On July 8, Ray went out on a limb just hours before NATO adopts its final Declaration at the Warsaw summit. Ray told Sputnik news that he expects the final Declaration will use fulsome “solidarity-rhetoric” to paper over widening fissures in NATO – fissures that may grow into canyons by the next NATO summit.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/radiosputnik/nato-summit-a-launchpad-for-further-conf_1
The U.S. has grossly overplayed its hand and, with aggressive NATO “supreme commanders” like the just-retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, Washington has squandered a good deal of the credibility and trust it once enjoyed. (On Breedlove, see the VIPS Memorandum of July 6.)
Moreover, European countries like Germany and France seem about to wake up to the reality that they were “had,” when they let Secretary Kerry browbeat them into approving economic sanctions against Russia just a week after he made the confident-but-dubious claim that the Russia was responsible for downing Malaysian Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014. Sooner or later (probably sooner) the Allies are going to ask Kerry to produce the intelligence he claimed he had just three days after the shoot-down. The Dutch, who are running the “investigation” of the shoot-down, say that Kerry has not produced that “evidence.” (But No Worries, say the Dutch, because the Ukrainians have been just a terrific help in the investigation (!).
Kerry to David Gregory on Meet the Press, July 20, 2014:
“We picked up the imagery of this launch; we know the trajectory; we know where it came from; we know the timing and it was exactly at the time this aircraft disappeared from the radar. …”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNliQMlG5qw
The day may not be far off when the Germans and French will get up enough courage to ask Kerry, “Where’s the beef? Produce that evidence.” Yes, Ray thinks it possible that, out of archaic, inertial deference to the Washington, neither Berlin nor Paris has pressed strongly – up until now, at least – for the “evidence” Kerry claimed to have.
Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t trust Kerry. Putin had already lodged a most unusual – and undiplomatic – complaint against him a year before. At an open meeting on Sept. 5, 2013, the very day Obama arrived in St. Petersburg for a G-20 summit, Putin publicly said of Kerry: “He lies; he knows that he lies; this is sad.” It is a safe bet that Putin’s opinion is not unique among European leaders.
Regarding the Warsaw summit, Ray told Sputnik that NATO’s declaration is likely to be highly interesting, since it will probably contain some hints of serious disagreement about the best approach to Russia. The rhetoric will exude consensus, but widening fissures within NATO are likely to be discernable between the lines, even as Obama and others do their best to project a sense of solidarity and consensus.” The kind of consensus reached at such meetings in the past is likely to prove elusive in present circumstances. We’ll know more on Saturday, July 9.