Making America Great With Ignobility

 In case you do not know ignobility, go here.

Now for some examples.

GOP Senator Bashes Pete Hegseth for Dumpster Fire NATO Speeches (The New Republic)

NATO allies were left reeling Wednesday after Hegseth pitched that America would effectively end its role as the steward of European security. He revealed that the administration’s peace talks with Russia had taken several chips “off the table,” including Ukraine’s possible NATO membership (something the military alliance had promised in 2008), the possibility of a U.S. presence in Ukraine to enforce postwar security guarantees, and the end of NATO missions to Ukraine.

Hegseth to Europe: Don’t Look to America for Leadership (The Bulwark)

In other words, Hegseth not only chooses weakness but embraces it as strategic wisdom. The military scarcity is real: Since the end of the Cold War, successive administrations have shrunk the size of the U.S. armed forces by a third and reduced defense spending as a percentage of GDP by half. Hegseth hectored the Europeans to increase their defense budgets: “President Trump has called for 5 percent [of GDP allocated to defense], and I agree!” In 2024, the Pentagon’s budget represented about 2.7 percent of U.S. GDP. (Five percent of America’s 2024 GDP would indicate a defense budget of close to $1.5 trillion, so let’s see what Donald Trump’s budget request looks like.)

Securing American borders is, and should remain, principally a job for law enforcement because our neighbors are not military threats. Militarizing immigration enforcement is both legally suspect and a waste of precious resources. Using sophisticated and exotic military cargo aircraft—among the military’s most in-demand assets—to deport a few hundred people to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is the definition of government waste.

AS FOR DETERRENCE, HEGSETH seems to think it’s a line item on a budget rather than an effect created in the mind of an adversary. How do Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, or Ali Khamenei assess Trump’s willingness to defend America’s allies? The short-order withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan have already raised doubts about American willpower; casting out Ukraine—a nation enduring extreme suffering to retain its freedom and become a liberal society—would have consequences not only in Europe but also for Taiwan and other embattled democracies. It doesn’t take a seasoned expert in alliance management to recognize that lecturing the Europeans to double down and recommit to the fight won’t be convincing if it’s delivered over the shoulder as the American secretary of defense turns tail and runs.

It gets worse. Hegseth suggested that the United States would maintain some nuclear umbrella over the European continent but “require our European allies to step into the arena and take ownership of conventional security on the continent.” The next step in this process most likely would be a withdrawal of U.S. forces now stationed in Europe. This is a recipe for mischief. It goes a long way to undercut the deterrent value of American power while encouraging nuclear proliferation.... 

What made America great is not that we carried a big stick and spoke loudly; it was that we carried a big stick and talked softly. We put our money where our mouth was - we were reliable in keeping the peace, and in our ideals. We walked the walk. Now, we talk about greatness and act spineless.

JD Vance’s Munich speech laid bare the collapse of the transatlantic alliance (The Guardian)

In identifying Europe’s perceived faults – multiculturalism, “globalism”, migration, gay rights, liberal wokery – and in excluding Russia from criticism, the speech came close to arguing that US democracy was at best neutral on the relative values of Russia and of the European elite.

Then what if this headline stops being prophetic and turns into reality: Putin is capable of attacking NATO country ‘next year,’ Zelenskyy warns – (POLITICO)? 

With Trump's character? Cut and run will be our response. Donald J. Trump is a rich guy who defecates on his own doorstep and expects someone else to clean up his mess. No one will be coming to clean up his messes in the next four years.

sch 2/15

And the latest, Trump colludes with Putin against Ukraine: U.S. Sides with Russia, Breaks from Allies in U.N. Resolutions on Ukraine

 

sch 2/25/25