer weight of American Power is so gigantic in comparison to the ultimately insignificant european power that yes they would be they could be a European Alliance but it would it would not relying on. A reality as nato normally house there is really no need for any sort of common defense mechanism in europe whether its including the us or even with i do but i do believe i believe that i dont believe in Permanent Alliances i think that countries have to take care of their own security above all of course they can engage in temporary arrangement but i think the danger of permanent allowance. These dangers are those ones that michael has identified and because nato as an institution has been looking for a role ever since the disappearance of the soviet threat it is not and this is where i disagree with the diversion it has not been a factor of security it has been a factor of insecurity its actions in the balkans have created insecurity its attack on libya in 2011 created insecurity it least a wave of migration across the mediterranean because of the nikkei that was unleashed in libya and europeans are the ones paying the price for the blowback from these operations which were ultimately backed if not in most cases initiated by the americans so this is the fundamental dysfunctionality of nato let me bring in alexander i think you might have a slightly different perspective having been a u. S. Ambassador let me get you to answer to some of the points that johns raising there basically nato represents a had too many of us interests over europe and. That europe really could do without that i disagree with the. Center where john is so yes the u. S. Is the strongest member of nato and thats actually an unstable factor the u. S. Is providing disproportionately large share of the capabilities europe does need to punch that ira well if only it was going to have a future but the idea that its a vehicle for us in germany. You know similar what you hear in the crudest form of propaganda from from russia today. I served as u. S. Ambassador to nato and yes people. Listen very carefully to what the American Ambassador has to say but it is a genuine alliance where theres give and take and compromises and decisions are taken by consensus its only trying to further different i dont know that i could jump in at egypt on the law its going to be that a lot of the rights of the logic of some of the tweets by the current us president you might be led to think that maybe he wants to see europe carry its own military responsibilities without the u. S. Having to shoulder at least part of that now i think thats. What President Trump has been saying and hes not hes not entirely wrong if you want to have an alliance that lasts that is seen as in the interest of all of its members and the burdens have to be shared more more equitably. But when my prior suggested is kind of that europe should go on its own and while that may sound i do think europe and do you think europe account and it sounded. Not today if the u. S. Were to pull out or call back 6 say actually from its commitments to nato europe would be woefully short of all the key capabilities needed for small scale interventions much less for the defense of europe against a potentially large scale threat from the Russian Federation so we need to Stay Together and rebalance the alliance thats where trump has legitimate grievance with the other allies and mccraw should work on strengthening the european pillar of nato rather than taking europe in a totally separate direction let me bring pavel in and ask this question some of the headaches which russia has had with nato expansion is and would any of that be dealt with if we saw a different sort of common European Defense arrangement would that deal with the placement of certain u. S. Missile systems that say in poland and so on and so forth or ultimately would we see the same sorts of military postures just with a different. Oh those are missiles that have been deployed then. In romania and are being deployed and powa and theyre not on the nato us press they are a kind of Bilateral Agreements between america and romania american poland and so that doesnt mean that its kind of nato is of course an important vehicle but thats not the entire thing the nato expansion has been seen in moscow very dangerous move russia has opposed it all the time believe that the kind of. Weakening of the transatlantic link and creation of a russian european wing has been seen in moscow as the right thing to do that would be good for russia good for europe and to get the americans a bit out and the russians a bit in the so yes i mean weakening of nature is seen as far as basically positive the argument that after the get of the cold war nato should be disbanded like the warsaw pact theres an argument coming from moscow for a long time but on the practical level again for the russian establishment military intelligence Defense Industry establishment disappearance of a viable enemy in the west would be quite a disaster and so they would not want to see that happen and they even if nato gets weaker there will be puffing up nato keep ability as it was during the cold war when both sides the wilbur a to e. Exaggerated almost 10 fold the real capabilities of each other on the military intelligence side so you have to always separate what a nation really needs and want its military Industrial Complex re once what a nation really needs is an interesting question because theres been plenty of occasions. People can point to things in history and say well the u. S. And European Military alliance doesnt really need to be entirely reliant on nato European Countries for example of joined forces with the us outside the alliance several times france and the us informally cooperated in the early phases of the vietnam war for example the 2003 u. S. Led invasion of iraq involved troops from the u. K. Spain and poland and march more recently last month in fact the u. K. Joined a u. S. Led Maritime Coalition in the strait of hormuz to protect shipping routes and oil supplies john when you look at historical things like that does that not make some counter argument to the suggestion youre making of us had to moan and say well theres plenty of times where the europeans have reached out to the americans in military operations to its not always you know one way street. Im simply referring to the basic fact which is that the American Defense budget is if im not mistaken superior to the next 7 countries added together in other words superior to russia plus china plus britain plus france plus i dont know which other countries we are in the situation of gigantic germany and all this talk about a european pillar and greater european contribution is for the birds because none of it can come anywhere close to what america is spending on its military but heres let me let me let you know how the elegant how i go there with me let me make the counterargument there would be those in your who would argue that the reason they need an alliance with a power with so much or the much greater budget is because they face in their opinion right or wrong a threat further from the east from a country that also has a much bigger budget than the individual countries of europe. Well it doesnt if youre referring to russia it has a roughly similar budget in fact to france and britain a little higher but not of the same order of magnitude as as america so i think my view to to answer your question is that because nato is in search of me Pavel Felgenhauer talks about the Russian Military Industrial Complex what about the American Military Industrial Complex the American Military budget is 800000000000. 00 a year thats more than 2000000000. 00 a day at the america it practically runs on the its own america on its military Industrial Complex far more so than a country like russia does so it may be that certain countries as i said in my 1st answer calculate that its in their interest to ally with this hey come on but that doesnt change the hegemonic the head remark nature of the relationship and above all because nato is in search of a function it creates tensions where tensions do not necessarily need to be and in particular it creates them with russia and europe as with the migrants from libya as from the instability from syria europe is the theater where these tensions are played out tensions which are a long way away from america on both owned and sometimes some distance from russia lets unpack some of that nato creates tensions the alliance with the u. S. Creates tensions unnecessarily let me bring and xander into that one where i disagree with their own course. Lets not forget what happened in 2014 nato didnt start a war in ukraine against ukraine and change borders by force russia did that in which it was neither reacting to anything nato had done it was actually reacting to the ukrainian peoples desire to have a closer relationship with the European Union president you know approach before he fled the country taken ukraine out of the reading and said that they were no longer interested in nato membership and nato said fine yet russia couldnt accept closer ties if youre going you dont create a crisis which ultimately worked to its invading star territory so nato didnt do this problem no not supported by the americans as 1st im sure that theres plenty we can go back and forth on this one that im 40 im being told were running out of time this show has gone much quicker than anticipated lets thank our guests this point John Laughlin alexander version and Pavel Felgenhauer and thank you too for what you can see the show again any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot com for further discussion head over to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story and also join the conversation on twitter handle there is at a. J. Inside story from me sam is a then the whole team here for now is good bye. I. Thank. You. Protesters in hong kong refuse to back down as the government orders the closure of schools. Im Richelle Carey this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up israel continues its assault on gaza striking targets across the territory bringing the death toll so far to 12. A new interim president takes control of bolivia but theres still a strong show of support for exiled president morales. And evacuation orders given to parts of australia as bush fires rage out of control. A court in hong kong is deciding whether police can Enter University campuses after fierce battles with student protesters overnight demonstrators are blocking streets in the city center for a 3rd day the government says all schools will be closed on thursday to to safety concerns authorities have warned hong kong is on the verge of a total breakdown of the rule of law but anger at the use of force by police is fueling the unrest and the city is braced for more chaos to go holland is there this is hong kongs Financial Center to my left is the Hong Kong Stock Exchange im surrounded by luxury shopping malls multinational headquarters and big banks but as you can see this major intersection has been practiced standstill by the protesters what theyve done is theyve ripped top bricks from the side
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