Trump’s NATO ignorance

I’m going to stray a bit off the path I set when initiating this blog a year ago.  While I never committed to avoid politics I implied that I would stick to Swiss issues.  Or at least issues affecting Americans living in Switzerland.  But I never anticipated Trump.  Now some may ask how he’s impacting us over here but this question would betray a basic ignorance regarding the role and responsibility the U.S. plays throughout the world, including Switzerland.    The U.S., for good or bad, is the key to global stability.  Our foreign policy matters.  As we go so does the rest of world and history has shown that a policy of isolation doesn’t work.  That was the case in 1918.  It was so in 1939 and it’s been true ever since.  What’s frightening and deeply troubling now is that Trump is completely unaware of this.  His foreign policy knowledge (and appreciation of the value thereof) is non-existent.  Last week’s statement implying that the U.S. might reconsider our NATO obligations to help protect our allies was the latest evidence of this ignorance.  He really isn’t cognizant of the role NATO has played in the stability and relative peace that Europe has enjoyed since the dark days following WWII.   It seems he thinks that nearly seventy years of peace in a region whose previous record was maybe ten minutes has been luck.  Who knows, maybe he hasn’t noticed.   He also probably doesn’t know that NATO’s Article 5 (the collective defense article) has been invoked only once and this was after the 9/11 attacks when NATO led troops were deployed to Afghanistan, in our defense.