Should NATO be folded in favor of a European Union unified command?

[PanzerJaeger]

It exists so that isolationists like Panzer and ICSD can't waste thousands more live by keeping you out for several years AGAIN.

The American politicians of the Post-War years understood the character of their nation, and they understood that the US needed to be forced to do what was morally right to protect the European democracies, because otherwise you wouldn't.

I am certainly no isolationist. I simply believe in the stabilizing power of rational self interest. It is when people begin to talk about moral imperatives that the geopolitical balance goes awry.

The US had and has no moral obligation to protect European democracies. The country was founded on the idea of charting its own path separate and distinct from Europe and spent the majority of its early history fighting to remain independent. The British burned down the White House and came very close to supporting the Confederacy. The fact that the US found it expedient to ally with Britain (and France) during the 20th Century does not make the two nations eternal allies. In the first instance, the US had literally no interest in the outcome of the conflict other than getting its loans paid; in the second, Roosevelt's imperial ambitions forced the nation into the conflict.

Maintaining the sovereignty of Western European nations was... again... expedient as the US and Russia jockeyed for power and influence during the Cold War. However, those days have long since passed. Today, Europe is irrelevant to US interests, and should be left to its own devices. That part of the world has essentially become a retrograde welfare state in decline. Only Germany continues to demonstrate the kind of economic output and development worth fighting to keep in the US sphere of influence, but that is due in large part to unsustainable currency manipulation. US focus and energy should be devoted to the growing battle with China over natural resources; one in which the US is losing badly. The dynamic, growing economies of South America, Asia, and Africa are far more attractive and important to US interests than the stagnation in Europe.

There is absolutely no real threat to Europe proper from Putin's Russia, but in the event of a hypothetical invasion, why should the US be bothered to care about the outcome? The US economy is simply too large to ignore for whoever controls the continent. It is ridiculous that the US has been thrust into the Crimean 'crisis'. Putin returning Crimea to Russia is a European problem, not an American one. The US should be courting Putin, and doing all that it can to break up the new Chinese-Russian co-alignment, just as Kissinger did during the Cold War. If that means allowing Putin to reconstitute the Soviet Union's holdings, why should the US really be concerned?

NATO and the US-Western European alliances are artifacts from a different time that have become unhealthy for both sides. The US is forced to devote precious resources and energy to a part of the world that does not matter any longer and the once-major European powers have been rendered completely impotent. I grew up in the era of the 'Special Relationship', but it is still almost unbelievable to see the political leadership of what was less than a century ago one of the greatest empires in history blather on about being America's bitch... to see it dragged into wars that were clearly meant to further US interests. And when those leaders decided to take the lead in their own third world intervention, they could not even topple a third world, tin pot dictator without dear Uncle Sam stepping in when they ran out of missiles. And they do not dare attempt to take on the incredible military might of Assad's Syria without President Obama's green light. After years of US security guarantees, European nations have so neutered their political and military influence, they can no longer act independently to assert their own interests. It's just pathetic, and Europe can do better.

Both the US and Europe would be strengthened by more independent and assertive European powers. Both sides would be forced to assess and justify alliances and agreements, instead of having to view their geopolitical relations within the constraints of an outdated view of the world. Chances are, the two sides would likely still work together quite a bit, but only if both benefited from it - which is the way it should be.