David Stockman | NATO -- The Case To Get Out Now | January 29th, 2025
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- Introduction by Chairman John Henry
Tonight’s speaker is well known to you all. This is David Stockman’s third salon before the Committee for the Republic. We’re honored to have David here again. David is the model citizen of our constitutional republic. His is the march of the mind rather than the march of the soldier.
Tonight’s topic -- NATO’s central role in perpetuating America’s global ambitions - couldn’t be more timely, nor could it be more relevant to the Committee’s mission which is to restore the constitutional balance that comes from Congress deciding whether our country goes to war.
From the first, President Washington warned of the clear and present danger of entangling alliances. Make no mistake - as David will make clear -- NATO is the alliance that entangles us most. The treaty recognizes the war power rests with Congress in Article 5. Predictably, American presidents have repeatedly mischaracterized Article 5 to claim they - not Congress -- can take us to war. At the Senate’s ratification of the NATO treaty in 1949, Senator Robert Taft - whose wisdom and judgment was not matched by his colleagues -- warned that the treaty conferred de facto war-making power on the president. Here are Taft’s own words:
“Why did I vote against the Atlantic pact?... It obligates us to go to war if at any time … anyone makes an armed attack on any of the 12 nations. Under the Monroe Doctrine we could change our policy at any time. We could judge whether perhaps one of the countries had given cause for the attack. Only Congress could declare a war in pursuance of the doctrine. Under the new pact the President can take us into war without Congress.”
In 75 years, NATO has grown -- like bamboo - almost tripling in size from 12 to 32 members. David will take you through the seven waves of expansion since the Soviet Union’s dissolution. As the Ukraine war turns in Russia’s favor, American NATO apologists continue to insistent on NATO membership for Ukraine. David will explain how alliances entangle America in fights that have nothing to do with our security. I ask you to recall the unmatched arrogance of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “[i]f we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.” The “indispensable nation” myth drives the impulse to expand NATO.
David is preeminently qualified to make the case for withdrawing from NATO. His deep understanding of politics and money comes from a four-decade career spent in Washington and Wall Street: as a Michigan congressman, Office of Management & Budget director and a Salomon Brothers and Blackstone partner. He publishes a daily blog called David Stockman’s Contra Corner - and has the unique distinction of being a member of SDS, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and a believer in the gold standard. Now that’s a man who thinks for himself!
As many of you know, David first gained notoriety during the Reagan administration, when at the age of 34, he was appointed OMB director. He was impossibly tasked with carrying out Reagan’s promise of tax cuts and budget surpluses without spending cuts. David confided to the Washington Post that Reagan’s budget was all smoke and mirrors which earned him a trip to the woodshed where he was flayed unmercifully for failing to worship at the altar of “voodoo economics” as he recounts in his memoir: The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.
Always described as an alliance that promotes Western values and peace, NATO lies at the heart of our overburdened alliance system which, at last count, binds the United States to defend more than 70 countries comprising more than a quarter of the people on earth. Our worldwide system of alliances runs counter to the American tradition of neutrality under a constitutional republic.
It’s important that we don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. It isn’t important that you agree or disagree with David on NATO withdrawal. If Congress was doing its job, David would be testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Because Congress is missing in action, you are the beneficiary of David’s arguments. The Committee for the Republic always goes where the silence is loudest and no one is better at breaking that silence than David. David is what a citizen looks like in a constitutional republic. If we only had more David Stockmans, we would be much closer to restoring our beloved republic.
www.committeefortherepublic.us
www.davidstockmanscontracorner.com
Mr. Stockman constantly referring to Stalin as “ paranoid”, but it is not paranoia if you’re right about your adversary intentions! And Stalin has been proven right again and again by the actions of the west ! Their intention of encircling Russia is still true when you see NATO expansion
in paranoia the US right wing has no match...............the right wing is the pot calling the kettle "black"
Stalin received information from sympathetic Americans and British who knew of US/British plans (eg Op Unthinkable) to attack the USSR even before WW2 ended. He should have been paranoid.
Agree, this is always an issue with Americans and the way they "frame" an argument.
Further very few will take the time to mention that about 70% of all fascists who took up arms died on the steppes of Russia at the hands of the "evil" Red Army.
Leave NATO now!
I agree that NATO and the US military's spending is so unnecessary. However I would not want to cut Medicare and social care.
yes seconded. re the tax changes since the 50s - The rich have gotten away with murder increasingly since the 60s....now we are saddled by 87 billionnaires !? I also dont buy the argument that entitlements should or need be cut.
Social Security was paid by the American people. I'd like to see the fool who tries to cut it survive anywhere but on a guarded security island
Great talk Sir. Thankyou for your service
Putin wanted peace and continuously spoken about "lets get USA, EU and Russia to sit down together and create a new security architecture in Europe, that suits all parties", he was ignored so he sent a formal draft proposal to Biden and arrogant Biden said its not Russia business who joins NATO...Can you imagine? I mean USA and Russia both have nuclear arsenals and the tensions were high, so when Putin reached out to Biden, this was perceived as weakness of Russia....If you hear Putin talk, he absolutely makes sense and he is not demanding something outrages that only benefits Russia.
BRICS
Darned right. Get US out of NATO
I hope there’s someone smart as Stockman in the Trump cabinet to change the course of the foreign affairs
True, but actually sad statement. It means, that because Trump is intellectually and character wise, not capable, people have to hope for some subordinate to be smarter .
I‘m not American, but I’m shocked at how this guy is unhinged and misinformed. He’s making the whole world despise america. 👎☹️
hope indeed. Thats about all we have and from the look of it, hope is wasted
It's still not too late for the NATO to goes off the hook, but i fears the American empire standing
America has so much potential but does seem to be squandering it again and again. Take the private money out of politics would be a fine start!
ok Im holding my breath !!
@rd264 Good to see these sort of conversations hapening internally in the US though!
‘We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it is not cost effective.’ Kurt Vonnegut
Let's build an open source global platform that can merge the knowledge and sentiment expressed in public conversations with billions of people around the world before tariff wars become shooting wars.
Food for thought. Thanks
had enough food yet? these discussions are well meaning but merely bringing up the same old obvious and now very hoary old rip offs by the Neocons.
Please send this talk to every EU country s Ambassadors to the United States of America it just might focus their countries “ mind” to the reality of their own responsibilities for their own country
particularly Germany to just mind its own business.
Germany has destroyed Europe 3 times already “ TANKS ( invasion of Russia) and Poland and laterally the collapse of the Financial/ Banks ..
is the problem in Europe. their obsession with control
Absolutely fascinating! Must be implemented. Revolutionary solution to fiscal cricis and otherwise unsolvable problems. These ideas must be tried as a basis for negotiations with Russia on Ukranian conflict.
No More Wars on This Peaceful Planet, We Have only One Planet. No More Extractions of Our Tax Payers Money .
We had the same idea David, i e cut the defense spending and the US will get a balanced budget. The debt will automatically shrink in relation to GDP as the GDP grows. We in Sweden were in a crises 1992 and the problem was solved by cutting automatic spending increases and some spending cuts.
Thank you for the historical insights.
this gives me at least a little hope for the future of our world with the USA as a part of that community
Interesting theory Sir. I concur and further argue that the financial framework, for this plan, was purposefully constructed in 1913. Altering the Constitution in 1913; The Ratification of the 16th Amendment FEB 1913, The Revenue Act of OCT 1913, The Instantiation of The US Federal Reserve DEC 1913. The Jekyll Island Club. Remove the temptation to remove the yoke, Veritas et Libertas.
Clearer explanation of 1913 , is that privatization of Republic's Central Bank after more than 4 assassinations of Presidents & candidate presidents opposing it on republicanism ( re--naming it Federal Reserve , a fake name to make believe that it was Governmental & Federal , whereas it was taken over by the private bankers , union of European Rothschildes , with Rockefellers & J.P. Morgans and big US bankers ! ) This put an END TO USA REPUBLIC , & it's money printing taken over by private billionaires in Dec 1913 ! What happened in 1914 ?
The debt will default and reset to 0. You watch.
No to Nato, No to War!!
So, politics matters: Richard Cheney learned from R. Reagan, that "Deficits Don't Matter". Carter handed Reagan a balanced budget; Clinton handed W. Bush(43) a fiscal bu8dget surplus,
which evaporated thereafter. I think institutions can be useful -- NATO could be defensive alignment (and should have limited itself to that after Gorbachev); DoD and US foreign policy
has been a bit overstretched during ColdWar, and bloomed into madness after 1992, so needs tapering.
The Citizens United completely undid the near balance between lobbying as advice, and vested interests as controlling powers over Congress and the electoral process. That imbalance
needs be corrected before policy improves.
The Greenspan Fed (the 'put') proved that unemployment rates below 5% were quite sustainable. The overshoot into financial coffers could be readily recovered by targeted taxation.
The Fed's extended QE experiment was only necessitated by Mitch McConnell's commitment to limit Obama to one term, starving the recovery, which policy also favored finance.
The entanglement that has weighed heaviest on the USA bar NATO has been the relation with a certain state in the middle east
I just wonder how has America actually kept Europe safe? What threats did they eliminate that they themselves didn’t create?
Facinating to hear this kind of review. Many confirmations and blunt answers that I enjoy. 2025 Goverment reform of the Executive branch is under way without referendum of commission. Facinating that the private People of the USA are unaware of the manufacturing of their consent that continues at present😢
The only conventional invasion threat is that of the southern border. Put the armed forces there.
Is that a free mason sign?😮
great question @ 1:12:00 et seq. not so great answer !
TO QUOTE A REFRAIN FROM AFRICAN AMERICAN CHURCHES”WHY DON’T YA SAY IT PREACHER”👍😊 DOES THAT NOT INDICATE A CABAL WHICH PROFITS FROM WAR?
Great Speech but you're appealing to Common Sense, it's long been replaced by narratives.
US isolationists going for 3rd time's the charm.
'Isolationists' I guess you mean this as a disparaging term ? I see it as a positive term. For me the Anglo-American Empire counter-intuitively results in unresolved conflicts that ultimately backfire.
We Europeans need to grow up and take responsibility for our own matters. Unfortunately, Europe has so little belief and confidence it itself to keep the peace that its hard. But we cant rely on America to make us behave like adults. The fear is that without America we will have our petty wars again. America itself is no angel though, it has gotten us entangled in all sorts of problems. We must step up and rid ourselves of this "alliance".
@ Whilst true, US will always be the swing player in the world due to its geography. Europe will Always have to deal with the Russians and in the future the Turks again if the whole EU project doesn't implode in the next 10 years.
@ Spoken like someone that hasn't read much history.
@ Why do we have to "deal" with the Russians exactly? We wouldnt be in a conflict with them if it wasnt for Nato. Its quite a condescending attitude to have towards Europe to claim that we are unable to behave like adults. Maybe people with your attitude, but there are common sense people in Europe.
The President of the United States Mr.Donald Trump needs to listen to this ! 🇺🇸 ☮️🪶$ 🌎🌍🌏