Finally, a European Awakening to the Reality of NATO

French President Emmanuel Macron has finally said what other European leaders have failed to admit in the age of the Donald Trump administration in Washington, DC: that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the body established to protect Europe's security after the Second World War, is "brain dead".

Media reports have cited Macron's admission from an interview he gave to the British Newspaper, the Economist. The French President attributed his observation to the waning commitment to the transatlantic alliance by its main guarantor, the United States (US). And his comments were largely based upon Trump's failure to consult NATO before pulling US troops out of northern Syria.

Before the Syrian unitarian move by Trump and ever since he took the Oval Office as leader of the supposed free-world, his actions and attitude toward traditional American allies have been sub par. He has threatened allies and made comments about, and to them, which have been construed as unbecoming of the great American democracy and super power. 

So if it has taken this long for at least one European leader to awake to the reality of the new relationship Europe has with the present US administration, then most of Europe, like many other places, must be in state of stupor over the reality of the divergence the US has taken under Trump. Broken alliances, failed protections, tariff spats and irrational actions, have sadly become the state of current affairs of the Trump presidency. And the matter of NATO is exposed to it all.

At least one Frenchman has had the gall to utter the reality of these times per NATO. "...I'd argue that we should reassess the reality of what NATO is in light of the commitment of the United States," President Macron has finally rationalized, according to the BBC-News.

As the alliance prepares to celebrate its 70th anniversary next month, Macron rightfully acknowledged: "What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO." He cautioned and warned Europe members that they could no longer rely on the US to defend the alliance. Whether or not NATO was still valued, Macron admitted: "I do not know."

But he has to know; for as French President, he sits in a position to take a more active role in insisting that his fellow NATO members honor the code of protecting each other from any attack upon any particular state. And if not NATO, then under the behemoth economic pact of the European Union (EU), Europe surely has the means to defend itself up until a time when the respect and honor of the American integrity finally returns.