‘Brexit’ and Russia Loom Over Obama’s Final NATO Summit Meeting

[bemildred]

WASHINGTON — President Obama left for Poland on Thursday morning to attend a NATO summit meeting that is occurring against a tumultuous backdrop of Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, a migrant crisis and terrorism fears on the Continent’s southern rim, and internal disarray in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

Mr. Obama will confront all those forces in two hectic days in his final appearance at a summit meeting of the Atlantic alliance. In addition to his usual schedule, administration officials said they expected him to meet with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain to discuss what comes next after the British vote.

“There hasn’t been another inflection point like this for the alliance since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in ’89 to ’91,” Douglas E. Lute, the American ambassador to NATO, told reporters on Wednesday. “So this is a bit of a historic point.”

NATO will announce several military measures to deter Russia and to counter other threats. The alliance is strengthening its eastern flank by stationing four battalions of troops in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, with one to be led by the United States. NATO will also place a Romanian-led brigade in southeast Europe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/world/europe/obama-nato.html

[bemildred]

1. With eye on Brexit, NATO tackles Russia

In all these past six years and nine months since October 9, 2009 when President Barack Obama heard he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, he would not have had a more embarrassing moment than on Tuesday when he took the phone call from the Kremlin.

President Vladimir Putin was calling him, and as it turned out, the Russian leader wanted to discuss the issues of peace-making in regional conflicts affecting three former Soviet republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia and Ukraine) – and the tortuous path leading to peace in Syria.

---

Indeed, the US cannot be oblivious of the ground realities, either:

NATO’s perception of being “outnumbered, outranged and outgunned” on its eastern flank does not necessarily mean that Russia is about to overturn the post-Cold War European security order;

In terms of conventional Prompt Global Strikes capabilities, nuclear weapons, missile defenses or even cyber weapons, the military balance decisively favors NATO;

All evidence shows that Moscow takes the NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee very seriously, and Russia accepts that the Baltic states are members of the western alliance;

Russia grapples very many internal challenges – ranging from a weak economy that lies between that of Italy and Spain to an abysmal paucity in the power of innovation and modernization or the capacity to compete successfully in the global markets – and a political order with glaring deficiencies, which would remain its preoccupation for a conceivable future; and,

The aggressive Russian foreign policy with a cultivated look of being “unpredictable”, in reality is lacking in “soft power” and has been outmaneuvered on several fronts within Eurasia itself and is more an expression of weakness than strength.

http://atimes.com/2016/07/with-eye-on-brexit-nato-tackles-russia/

[Cayenne]

2. Underestimating Russia again

Russia is not weak and anemic as constantly portrayed in western propaganda. They have 60% of the world's natural resources, owe nothing to nobody, have a large stack of gold, and have an educated, technical work force. Russia is nowhere near collapse.

Bemildered, the DU can keep ignoring foreign affairs but not to November. Big things are going to happen between now and then. Who is going to keep us out of nuclear war with Russia? Certainly not the bear pokers we have here.

[bemildred]

3. The writer, Bhadrakumar, in an interesting guy, perceptive, but he has a slant.

I usuallly read what he has to say, he is often very informative, but I often disagree to some extent.

The NYT has a slant too, you will notice. They are more predictable.

I'm not going to try to construct an argument about what Russia is, much too subjective and messy, they have strengths and weaknesses, and people will yell at me.

I agree things are going down now in international affairs, I don't think the bear pokers are going to get their way, and November will be too late. But that's not Russia's doing.

I want to see how the NATO meeting comes out before I feel confident about that, what Obama says and does for one thing.

Mainly I feel "the West" is too divided internally, has too many immediate internal issues to address, by its own doing mostly, to effectively oppose Putin, and what he does about that remains to be seen, but does not worry me too much, because Russia is not in a position to conquer anybody much, and won't be any time soon.

And we aren't really in a position to pursue foreign adventures either, so we are going to have to try to deal with our internal issues this time.