europe

World on the brink,′ warns Munich Security Report

With the US’s international role waning, Europe must define its own future, says a highly anticipated report. This assessment sets the agenda for leaders in the run-up to Germany’s pre-eminent conference on security.

Security experts are rarely optimists and security reports rarely optimistic. That holds true for the latest Munich Security Report published on Thursday. Titled “To the Brink — and Back?” it forecasts a new era of uncertainty on the horizon.
“In the last year, the world has gotten closer — much too close — to the brink of a significant conflict,” wrote Munich Security Conference (MSC) Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, who has served as Germany’s former ambassador to the US and UK.
Ischinger pointed to ever-louder saber rattling between the US and North Korea, the growing rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and ongoing tensions between Russia and NATO in Europe. Read More

The Warsaw Pact is dead

The Warsaw Pact is dead, so why is NATO still alive? — RT Op-ed

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has no defined purpose other than to continuously engage in conflict and antagonize Russia. With the Soviet Union a distant memory, the Western military bloc should be disbanded.

In the aftermath of the World War II, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed as a bulwark against Soviet expansion. In response, the Warsaw Pact was signed, aimed at giving equal protection to Soviet Russia and its allies against Western imperialism.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 it became apparent that the Warsaw Pact would no longer be necessary and was consequently declared ‘at an end’ in February of that year. In the spirit of buried hatchets and a return to normalized relations, dismantling NATO should have been the natural response.

Instead NATO was not only maintained, it was expanded.

The months and years that followed the fall of the Soviet Union were characterized by economic hardship for the smaller, resource-dependent nations that were once dependent on the Soviet Union for their survival. These struggling economies struck deals with Western nations in the hope of economic benefits that would extract them from the likely specter of severe economic breakdown.
Tragically, however, the aid packages came with hefty price tags and, in a bid to be welcomed into the now more prosperous Western fold, the former Warsaw Pact countries were lured into the membership of the US-led military bloc. The move was not only crass. In light of the difficulties faced by these small nations coming to terms with massive changes, it was a very blatant and hostile act towards a Russia that no longer posed a threat.
Hungary, Czech Republic and most notably Poland were the first to join NATO, soon followed by Estonia Latvia and Bulgaria some five years later. By 2009, NATO bases were all around Russia. Since then, NATO has been involved in a number of wars around Europe and the Middle East with devastating long term consequences for those bearing the brunt of its formidable bombing capabilities.

(https://www.rt.com/op-ed/324840-warsaw-pact-nato-us/