Divisions open up over NATO’s Asian outreach ahead of leaders’ summit in Vilnius.
  • Newstart@lemmy.world
    1717·
    1 year ago

    NATO outposts in Japan was probably going to be with a majority of US soldiers, so the block doesn’t change anything since US has a big presence in the region already. It’s like that friend who never shared the bills tells you he can’t make it to the bar. Yeah Jared you will be missed.

    • 1bluepixel@lemmy.ml
      73·
      1 year ago

      Except we all know the U.S. is aggressively containing China. NATO getting into the China containment business sends a terrible message.

      • Newstart@lemmy.world
        315·
        1 year ago

        Can you elaborate on the terrible message? I don’t think China prefers US to be in their backyard than NATO. NATO is purely defensive, so unless China had intentions to attack a NATO country it wouldn’t matter. But US has multiple defence agreements with some countries in the region and some of them is on China’s crosshairs. Which makes a confrontation with US higher then with NATO.

        • 1bluepixel@lemmy.ml
          72·
          1 year ago

          The terrible message is precisely that NATO is only defensive in theory, but is willing to expand into the Pacific to defend a territory that is nowhere near its original purview.

          The problem with the “purely defensive” argument is that historically, NATO Article 5 has been invoked to declare a war on a country that only indirectly threatened a NATO ally’s regional stability. That’s how NATO ended up bombing Serbia, which was doing despicable things to Albanians, but was not threatening NATO sovereignty to a degree that justifies Article 5.

          Add these two together and China’s opposition to a NATO presence in the Pacific makes a whole lot of sense.