Posted originally on Dec 27, 2024 by Martin Armstrong
The heart of the North Atlantic Treaty is Article 5, which contains two major problems. Yes, Article 5 proclaims that an attack on any member of the Alliance will be considered an attack on all. To justify a full NATO response, it is imperative that any member of NATO create some sort of event to claim that Russia has attacked them. This is why rouge member The Netherlands is acting like a rouge state, doing everything it can to create World War III by allowing long-range missiles to be used to attack and kill even civilians in Moscow. The Netherlands is most likely taking orders from the American Neocons to provoke Russia to attack anything in NATO so they can justify invoking Article 5 to start World War III – ASAP.
This NATO agreement only talks about NATO being attacked. It omits what if a NATO member launches war itself on Russia and then tries to invoke Article 5? The treat makes no mention of everyone joining in if The Netherlands launched a long-range missile to kill Russian civilians in Moscow. Another flaw in this treaty has long been another nightmare situation. Throughout NATO’s history, this flaw presents a significant risk of what would take place if a war broke out between two NATO members, such as Greece and Turkey. Even though both countries joined NATO in 1952. Athens and Ankara had nearly come to blows on several occasions. Turkey invaded majority-Greek Cyprus in 1974 and occupied almost 40% of the island, expelling Greek Cypriots from that territory, which they still occupy to this day.
The mere prospect of a possible Greco-Turkish war underscores one of the major flaws of the NATO charter for it means that the United States, being the leader of a nearly 30-member military alliance, is technically at risk of getting entangled in the grievances and quarrels of every one of those member states. When two members openly hate each other, as has been the case since ancient times with Greece and Turkey, that situation can create an untenable nightmare for the United States and the visibility of NATO.
Here is the other MAJOR false in the NATO Treaty – what if member states deliberately provoke an attack on themselves? This is certainly possible between Greece and Turkey, but here we also have Ruben Brekelmans, the defense minister of The Netherlands, who just gave Zelensky the approval to use their long-range missiles to kill civilians in Moscow. Make no mistake here, the hatred between Ukrainians of Russia is no different than that between Greece and Turkey. Brekelmans claims that international law “is not limited by distance” and has deliberately tried to force Russia to attack the Netherlands so he can invoke Article 5. Brekelmans is clearly a traitor to his own people, taking orders from the Neocons and NATO that they need to start World War III before Trump takes office.
He added, “The right to self-defense does not end 100 kilometers from the border.” He has now placed The Netherlands in the crosshairs, being the first to authorize Ukraine to start killing civilians in Russia. Brekelmans declared:
“We have not placed any operational restrictions on Ukraine regarding distance.”
Brekelmans has put the risk of the citizens of all of Europe on the line for the Neocons. This is from their playbook used to get the United States into World War I. In 1915, Germany took out advertisements in the New York newspapers warning people not to travel on the passenger ship the RMS Lusitania for it was illegally using civilians as cover to provide arms to Britain. Of course, the US denied that they were using civilians just as Hamas in Palestine. The death toll was 1201 civilians died to get the USA to enter World War I.
The Germans took the bait and sank the RMS Lusitania, and the USA used that as the excuse to finally enter World War I, which was their objective all along. Even 20 years later, the US continued to deny there were any arms on the Lusitania. However, with modern technology, divers could finally reach the Lusitania. Only in 1982, 67 years later, were divers warned that there were explosives on the Lusitania.
Finally, Archaeology.org recovered ammunition from the Lusitania, proving once and for all that the Germans were correct. What is incredibly critical to understand here is that the Lusitania was used as bait to get the Germans to sink the ship to justify entering the war.
From the Trenches – Lusitania’s Secret Cargo – Archaeology Magazine Archive
As I have said, my fear is that they know what they are doing, and Putin has shown tremendous restraint. They want him to be overthrown by Russian Neocons, and they will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons.
These people we have in governments are determined to create World War III because they are in a debt crisis. As Maggie Thatcher said, socialism works until you run out of other people’s money. But we risk the entire collapse of Western society because when you cannot sell the new debt to pay off the old, the default comes. People will be storming the Parliaments of our governments for they have run endless deficits annually to always bribe people for their votes. We are not only running out of other people’s money but rapidly approaching default when we run out of buyers for these endless debts. They need war as the excuse to default and blame it on Putin – not their own fiscal mismanagement since 1945.
WHY IS WAR SO URGENT?
U.S.-NATO Relations Under Trump, Biden
President Trump was critical of NATO, calling it “obsolete” in a 2017 interview and criticizing other NATO members for not spending enough on defense. Yet there is something he did not address, and these are the obvious flaws: (1) conflict between two NATO members, and (2) what if one NATO member provokes an attack? Does that draw in all 30 members? The NATO Treaty is obsolete and should be scrapped, and these two flaws MUST be addressed. If not, then such alliances compelled World War I.
The US was sneaking arms into the Lusitania and putting civilians’ lives at risk, just as they knew in advance about 9/11. They always want civilians to be killed to justify war. This is the #1 tactic to get people to justify war. It was used in Iraq, painting Saddam as gassing his own people. The Palestinians have used it effectively against Israel, putting military targets in civilian areas, including hospitals. It was known when Russia would cross the border to come to the aid of Russians in the Donbas, and the Washington Post found out that Zelensky knew when the invasion would take place and did not warn his civilians. He said it would have cost him $7 billion in capital flight. In truth, he, too, wanted civilians to be killed to claim how evil Russia was.
“Did we get enough to reduce CO2?”
The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million, of which 23 million were military. In World War II, an estimated 70–85 million people perished, or about 3% of the estimated global population of 2.3 billion in 1940. The civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. War is being invited even by Climate Change people who see the population must be culled – not them, of course, just us.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was one of the key events that led to World War I. They were assassinated on June 28, 1914, by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip, who was part of a group of six Bosnian assassins. All but one were Bosnian Serbs. They were members of a student revolutionary group since Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia in 1908. This assassination by a student justified war against all Serbs for the centuries of hatred. We see this same regional hatred in Ukraine vs. Russia and Greece vs. Turkey.
Article 5 Invoked After 9/11 Attacks
On September 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and Pentagon, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history, committing its members to stand by the United States in its response to the attacks. It was a simple four-paragraph resolution that passed unanimously; the organization reflected its understanding that the threats to global security were now hanging in the balance. As I have reported, the first group of terrorists who tried to bring down the Twin Towers were in prison and drew the World Trade Center on the wall of their cell with planes going into them. The Feds charged their lawyer, Lynne F. Stewart, for passing notes. The government knew the plan and let it happen (Stand Down) to ensure they got the Patriot Act.
On October 2, 2001, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson held a press conference to discuss the events of September 11, and pledged support of the 18 NATO allies in the campaign against international terrorism.
”The commitment to collective self-defense embodied in the Washington Treaty was entered into in circumstances very different from those that exist now,” the statement read. “But it remains no less valid and no less essential today, in a world subject to the scourge of international terrorism.”
In addition to participation in the war in Afghanistan, NATO’s response to the 9/11 attacks under Article 5 included Operation Eagle Assist, in which NATO aircraft helped patrol the skies over the United States for seven months between 2001 and 2002, and Operation Active Endeavour, in which NATO naval forces were sent to perform counterterrorism activities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Operation Active Endeavour, which began in October 2001 and later expanded to the entire Mediterranean region, didn’t conclude until 2016, when Trump came to office.
NATO has taken collective defensive measures in other situations, including deploying missiles on the border of Turkey and Syria in 2012. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the rise of ISIS in recent years after they removed Saddam Hussein led the organization to implement a huge increase in its collective defenses, including tripling the size of the NATO Response Force. In 2014, NATO member states agreed to try and spend 2% of their GDPs on defense, although most member states fail to meet this non-binding goal.
Nevertheless, Donald Trump did affirm U.S. commitment to Article 5 in June 2017, during a news conference with the president of Romania:
“I’m committing the United States to Article 5, and certainly we are there to protect, and certainly that’s one of the reasons that I want people to make sure we have a very, very strong force by paying the kind of money necessary to have that force.”
President Joe Biden ordered U.S. troops to Eastern Europe to reinforce NATO’s Response Force as Russian military forces encircled Ukraine in February 2022. It was clear that the American Neocons had been desperately trying to provoke Putin to attack anything in NATO to justify World War III. Zelensky, having the US intelligence that Russia was on the border, stood up the day before and proclaimed that Ukraine would rearm itself with nuclear weapons. Three days before, Kamala Harris, at the Munich Security Conference, openly said Ukraine should join NATO.
With troops surrounding Ukraine’s border, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that the former Soviet republic never be permitted to join NATO. As Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said in a February 2, 2022 press briefing,
“Our commitment to NATO Article 5 and collective defense remains ironclad.”
I have had employees from both Donestk and Kyiv. I am well aware that the hatred is so deeply rooted that it will NEVER be subdued. The Neocons instructed Kiev to immediately attack the Donbas in 2014 to force Russia to come to their aid. This has been an intended war against Russia from the outset. That is why Merkel openly said that they never negotiated with Russia in good faith; it was all a stall tactic to enable Ukraine to raise the largest army in Europe to wage war against Russia.
They refuse to report that this war would be over in 24 hours if Ukraine honored the Minsk Agreement and simply let the Donbas have a democratic vote since they are ethnic Russians that the Ukrainians hate anyway. Zelensky loves to pretend he is fighting for their freedom and for democracy. That is an outright lie. Russia has not sought to conquer all of Ukraine. Merkel admitted that the West deliberately negotiated the Minsk Agreement only to buy time for Ukraine to build this army to wage war against Russia. Why should Russia or China now negotiate with the United States knowing they do not honor their agreements? The West wanted this war. They need it to justify defaulting on all sovereign debt and resort to digital currency with Bretton Woods II. Even CNN reported that the West started the Ukrainian Civil War before they were told to bury that news.
I believe that this entire event was set in motion intentionally by sending Kamila Harris to the Munich Security Conference on February 20th, where she told Ukraine that they should join NATO, which was a violation of the Budapest Agreement. As I mentioned, Henry Kissinger said back in the Washington Post on March 14, 2014, when Russia took back Crimea – “The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy. It is an alibi for not having one.”
Harris did, in fact, twee with Politwoops—a website that tracks deleted tweets from politicians—archiving the tweet when it was deleted on March 15. The tweet appears to quote from a speech Harris gave at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting, in which she said:
“The United States stands firmly with the Ukrainian people in defense of the NATO Alliance.”
The transcript listed on the White House website adds an “and” that Harris did not use in her speech, video of which can be seen here. A corrected version of the tweet with an added “and” was later shared from Harris’ account:
Ever since the Spanish-American War, which was also started by fake news, the seizure of Spanish territories from Puerto Rico to the Philippines was the beginning of this idea that America was becoming the new imperial empire to replace Britain, the Dutch, France, and Spain.
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The 58th Munich Security Conference (MSC) was held from February 18 to 20, 2022; Russia crossed the border to defend the Donbas on February 24th, just four days after the Munich Security Conference. Zelensky, on the 23rd, says Ukraine will rearm with nuclear weapons. Let’s be honest here. The United States government has been involved in numerous interventions in foreign countries throughout history. The U.S. has engaged in nearly 400 military interventions between 1776 and 2023.
Then we have Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claiming he has confidence that Ukraine can defeat Russia. I really do not know what planet he is on. That would be such a devasting blow to Russia that Putin would turn to nuclear weapons. Besides that, he seems oblivious to the alliances that are forming before our eyes. China just entered into a new “friendly ” agreement with North Korea and to celebrate that they conducted another missile test which used to be very upsetting.
The Budapest Agreement required Ukraine to eliminate the strategic missiles, missile silos, and bombers on its territory and transfer the 1,900 nuclear warheads to Russia for disassembly. Ukraine was the third-largest nuclear power in the world. They had more nuclear weapons than China. In return, Ukrainians gained guarantees that the United States and Russia, joined by Britain, would provide security assurances. The Budapest Agreement committed Washington, Moscow, and London, among other things, to “respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine” and to “refrain from the threat or use of force” against that country.
Belarus also agreed to surrender all nuclear weapons as part of this agreement, but it had only mobile missile launchers at the time. Kazakhstan was the third member of the Agreement and chose to return the nuclear warheads and missiles to Russia. Ukraine was reluctant and wanted to keep some of the nuclear weapons. There was a side agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian governments whereby giving up Ukrainian claims to the nuclear weapons and the Black Sea Fleet were surrendered on the basis that Russia gave $2.5 billion in gas and oil debt cancellation and future supplies of fuel for its nuclear power stations. Ukraine did not want a commitment to transfer all warheads by June 1st, 1996 to be made public for local political purposes while Russia did not want the financial compensation for uranium made the public concerned that Belarus and Kazakhstan would also demand free fuel.
Despite Blinken’s absurd statement that he thinks Ukraine can defeat Russia without any sense of such repercussions, this statement appears to be using Ukrainians as pawns in an intended war against Russia that will only bring in China and the rest of their alliance. Belarus is already looking to add back nuclear weapons because proposing Ukraine joins NATO is tearing up the Budapest Agreement putting in jeopardy their security. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia – let’s make this very clear and Blinken’s statement appears to be a provocation for war. This is a losing battle that will turn nuclear if Russia were really to lose. It appears that this may be more about Climate Change and the agenda from the WEF that to conquer the world with Schwab’s economic theories, there were three obstacles – (1) Trump, (2) Russia, and (3) China. Trump was removed and some fear this is an attempt to overthrow Putin and then they will turn on China.
This raises the question about another seemly incompetent statement made by Harris at the Munich Security Conference that Ukraine should join NATO which would indeed justify Putin’s invasion and send Belarus back into nuclear defense. Was this statement just another gaff from Harris who has obviously no skills in international matters? Why was she sent instead of Blinken? Was this deliberate to give Ukraine false hope encouraging them to fight to the last man?
Something is not right. The solution was simple. Allow Donbas to have a democratic vote which could have been monitored over their separatist movement since 2014 that nobody wants to talk about, and Ukraine drop its claim to Crimea which historically always was Russian – not Ukrainian. The Ukrainian people are dying for what? To keep Donbas and Crimea which are occupied by a Russian population?
Something is just rotten. Some think Zelensky is being bribed by oil companies to try to get back Crimea where there is a huge gas reserve that would then replace Russia as the energy supplier to Europe. Others think Zelensky is just a puppet of the World Economic Forum to push their agenda upon the world in hopes of defeating Russia. The truth always surfaces but many Ukrainians do not support Zelensky.
Let’s be straight here. Article 5 has been invoked only once on behalf of the United States after 9/11.
The underlying assumption is that there would then be a collective response to repel and punish the aggressor. Obviously, that approach would not work if two NATO signatories went to war against each other. Even determining which country was the aggressor and which the victim could be quite challenging.
Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .
Article 6 1
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
- on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
- on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
Article 8
Each Party declares that none of the international engagements now in force between it and any other of the Parties or any third State is in conflict with the provisions of this Treaty, and undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty.
Article 10
The Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty. Any State so invited may become a Party to the Treaty by depositing its instrument of accession with the Government of the United States of America. The Government of the United States of America will inform each of the Parties of the deposit of each such instrument of accession.
Article 11
This Treaty shall be ratified and its provisions carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited as soon as possible with the Government of the United States of America, which will notify all the other signatories of each deposit. The Treaty shall enter into force between the States which have ratified it as soon as the ratifications of the majority of the signatories, including the ratifications of Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, have been deposited and shall come into effect with respect to other States on the date of the deposit of their ratifications.3
NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — is an alliance of 30 European and North American countries, including the United States. Its foundational document is the North Atlantic Treaty, which sets forth NATO’s purpose and obligations: ensuring peace and security through collective defense.
NATO was formed shortly after the end of World War II, at the dawn of the Cold War. The organization’s collective defense obligations, detailed in Article 5, have been invoked only once, on behalf of the United States after 9/11. Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine has sparked concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin may expand the scope of the conflict to NATO members like Poland and Lithuania, triggering NATO’s collective defense obligations. Many in the public are now asking what NATO’s collective defense obligations mean for the United States.
What are a NATO member’s collective defense obligations?
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them . . . shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking . . . such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
This language is relatively flexible. It permits each NATO member to decide for itself what action should be taken to address an armed attack on a NATO ally. It does not require any member to respond with military force, although it permits such responses as a matter of international law. A member may decide that instead of responding with force, it will send military equipment to NATO allies or impose sanctions on the aggressor.
If a NATO ally is attacked, would Article 5 authorize the president to send U.S. forces into conflict?
No. Even if a NATO ally is attacked and Article 5 is invoked, the president needs to obtain congressional authorization before sending the military into a conflict zone or otherwise using force. Article 11 of the North Atlantic Treaty explains that “its provisions [shall be] carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.” In the United States, that means securing express authorization from Congress, which has the sole constitutional power to declare war and is responsible for military appropriations and oversight.
Consider that treaties are made by the president, with the consent of the Senate. If the invocation of a collective defense treaty automatically allowed the president to use force abroad, the House would be wholly excluded from decisions about where, when, and how the country goes to war. The Senate would play a role secondary to the president. Such a scheme would violate the Constitution’s text and design, which vest “[t]he whole powers of war” in Congress, according to a foundational Supreme Court opinion.
Congress endorsed this analysis in the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a Vietnam War-era law that reaffirms the president’s obligation to seek congressional authorization before using offensive force. The War Powers Resolution states that congressional authorization to use force “shall not be inferred . . . from any treaty heretofore or hereafter ratified.”
What about the president’s inherent powers as commander in chief?
The president’s inherent powers as commander in chief would not allow the president to send the military into a conflict zone or otherwise use military force in response to an invocation of Article 5. The Constitution vests the president with the power to defend U.S. territory and citizens, even without express authorization. But it does not permit the president to use force against an adversary who poses no direct threat to the United States, as would be involved in a military campaign to assist a NATO ally.
Since the Cold War, executive branch lawyers have tried to broaden the scope of the president’s inherent powers. They have argued that the Constitution permits the president to defend not only U.S. territory and citizens but also more abstract national interests, such as the credibility and effectiveness of the United Nations. As many experts have noted, this open-ended “national interest” theory is constitutionally dubious.
Still, executive branch lawyers concede that the president cannot unilaterally commit the military to a conflict of substantial nature, scope, and duration, even if there is a strong national interest. Any military confrontation between Russia and NATO would surely be of a substantial nature, scope, and duration — and would therefore require congressional authorization. This limitation on the president’s inherent powers explains why President George W. Bush sought congressional authorization for the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War, large-scale conflicts involving ground forces.
What could Congress’s response to an invocation of Article 5 look like?
If Congress were to decide that a military response is “necessary,” Congress could declare war or, more likely, adopt a limited authorization to use force. For years, experts and advocates have agreed that any authorization to use force should specify the conflict’s purpose and geographical scope, as well as the identity of the enemy, and that it should include an expiration date. These limitations ensure that Congress reviews the authorization on a regular basis and understands where, why, and against whom U.S. forces are fighting.
Would waiting for Congress conflict with our obligations to aid our NATO allies?
No. Our NATO allies understand that legislatures play an important role in determining what kind of support is “necessary” to respond to an invocation of Article 5. After 9/11, NATO’s governing body invoked Article 5 and called upon the NATO allies to support the United States in its response to the terrorist attacks. In turn, the leaders of NATO allies like Germany asked their legislatures for permission to deploy forces. On November 16, 2001, the German Bundestag voted to commit 3,900 troops to fight in Afghanistan as a means of fulfilling its Article 5 obligations.
Moreover, Congress can act quickly in response to national security developments, and it would likely do so for any invocation of Article 5. Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, the congressional authorization to pursue those responsible for 9/11, on September 14, 2001. In 1964, it passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution just three days after the supposed incident that prompted President Lyndon Johnson’s request for authorization to use force in Vietnam.
What would happen if the president sent the military abroad without securing congressional authorization?
If the president were to send the military into a conflict zone without congressional authorization, Congress could invoke the War Powers Resolution. The War Powers Resolution provides that military forces operating “without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization . . . shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs.” Congress could also use its power over military appropriations to restrict the president’s use of funds on an unlawful war.
What does the invocation of Article 4 mean?
In February 2022, NATO members invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Article 4 permits members to call a NATO meeting when they perceive a threat to the “territorial integrity, political independence or security” of any NATO ally. The invocation of Article 4 does not trigger any collective defense obligations.
Consistent with Article 4, the leaders of each NATO member, including President Biden, convened to reaffirm their commitment to Article 5. As a result of the meeting, NATO members made “additional defensive deployments” to the easternmost allies, some of which share a border with Ukraine. NATO members did not deploy or commit to deploying forces to Ukraine.
Centinel2012 