{"id":41903,"date":"2018-12-22T09:02:31","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T14:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41903"},"modified":"2018-12-22T09:02:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T14:02:31","slug":"psychoanalysing-nato-the-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41903","title":{"rendered":"Psychoanalysing NATO: The Diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Psychoanalysing<\/p>\n

Psychoanalysing NATO: The Diagnosis<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n

In previous essays I argued that NATO tries to distract our attention from its crimes by accusing Russia of those crimes: this is “projection<\/a>“. NATO manipulates its audience into thinking the unreal is real: this is “gaslighting<\/a>“. NATO sees what it expects to see \u2013 Moscow’s statements that they will respond to medium range missiles emplaced next door are re-jigged as the “threats<\/a>” which justify NATO’s earlier act: this is “confirmation bias<\/a>“. And, finally, NATO thinks Russia is so weak it’s doomed and so strong that it is destroying the tranquillity of NATOLand: this is a sort of geopolitical “schizophrenia<\/a>“. (I must acknowledge\u00a0Bryan MacDonald’s<\/a>\u00a0marvellous neologism of\u00a0Russophrenia\u00a0<\/em>– a condition where the sufferer believes Russia is both about to collapse, and take over the world.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

I wrote the series partly to amuse the reader but with a serious purpose as well. And that serious purpose is to illustrate the absurdities that NATO expects us to believe. NATO here being understood as sometimes the headquarters “international staff”, sometimes all members in solemn conclave, sometimes some NATO members and associates. “NATO” has become a remarkably flexible concept:\u00a0Libya was a NATO operation<\/a>, even though\u00a0Germany kept out of it<\/a>.\u00a0Somalia was not a NATO operation even though Germany was in it<\/a>. Canada, a founding NATO member, was in\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0but not in\u00a0Iraq<\/a>. Some interventions are\u00a0NATO, others aren’t. The NATO alliance today is a box of spare parts from which Washington assembles its “coalitions of the willin<\/a>g”. It’s Washington’s\u00a0beard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NATO and its members are inexhaustible sources of wooden language and dishonesty. Take Washington’s\u00a0demand that Iran get out of Syria while US forces stay there<\/a>. Syria has a recognised government, that government invited Iran in; no one invited the USA and its minions in.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psychoanalysing NATO: The Diagnosis In previous essays I argued that NATO tries to distract our attention from its crimes by accusing Russia of those crimes: this is “projection“. NATO manipulates its audience into thinking the unreal is real: this is “gaslighting“. NATO sees what it expects to see \u2013 Moscow’s statements that they will respond […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[553,17074,23575,694,8203,865],"class_list":["post-41903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-nato","tag-patrick-armstrong","tag-psychoanalysing","tag-russia","tag-strategic-culture-foundation","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41904,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41903\/revisions\/41904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}