Background threat to NATO is EU army. "France & Germany now seem interested in using expanded military ... as a way to deepen E.U. integration ... it’s hard to imagine the U.K. staying deeply involved ... U.K. documents ... insist NATO remain central"
washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
Syria is bound up w/ the larger question of Turkey in turn tied up with the US/UK position now that the Germans are re-creating their continental block albeit by peaceful means.
In retrospect, Brexit not Trump, was the first big discontinuity. The UK's decision to leave the EU was truly momentous, especially since it happened in advance of Nov 2016.
As Harvard's Jolyon Howarth says in the WaPo article: "For the E.U., military autonomy is becoming an imperative. If that’s the direction of travel, the U.K. will have to decide whether a strategically autonomous Europe is more of a threat than a promise."
What Howarth does not say, but should have, is that a French crisis is almost sure to ensue for the same reason. Recent events have shown the French street is not as committed to European integration under Germany as the elites are.
