MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski seemed taken aback when economics and politics writer David Stockman told her in a Monday interview: “NATO is obsolete; we should get rid of it.” Brzezinski followed up, asking, “are you saying that we should pull out of NATO?”
“Sure,” replied Stockman, a former United States House of Representatives member. He then provided a rundown of some of his reasoning:
NATO’s obsolete. It was only set up to stop the Soviet Union with 50,000 tanks on the Warsaw front. That ended 25 years ago. We don’t need NATO. Europe can take care of itself. Russia’s a pint-sized economy — seven percent the size of the US economy. NATO-US GDP combined is 36 trillion. Russia’s is 1.5 trillion. You think the Europeans can’t handle it? Germany spends one percent only of GDP on defense. If they really thought that the Russians were heading through the Brandenburg Gate, they would be providing for their own defense. They’re not pacifists.
In response, Brzezinski said the Morning Joe show will need to invite Stockman back to talk more about NATO, commenting “there might be a few people who want to debate you on that.” Hopefully, that does happen. It would be good TV.
Stockman, who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Ronald Reagan administration, also discusses in the interview the American economy, calling the stock market “way overvalued” and warning a recession is on the way.
Watch Stockman’s complete interview here:
Stockman is an Advisory Board member for the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
