No. Attempts to create a broad treaty of Mutual Defense including the US began right after the creation of the UN, but floundered because the US was still formulating long-term strategy and didn't necessarily want to commit itself long-term to Europe given the tattered economic and political situation on the ground. Mutual defense treaty negotiations began in earnest between European countries in 1947 with the US explicitly invited to join, Secretary of State Marhshall said no but overtly supported the plans, and Truman publicly lauded their efforts. The British Foreign office cables at the time make clear that the plan between Ernest Benin, Lord Galwyn, and Attlee was to create an alliance that would enable Europe to convince the United States that long-term commitments to support European security weren't fool's errands. I believe one of the lines was 'we need to convince Hercules to help those who will help themselves.' Internal to the State Department by this time was a growing sense that they couldn't control European foreign policy solely through arms sales and that some forward deployment needed to happen, but there was severe anxiety over a number of issues (the size and future of the military, the Algeria and Indo-China questions, etc).stormthebeaches wrote: ↑2019-07-15 04:31pm
Almost everything in this paragraph is wrong. NATO was originally formed by Britain and France in 1947, although back then it was called the Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance. It's original purpose was to stop Germany rising up again, not opposing Russia. America was invited to join this organisation in 1949, where it was renamed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Almost immediately after the Europeans ratified their own treaty direct negotiations to expand the treaty to include the US took place inside the Pentagon. This wasn't European nations inviting the US into their lands, it was the US taking a direct lead and control and negotiating the treaty literally in the heart of the budding Military Industrial project.
NATO from the beginning was framed as anti-Russian, the NATO website even now has a page where it highlights how the first secretary general said that the point was to "keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. And the discussion of the matter internal to the US state department framed it because "actions of the Soviet government in the field of foreign affairs leave us no alternative other than to assume that the USSR has aggressive intentions."
You are right in your implication that the US was not actively opposed by Europe in what it was doing, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't mutually designed to make that the European powers were inextricably linked to US dominance. You are also right that this was designed initially to denude Germany of military force, but NATO became a tool in enabling Germany to rearm itself without posing a threat to other nations. Germany was allowed to rearm in 1954 only after NATO had proven itself and conditionally on Germany entering NATO (after a failed attempt with the creation of the European Defence Community.) Germany can't be a threat to Belgium when German and Belgian troops are part of the same integrated command and logistical structure.
The fact that France left before that process completed because they were afraid of losing their geo-strategic independence doesn't prove that NATO isn't designed to take away geo-strategic independence. If anything it explicitly does the opposite.And isn't the fact that France was able to leave prove NATO doesn't "forcefully and irrevocably" align it's member states with the USA. If it did, France would never have been able to leave.
"Bullying." Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.The USA has history of bullying Latin American nations, however, that doesn't give Russia the right to behave in a similar manner in Eastern Europe. Bigger countries should not treaty neighbouring smaller countries as their own backyard.
Nobody is defending Russian actions in this thread. The argument is more pointed: The US has deliberately helped to create a geo-strategic order that requires a Mearshimerian approach to international politics. You cannot then act surprised when other countries behave using your ruleset. Or, to put it another way, attacks on Russian meddling in the US election to be coherent require a recognition that the positioning of the office of the President is fundamentally problematic, which makes defending the legitimacy of the Presidency even more troubling than the accusation of meddling.
Again, you are largely wrong. When Bill Perry and James Baker both talk about how red flags were raised about NATO expansion and that hard-liners made sure they were ignored it's not a question of ignorance.I don't think America views Russian-Eastern European relations of tantamount of importance. It's more like NATO let the Eastern European nations join without thinking about the long term consequences and no has to support them otherwise it will look weak. Your assuming some sort of masterplan is going on when it's more likely a combination of hubris and short term thinking.
I think you may be right that it was Hubris coupled with a sense of Russian defeat and American triumphalism. But from a Russian perspective that's probably worse than the Americans having a Masterplan.
Of course, even if I call you on your hypocrisy, that just means that Both Sides Are Just As Bad, which by the power of Whataboutism somehow actually means that I'm a hypocrite and therefore discredited, while everything the pro-Kremlin side does is therefore justified.