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NATO has no option but to work with US: Analyst

Tuesday, 15 November 2016 6:41 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 15 November 2016 6:43 PM ]

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (R) greets US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter prior to a meeting during a two-day NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on October 26, 2016. (AFP photo)

The secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has expressed confidence that president-elect Donald Trump would live up to all US commitments to the military alliance. Jens Stoltenberg made the remarks after US President Barack Obama said the president-elect would maintain America’s commitment to NATO. Trump showed a hawkish stance toward NATO where the business mogul called the organization an “obsolete” military alliance.

James Jatras, former US Senate foreign policy analyst, told Press TV’s Top 5 that NATO has no option but to have a good relationship with the United States.

“NATO is a US-run show and it will function or not function as much as whoever is in charge in Washington wants it to,” he said, adding that NATO Secretary-General Jens “Stoltenberg has no alternative but to get along with the new administration.”

The analyst also noted, “Trump has not said he wants to pull out of NATO; however, he does think it’s a one-way street and it really doesn’t do that much for us.”

“He (Trump) said it (NATO) was obsolete, it doesn’t do anything to fight the real threat to security, which is ISIS (Daesh) and other terrorist groups, [and] instead, it needlessly provokes the Russians, which frankly he wants to get along with Moscow,” Jatras argued.

Pointing to the impact of “relaxation of tensions between Washington and Moscow” on NATO structure and objectives, he expressed hope that the change in the next US administration’s foreign policy would prompt NATO to adopt a “more realistic approach toward the real security threats to Europe, which have nothing to do with Russia.”

The commentator further said, “When he (Trump) talks about countries not paying their fair share that’s sort of left-handed reference to the fact that these countries themselves do not believe that they are under threat from Russia.”

The US accounts for nearly 70 percent of the NATO budget and has long urged its European allies to step up their contributions, particularly in the face of what the current US administration calls the “Russian aggression” in Ukraine.

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