Will the US pull out of NATO?

As we creep toward the NATO summit in Brussels in July, the question in Europe is, will the US pull out of NATO? The President of the USA has made no secret of his view that the US is paying more into NATO and that the rest should share the burden, but it is not clear if he is determined to leave, or just cause as much trouble as he can because that is really his only bargaining strategy.

If the US were to pull out it might not even be for financial or strategic reasons, but simply because Angela Merkel does not lavish praise on the President, and he hates her for that. It has been reported that at the G7 Summit meeting in Quebec, when Merkel showed indifference to his magnificent power

“He stood up, he put his hand in his pocket and he took two Starburst candies out, threw them on the table and said: ‘here, Angela, don’t say I never give you anything.’”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8409201.html

That the President would make such a momentous decision out of spite would be completely in character, and moreover, he simply would not care if it left European security in chaos, as it would give him smug satisfaction, and be a reward for Russia's support for his campaign in 2016. Indeed, it is believed he will meet Putin either before or after the NATO summit, maybe to collect his cheque.

For the UK this prospect is a nightmare. The UK has been opposed to the formation in the EU of a unified military command, but if NATO were to dissolve, it would strengthen the justification for an EU military command at the very moment the UK is due to leave, making it more likely in the absence of a UK veto, while making the UK even more dependent on the USA than before, given that it cannot deploy its nuclear missiles without the approval of the USA.

It would also be a blow to those anti-EU fanatics in the Conservative Party who have long argued that it was NATO tha kept the peace in Europe after 1945 not NATO, a bogus argument that ignores the strategic reality that politics in the form of the EU has been the foundation of peace in Europe while the NATO record in military matters is actually poor if internal European issues are concerned, the most obvious being the military coup in Greece in 1968, and the invasion of Cyprus by NATO member Turkey in 1974, an illegal occupation that has not been challenged by NATO even though it could have done so at any time since 1974.

But the greatest victory would be Russian. Such was Russian weakness after the years of chaos and corruption under Yeltsin, when Putin was in his first year as President, he mused with President Clinton that maybe Russia should join NATO as he told journalist David Frost-

In a March 2000 interview with the British television journalist David Frost, Putin was asked whether "it is possible Russia could join NATO."
Putin, who at the time was serving as acting president and weeks later was elected to his first term, responded, "I don’t see why not."
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-putin.../28526757.html

Since then, Putin has turned against his former European allies, largely because he believes they deceived him, and because he detests democracy. The end of NATO would embolden Russia to interfere in the politics of Latvia and Estonia, where 25% of the population are ethnic Russians, not because he wants to annex them, but to weaken them and strengthen Russian power in the Baltics, as a means of extending Russian power globally.

Without doubt, and with or without the cheque safely banked in one of his tax-free offshore accounts, the US President would praise the courage of the Russian President and without NATO to take any measures, refuse to get involved.

As for European security, why should the US care about it? There is money to be saved, and the President will have got his revenge over Angela, because he never forgives anyone who does not praise him least of all someone who treats him like the second-rate, foul-mouthed jerk that he is.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/de...e-donald-trump