NATO News and Discussion

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[firestar464]

To be clear, these measures are strictly defensive.

https://archive.is/z8WG3

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See here:

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe- ... takeovers/

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The president, a longtime critic of Nato, has stepped up criticism after allies refused to join the US-Israel war on Iran

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/ ... -from-nato

Donald Trump has said he is “absolutely” considering withdrawing the US from Nato, warning that the matter was “beyond reconsideration” in the wake of the refusal of US allies to join the US-Israeli war against Iran. The president’s threats, his most determined to date, have left the alliance facing its worst crisis in its 77-year history, a former US ambassador has warned.

Trump has long been vocally sceptical about the benefit of Nato membership to the US, but since North Atlantic allies have refused to take part in the month-long, faltering, US-Israeli assault on Iran, the president has stepped up his rhetoric. He told Reuters news agency on Wednesday he was “absolutely without question” considering withdrawal after telling the Telegraph the matter was “beyond reconsideration”, insisting he had never been “swayed by Nato”. He signalled that he would express his disgust for Nato in an address to the nation scheduled for Wednesday evening.

It could be politically and constitutionally difficult for Trump to bring about formal withdrawal from the 1949 Washington treaty, Nato’s founding document, but Ivo Daalder, US permanent representative at Nato headquarters from 2009 to 2013, argued the serious damage to the alliance has already been done. “This is by far the worst crisis Nato has ever confronted. Military alliances are, at their core, based on trust: the confidence that if I am attacked, you will come help defend,” Daalder wrote in an online commentary. “It’s hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defence.”

Trump launched the war on Iran on 28 February in partnership with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, but without consulting Nato allies. He did not invoke Article 5 of the treaty, which triggers collective defence from other members in the event of an “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America”. Such an attack, which would activate a joint response, had not taken place. More than a month into the war, there is no sign of the regime change or collapse that Trump and Netanyahu had hoped for, and Tehran’s response – closing the economically-vital Strait of Hormuz – has caused an oil price spike and a worldwide shortage of fertiliser and other essential goods, threatening a global recession.

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[raklian]

He doesn't have the authority to unilaterally withdraw. It's a meaningless gesture by him meant to vent his annoyance at European countries that refused to let the United States use their bases for certain missions.

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[caltrek]

On the Ground Along NATO’s Eastern Flank — as Russia Threatens
By Laura Kayali, Marcin Wyrwal, Philipp Fritz, and Caroline Druten
July 5, 2026

Introduction:

(Politico) NORTH KARELIA, Finland — Bears, wolves and moose still cross the frontier freely, but for the border guards patrolling this stretch of fields and forest, this is where NATO ends.

A line of wooden poles and painted markers cuts through the light green grass, separating Finland from Russia along the alliance’s longest border with Moscow — 1,343 kilometers (835 miles) of increasingly militarized territory. The crossing has been closed since 2023, the year after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the other side lies land Finland lost to the Soviet Union when it was left to fight largely on its own in the early months of World War II.

Reporters from Axel Springer’s Global Reporters Network traveled to three exposed stretches of Europe’s eastern frontier — Finland’s forested border with Russia, Poland’s fortified line with Kaliningrad and Belarus and Lithuania’s vulnerable edge near the Suwałki Gap — to see how ready NATO’s frontline states are for the possibility that Moscow will attack the alliance.

What we observed was a continent racing to harden its eastern edge against a threat it can no longer assume Washington will handle. As U.S. President Donald Trump questions old security guarantees and looks to reduce America’s military footprint in Europe, the countries closest to Russia are building fortifications, expanding reserves, buying tanks and drones and preparing for the possibility that the first days of any conflict may be theirs to fight largely alone.

Since his reelection in 2024, Trump has repeatedly called into question Washington’s commitment to NATO’s Article 5, the foundational clause under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. The uncertainty only deepened after the war in Iran, when the president and his team threatened to reassess U.S. membership in NATO in response to European allies’ refusal to join the conflict.

In addition to a further discussion of Finland, this rather lengthy article also goes on to discuss Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Read more here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine ... 00983997

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BREAKING: Finland subjects bears to travel restrictions