# Petition:  NATO "existential threat to world peace and security"



## The Bread Guy (6 Jun 2016)

A petition, flashing back to the old days of the "if NATO wasn't around, the Soviets wouldn't NEED to be in such a "defensive" posture" messaging ...


> ... NATO was founded as defense alliance to protect western Europe in 1949. When the Cold War ended in 1989 with the collapse of the USSR, NATO should have been disbanded; instead it became an agent of US imperialism and facilitates America's ability to pursue endless warfare and global hegemony.
> We are well into Cold War II and many geopolitical observers maintain we are actually fighting WWIII. It is a brutal irony that NATO, a one time defense alliance from Cold War I still exists, and is a menacing force in Cold War II.
> 
> It is a stunning indictment of failed Western leadership that NATO, a holdover from Cold War l still exists, and has mutated into an enemy undermining the populations it was originally meant to protect ...


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## Oldgateboatdriver (6 Jun 2016)

Tony:

You are not supposed to post jokes like that early in the morning! Now I have to clean up my keyboard.

Oh wait! This guy is serious !!!!!

I'll grant him one point: The defence of Europe is screwed up. It made sense for the US, and Canada to a lesser extent, to act as guarantor of Western European security at the beginning of the cold war, when most of those countries were in shambles and the Soviets were overly powerful - and trying to bring communism everywhere they could. But nowadays, European countries are back to first world status (most of them) and should be perfectly capable of taking care of their own defence needs and balance Russia all by themselves.

On that basis, and considering the NATO European bent, it may be time for Canada and the US to exit NATO, and just keep a cordial military relationship with them.

I am not convinced one way or the other yet, but I think there is a serious discussion to be had.


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## George Wallace (6 Jun 2016)

Oldgateboatdriver said:
			
		

> I'll grant him one point: The defence of Europe is screwed up. It made sense for the US, and Canada to a lesser extent, to act as guarantor of Western European security at the beginning of the cold war, when most of those countries were in shambles and the Soviets were overly powerful - and trying to bring communism everywhere they could. But nowadays, European countries are back to first world status (most of them) and should be perfectly capable of taking care of their own defence needs and balance Russia all by themselves.
> 
> On that basis, and considering the NATO European bent, it may be time for Canada and the US to exit NATO, and just keep a cordial military relationship with them.
> 
> I am not convinced one way or the other yet, but I think there is a serious discussion to be had.



NATO is not just the Continent, but also the North Atlantic.  If you hark back to the days of yore, and the might of the British Fleet controlling the seas, then you may reevaluate departing NATO.  Loss of the stability and freedom of movement of shipping under relative security would have severe economic affects on North American and European economies.  That a threat of 'pirates' or the control of the Atlantic shipping lanes by a malicious nation or commonwealth does not exist to intrude on our current Trade, does not mean that such a situation could not arise with the termination of our involvement in NATO.


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## Oldgateboatdriver (6 Jun 2016)

Granted George, but it doesn't mean that NATO is the only format that will ensure freedom of shipping in the North Atlantic. 

We did not need NATO to do it before 1949, why would we need it now? The various European Navies, particularly the Royal Navy and the French Atlantic fleet, constitute an important rampart on their side and could deal with any of your pirates, and with the access to the Atlantic through the gaps.

On this side, the US fleet provides that same security - without any assistance of NATO - and the US Navy is strong enough that it could provide the over watch for the whole Atlantic, as it does now. It could also concentrate Canada's naval contribution by making it part of this US Atlantic freedom of the sea effort.

I'd like to point out that even under NATO, the protection of Atlantic shipping has been mostly a CAN-US-UK thing. In fact, the old Stanavforlant was created specifically to get some of the other Nato countries to provide some form of contribution to mid-atlantic security.


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## George Wallace (6 Jun 2016)

Oldgateboatdriver said:
			
		

> Granted George, but it doesn't mean that NATO is the only format that will ensure freedom of shipping in the North Atlantic.
> 
> We did not need NATO to do it before 1949, why would we need it now? The various European Navies, particularly the Royal Navy and the French Atlantic fleet, constitute an important rampart on their side and could deal with any of your pirates, and with the access to the Atlantic through the gaps.
> 
> ...



So you see no problems arising between individual States as to what their "Patrol Boundaries" and "Jurisdictions" would be; nor the vast area that is well outside of all Atlantic nations' zones of control?  You see no build up of a Soviet fleet to intrude into the Atlantic to control areas in International Waters?  What other "worse case scenarios" may you be ignoring?


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## Oldgateboatdriver (6 Jun 2016)

Actually George:

1) No, I don't see "patrol boundaries" dispute arising (at least not any more than already exist in NATO). That is an army centric concept that is foreign to Navies. We don't have "patrols", nor do they have boundaries. The ocean is the big common. Freedom of navigation is enforced by having a Navy that can show up anywhere, anytime, expectedly or not, so that enemies can't plan to do anything bad without fearing you showing up. That Navy was the royal navy until WW1, and today, it's the US Navy. That's the only one like that. More locally, a Navy can provide that "security" within a certain range of its shores. But here's the thing: No continental European navies have even attempted to provide that for the Atlantic. As I said, the Atlantic is CAN-US-UK pond by default.

2) No, I don't see the Russian Navy doing that: The Russian Navy build up, like the Soviet one before, is built as a "sea-denial" Navy - not a "Sea Control" one.  Defeating them in the Atlantic, if need be, will fall again on the Brits, the US and us Canada. The continental European countries are either Army - thus land - centric or Mediterranean sea centric. Always have been even when closing the Atlantic was certain danger. Why would they change now?

Moreover, all of this Atlantic ocean sea control can be done outside NATO.


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## Journeyman (6 Jun 2016)

The original petition is actually pretty funny (if you're not wearing a tinfoil chapeau).

"....NATO.... an existential threat to world peace and security."

"Where the global corporatocracy cannot take over a country through economic coersion,[sic] NATO steps in."

"Real change will only happen if governments are spurred by activist and informed populations."  (He's referring to the 50 people who have signed the petition; the aim is for *100* -- 100 out of Canada's 36 million ought to be enough to get the government to see _the truth_  :nod: ).

Updates on petition #1 (Evil NATO is petition #2;  it is clearly linked to #1: Evil Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement) are exclusively from rabble.ca and Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives.   :
    

A)  anic: 

B)   :not-again: 

C)  :rofl:


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## Fishbone Jones (6 Jun 2016)

Our contribution to NATO is so miniscule that withdrawing it wouldn't make any difference, IMO. It would seem that we stay in NATO, simply for the reciprocity we receive for being a member. I don't think the rest of the members care if we leave or not, their concern wouldn't be our physical loss, but the morale/ PR based one of the world seeing the alliance as maybe coming apart.

Just spitballing here
:2c:


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## Journeyman (6 Jun 2016)

recceguy said:
			
		

> Our contribution to NATO is so miniscule that withdrawing it wouldn't make any difference, IMO.


Well then, you're _clearly_  not part of the activist and informed populace.  You just don't get it!     ;D


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## Cloud Cover (6 Jun 2016)

Besides that, it has been a long time since the world not been under the influence of a corporatocracy of some sort, (British American Tobacco, Hudson Bay Company, British East India, Siemens etc.) Not saying it's good, just that there is nothing new there...

About NATO... it may actually be they are a threat to Canada in the sense that if we ever really had to rely on them for our own sovereign, non-high seas interests,  they are likely to fail us in the hour of need, which puts us ever more reliant on .... being nice and accommodating to others less virtuous. Very, very sunny indeed.


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## jollyjacktar (6 Jun 2016)

One of the protestors at the entrance to the CANSEC show the other week had a sign that read "CANSEC = terrorists smorgasbord".  I laughed out loud when I saw him scowling at me with his sign in his hands.  Kumbaya indeed.   ;D


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## Cloud Cover (6 Jun 2016)

Wondering if there was a single useful item there that Canada intends to purchase....


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## cupper (6 Jun 2016)

Gotta get the full benefit of the Peace Dividend.  8)


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## jollyjacktar (6 Jun 2016)

whiskey601 said:
			
		

> Wondering if there was a single useful item there that Canada intends to purchase....



There was that nifty looking dress uniform from Logistik...  >


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