Is NATO inching toward disintegration?
Source: presstv.ir
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern Europe quickly fractured into a jigsaw puzzle of nation-states. The European Union and NATO not only rushed to recognize the independence of nations like Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and others but began the process to absorb them into the EU and NATO.
However, the tide of separatism and fragmentation may soon be brought home to a financially-collapsing Western Europe as the advent of an independent Scotland, Catalonia, and Flanders, born from the decaying carcasses of Western European nation-states, becomes a distinct possibility.
NATO has had to take a bit of a breather in its plans to move to the Caucasus and beyond to take stock of how it is going to keep an independent Scotland and Flanders in the NATO fold.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) has long been known for its anti-NATO and anti-Trident nuclear submarine stance. The British Royal Navy maintains a Trident base in Scotland and the US Navy once based its Polaris and Poseidon nuclear submarines at Holy Loch, Scotland.
After SNP First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond signed an agreement with British Prime Minister David Cameron on holding an independent referendum for Scotland, the SNP’s recent party conference in Perth voted to reverse course and proclaim that an independent Scotland would join NATO. The SNP also said the British Queen would remain head of state of Scotland and Scotland would keep the British pound as its currency and reject the euro. Salmond’s stance on the Trident submarines has not changed, he wants them out of an independent Scotland.
However, the entire NATO issue has caused a split in the SNP, with many party faithful of the left-wing faction wanting Scotland to become neutral like Finland and Sweden. Some anti-NATO leaders of the SNP have expressed a willingness to join the anti-NATO Scottish Green Party.
The wrangling over NATO in Scotland has the colonels and captains on the NATO staff in Brussels worried about a situation not unlike that which exists between historical foes Greece and Turkey within NATO. Although it tries to present a united front, NATO is wracked by old feuds, especially when it comes to Greeks and Turks serving together on NATO military staffs.
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Read the full article at: presstv.ir
