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submitted 10 months ago by tsonfeir@lemm.ee to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

Congress has approved legislation that would prevent any president from withdrawing the United States from NATO without approval from the Senate or an Act of Congress. The measure, spearheaded by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), was included in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which passed out of the House on Thursday and is expected to be signed by President Biden.

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[-] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 205 points 10 months ago

Preparing for the worst (or the return of the Worst)

[-] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 70 points 10 months ago

Exactly my thought. This looks like the Biden admin taking steps against the return of Trump. The conventional wisdom unfortunately suggests Trump will return, but this is the first official thing I've seen that suggests perhaps official staffers think the same.

I think the return of Trump is the end of the USA as we know it, but also the Democratic establishment has been late to the party to avoid it, and the left remains far more fragmented than the right.

[-] nickhammes@lemmy.world 33 points 10 months ago

I don't think it suggests they believe he will return, but that it's a serious enough possibility they should do something to prevent a seriously bad outcome. With a 25% chance of a Trump win, this kind of prevention is worth doing.. and it's unfortunately probably above that.

[-] invno1@lemmy.one 22 points 10 months ago

The Biden Admin had nothing to do with this. Laws are made by Congress.

[-] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 10 months ago

And Congress is influenced by many factors, not the least of which being the administration of any sitting president.

[-] cmbabul@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago

No no you’re right this time will be much worse somehow

[-] Anticorp@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

A second term trump? Of course it would be worse. A second term trump facing like a hundred different felony charges? Yes, definitely much worse.

[-] 0110010001100010@lemmy.world 109 points 10 months ago

Serious question, if the orange dictator returns to power does this actually...you know...stop him in anyway? What happens if he just does it anyway? It's not like there will be any consequences...

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 49 points 10 months ago

You’re not wrong.

[-] AnonTwo@kbin.social 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

What would he exactly do? This is basically saying he won't have the ability to order it on his own.

[-] Hyperreality@kbin.social 81 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

He won't be able to withdraw from the treaty itself.

He'll be able to publicly say he won't defend NATO allies, he'll be able to withdraw troops, withdraw diplomats, withdraw ambassadors, no longer have US personell attend meetings, refuse to continue funding NATO HQ, sabotage command and control, undermine leadership, and on and on, until the NATO treaty is barely worth the paper it's written on, leaving European NATO wholly unprepared for a potential invasion. It's too late to prepare for that if they start right now.

Russia might then take a gamble. A lot of people thought they wouldn't take that gamble in 2014. People thought they wouldn't take that gamble in 2022. People think they won't take that gamble if Trump gets re-elected.

Or Russia doesn't take that gamble. They simply engage in provocations. Military exercises near the border. Bomber runs which are aborted at the last moment. Some more extravagent extra-territorial assassinations. The chance of a miscalculation skyrockets, the chance of accidentally starting a war increases significantly.

[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 21 points 10 months ago

I suppose he could order the US military to physically leave NATO bases, and physically eject NATO allied personnel from American bases.

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[-] SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works 87 points 10 months ago

Gee, I wonder if they had someone in mind when they wrote it /s

[-] ours@lemmy.world 25 points 10 months ago

Might as well call it the T.R.U.M.P. bill.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.world 43 points 10 months ago

And if Trump wants, he asks his stacked SCOTUS to declare it unconstitutional, and withdraws from NATO. Zzz

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[-] obinice@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago

Only a fascist trying to be a dictator would actually do this.

Sounds like rather than patchwork mini laws like this, they need to revamp the system to ensure no single person can take such drastic overreaching action.

Lets not forget that a president/prime minister isn't the singular person in charge, they're merely the figurehead/frontman of an entire government of elected people, as well add representing their party, and of course ultimately are a civil servant working at the pleasure of the people.

95% of the things the president does should go through proper democratic channels within the government and not simply rubber stamped by a single person, that path is the path towards dictatorship.

The few exceptions are rare things that can't be put to a vote or through regular channels, like launching nukes, etc. But these are exceptions only.

There should never have been a situation where it was possible for a president to personally decide to change the future of the entire nation and indeed world, in such a dramatic and drastic way, without any checks and balances to ensure that it is the will of the people, out even the will of anyone else in government.

Which is why it sounds to me like they need some significant reform, rather than just making this one little change :-(

[-] Duralf@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Yes, past presidents have gradually expanded the power of the position beyond any reasonableness over time.

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[-] Hyperreality@kbin.social 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This deterrent effect doesn’t come just from the NATO treaty ... Deterrence comes from the Kremlin’s conviction that Americans really believe in collective defense, that the U.S. military really is prepared for collective defense, and that the U.S. president really is committed to act if collective security is challenged. Trump could end that conviction with a single speech, a single comment, even a single Truth Social post, and it won’t matter if Congress, the media, and the Republican Party are still arguing about the legality of withdrawing from NATO. Once the commander in chief says “I will not come to an ally’s aid if attacked,” why would anyone fear NATO, regardless of what obligations still exist on paper? ... When I asked several people with deep links to NATO to imagine what would happen to Europe, to Ukraine, and even to Taiwan and South Korea if Trump declared his refusal to observe Article 5, all of them agreed that faith in collective defense could evaporate quickly. Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a former deputy secretary-general of NATO, pointed out that Trump could pull the American ambassador from his post, prevent diplomats from attending meetings, or stop contributing to the cost of the Brussels headquarters, all before Congress was able to block him: “He wouldn’t be in any way legally constrained from doing that.” Closing American bases in Europe and transferring thousands of soldiers would take longer, of course, but all of the political bodies in the alliance would nevertheless have to change the way they operate overnight. James Goldgeier, an international-relations professor at American University and the author of several books on NATO, thinks the result would be chaotic. “It’s not like you can say, ‘Okay, now we have another plan for how to deal with this,’ ” he told me. There is no alternative leadership available, no alternative source of command-and-control systems, no alternative space weapons, not even an alternative supply of ammunition. Europe would immediately be exposed to a possible Russian attack for which it is not prepared, and for which it would not be prepared for many years.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-2024-reelection-pull-out-of-nato-membership/676120/

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 12 points 10 months ago

I’m sure he was promised the title of “Lord Trump” by Emperor Putin

[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 9 points 10 months ago

e to an ally’s aid if attacked,” why would anyone fear NATO, regardless of what obligations still exist on paper? … When I asked several people with deep links to NATO to imagine what would happen

So should the president be commander-in-chief or not? Normally liberals aren't quite so mask-off and in favor of a military junta, but please, tell me how you square this circle.

[-] Hyperreality@kbin.social 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Normally liberals aren’t quite so mask-off ... please, tell me how you square this circle.

Sorry, not American, so I found your question confusing.

From the article above:

The measure, spearheaded by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.),

Both parties seem to be in favour of limiting the power of the president to withdraw from NATO.

This doesn't seem to be a simple partisan issue, as this legislation has bipartisan support.

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[-] asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

This is such a bad faith argument I almost fell for it. You're either being willfully ignorant or a troll.

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[-] davel@lemmy.ml 22 points 10 months ago

That’s nice. Anyway, death to NATO nato-cool

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago
[-] davel@lemmy.ml 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)
[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 14 points 10 months ago

But what do you favor as a system?

[-] sonori@beehaw.org 10 points 10 months ago

China and Russia’s colonialism and imperialism apparently, since those are the only two countries trying to expand their own new colonial empires anywhere they can.

Russia has troops in half a dozen African countries, expreses military control over several of its neighbors, and is currently invading its neighbor to add it back into its empire.

China is continuing to annex its neighbors waters, building out military bases around the Pasific and Indian oceans, and gaining control over large parts of Africa’s infrastructure.

NATO remains primarily committed to mutual defense and in their own words, “preventing changes to the status quo by force or coercion.”. Yes, the current system is flawed and ineffectual with poor power distribution, but this libertarian ideal, that the world would be better off without defensive alliances and that military force and invasion should be the primary deciding factor of foreign influence is just as silly as all libertarian policy.

We had a system where military power was the primary deciding factor of foreign relations, that was what lead to Europe brutally colonizing most of the world in the first place. We should not seek to return to that era.

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[-] vivadanang@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago

fuck we might succeed and get trump back, quick put up the child safeties!

[-] Kedly@lemm.ee 12 points 10 months ago

Damn, usually ml is at least SLIGHTLY better than hexbear, but not when it comes to anything that might be bad for Russia I see

[-] tree@lemmy.zip 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Doing something completely and plainly undemocratic to preserve "democracy" certified classic. I'm sure there's still some way to get out still, but, NATO forever no looking back I guess. The completely real and not totally contrived "north atlantic community" me and my closest friends across half the world.

[-] invno1@lemmy.one 45 points 10 months ago

How is this undemocratic? It was voted on and passed by Congress. Congress is made up of elected representatives by the citizens of the US.

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 10 points 10 months ago

Democracy is a popular vote for everything with no voter suppression. Not electing chumps to get bribed. Want to end war? End poverty? Let the people vote. Socialism here we come.

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[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago

I'm actually extremely worried about this constitutional overreach. Under many sane readings of the constitution, this isn't a power congress has. The president has a few unilateral powers in order to check the mob rules (or rather the external capture of congress.)

Ideally a president should be able to unilaterally dissolve all alliances and other undue foreign influence on our legislature. Otherwise there is no way to recover form this sham of democracy.

[-] arquebus_x@kbin.social 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Under many sane readings of the constitution, this isn’t a power congress has.

The constitution only explicitly articulates the process for establishing treaties, not ending them. So it's a bit of a gray area as to whether the president can end them by himself, since he can't establish them by himself.

To my mind, it would seem exceedingly weird if establishing a treaty required the consent of the Senate but breaking one didn't. What's the argument to be made that the two aspects (establish/break) are so fundamentally different that the rules for the first aren't also the rules for the second? Why does the president need consent to say yes but does not need consent to say no?

It's definitely been done before, but also never directly contested. (In previous cases SCOTUS has avoided answering the question by saying they didn't have jurisdiction.)

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[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 14 points 10 months ago

Found the trumpet.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Social media's understanding of law:

GOOD: "My guy does it."

BAD: "The other guy does it."

[-] Hyperreality@kbin.social 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The article suggest this legislation has bi-partisan support.

I'm afraid Americans will have to decide if this is a good or bad thing based on the merits of the case and the actual legislation, rather than on which party is in favour of it.

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[-] invno1@lemmy.one 12 points 10 months ago

Laws are made by Congress. This is exactly the power Congress has. In your opinion, who would make laws if Congress didn't have that power, a dictator?

[-] lemmyman@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

I was about to ask if, since you're "extremely worried" about this (seemingly esoteric) potentially unconstitutional move, how you cope with the rest of the world.

Then I saw the second paragraph and it seems that you don't.

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[-] PanArab@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago

It would be nice if NATO stops existing, I know I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.

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this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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