Donald Trump withdrawing from NATO...

[AthletesFoot]

I read a news article on the bbc website today that said if Donald Trump becomes president he will withdraw the USA from NATO.

I just wondered what the implications of this might be, if it happened?

The end of NATO

I hadn't heard about this but nothing would surprise me when it comes to Donald Trump.

This?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36852805

It's not about withdrawing U.S. from NATO, it's about conditions for activating operations for mutual defence. He seems to be assuming that there are some NATO countries which do not contribute their fair share.

There are quite a few NATO countries that don't contribute their fair share. UK is not one of them.

The news are about not automatically protecting countries who don't contribute their fair share, in case they are attacked.
Meaning, they won't deploy the US forces for any country.

It's hardly shocking. Particularly for Trump.

OTOH, if he is elected, it could be that many other countries do leave NATO. And maybe form an EU Alliance instead.

would he be allowed to by all the people around him?

I saw it as making the point that those who don't hit the NATO minimum on their defence spend need to up their game. This was raised at the Welsh summit, I am sure it was raised at Warsaw recently, and it's raised during the Defence Planning Process as well.

I kind of thing this one is worth threatening, everyone thinks he's just crazy enough to do it & not fair for France-Uk-USA to subsidise everyone else.

Yes, only it's not a Trump thing. Even Obama has already mentioned something along those lines, so Trump is following Obama's lead.

Although it's somewhat irrelevant. NATO has so far acted when it suited the US.
It's just a means of trying to reassert control over European countries, considering that Putin has been putting military pressure in Europe.

It's about getting them to pony up for their own defence; not about control. Many NATO nations woefully underfund their defence budget, and many have slashed theirs - Belgium for example took a huge chunk out of theirs.

Nobody wants to attack Belgium, to be fair. It's mostly the Baltic states that are at risk.

NATO did have to comment about the failure of the UK to reach minimum levels of defence spending once, with Cameron.

NATO is a mutual defence pact. If any one is attacked, the whole has to respond. It's just another Trump idiocy akin to building a wall across the whole Mexico border. Another of his loud mouth-offs. Goodness knows exactly how much disconnect there is between what he says and what he will do if in power.

Haven't the Republican congress members reacted to this idiotic idea?
www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-nato-new-york-times-225942

Interesting comment from the article:
"they further fueled the perception that Trump is a lackey for Russian President Vladimir Putin."

Indeed.

It's really another one to put in the box of deranged things Trump says. It's a shame that many US voters (and some Brits) don't see through it.

Lweji Nobody wants to attack Belgium? History says you're wrong. I can think of two occasions in the 20th century at least!!!!

The point was that many NATO nations do not hit the 2% NATO target, and I was citing Belgium as an example, given the furore it caused here in Belgium when defence was hit. Greece is an example where defence has also been slashed, as is Germany.

FGS. These days the most likely source of any attack is from Russia and that is to the Eastern European states (see the Ukraine).

Most European countries have been attacked by others at some point, including last century. It doesn't mean that there is any risk of attack for them at the present. For example, 70 years after the last attack on Belgium.

Of course Russia has been pressing on most European countries, but it's not likely that will openly start to bomb anywhere in the West.

Except for ISIS, of course, but then the US is already on the case leading a coalition. It's mostly a matter of NATO (i.e. other countries in NATO) joining in officially or not.
As it has happened in other occasions.
The first and only time Article 5 was when the US was attacked, BTW.

More than anything, Article 5 works as a deterrent against any NATO country being attacked.

Lweji FGS back at you. What is your problem with me citing defence budget cuts in NATO nations? It is a big issue for NATO, and Russia isn't the only cloud on the horizon.
They have to decide what to do about Turkey if Erdogan suspends democracy, or decides to have democracy as per Putin.

Clearly, the FGS was specifically in relation to the historical record by Belgium. Not particularly relevant for now.

It isn't just the Eastern European states that are worried. A couple of ParP nations on the other side of the Baltic are also getting the wind up, and re-examining their stance re NATO membership. Ukraine isn't a NATO nation, and so NATO has no need per se to defend Ukraine. I'd be looking at the land bridge to Kaliningrad, although difficult for Russia, and beefing up Poland, especially around that area.