I’ve been over this before, but it bears repeating in light of President Trump’s (R) and SecState Marco Rubio’s contemplating the US leaving NATO altogether. The misperception is this:

The alliance’s lifeblood is its deterrent credibility: the perception by potential adversaries that attacking a NATO member would likely trigger a war with the full alliance, including the US.

As the news writer noted a bit later in his paragraph, though, this is a chimera, one that I claim is dangerous by its existence.

The alliance’s political promise to defend its members goes beyond the flexible wording of its famous Article 5, which says that each country in NATO would help a member that is attacked by taking “such action as it deems necessary.”

The relevant part of Article V is this:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence…will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

“Such action” includes—but does not require—a military response.

Congress passed, in 2023 under the Biden administration, a law requiring a two-thirds vote of the Senate agreeing before the US could withdraw from NATO. The law has questionable constitutionality, interfering as it does with the President’s constitutional Article II role as our nation’s Chief Executive and our military’s Commander-in-Chief. This question is easily sidestepped, though, simply by adhering to the flexible wording of the NATO treaty’s Article V and declining to commit American military to a fight, confining our response, instead, to diplomatic words of demurral regarding an attack on other members.

President Donald Trump (R) has repeatedly stated that one of the three goals for our war against Iran is the permanent destruction of Iran’s ability to acquire nuclear weapons. A critical part of that is for Iran to turn over all of its accumulated enriched uranium, some of which is enriched to 60% of what is needed for weapons grade purity. In conjunction with that, Trump is contemplating sending ground forces in to forcibly seize that enriched uranium.

Iran’s enriched uranium is reported to be stored in propane cylinder-sized containers and that those containers are in just a couple of sites, both of which the US Air Force so devastatingly hammered last summer. Which raises a couple of thoughts in my mind.

Stipulate, arguendo, that our ground forces can get in and out in the few days it would take to penetrate those two sites (whose physical accesses have been closed to some depth by those bombing attacks) with no or minimal casualties.

What is the quality, really, of the intel that says that uranium remains in only those two sites? Iran had, after all, more than a few days heads up that the attacks were coming, during which those containers could have been removed and disbursed among a number of new storage sites?

In conjunction with that, what intel do we have regarding the possibility that, having removed those cylinders in advance, the enriched uranium hasn’t been further disbursed among a number of smaller containers—expensive as that might be and cumbersome in handling that might make the “dust?”

Finally, having penetrated those two storage sites, what planning has been devoted to a) collecting further intel regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons development that would still be present in the form of equipment types and research and production documents, and b) setting the relevant explosives to further collapse altogether those remaining chambers? What planning has been devoted to, on the way back out of those sites, (re)collapsing those entry tunnels and doing so to a much greater depth than those earlier bombs had achieved?

Or that refits? Or that gives new and newly placed generals time to fit into their roles?

The People’s Republic of China has reduced its airborne threats and exercises against the Republic of China to nearly zero since just before the beginning of the US-Israeli war against Iran, even while keeping its naval operations relatively steady. This is causing some confusion among RoC and US military leadership.

I have some thoughts on the matter, admittedly with a measure of conspiracy theory involvement.

One thought: the pause—if that’s all it is—is a time for rest, refitting, and rearming the aircraft, this time with live munitions, preparatory for an assault on Taiwan, on which sits the RoC. This is inconsistent, though, with PLAN Taiwan-related activities continuing at their recently usual pace.

Another thought, related, is that in that aftermath of PRC President Xi Jinping’s purge of top level generals and top level leadership of his [sic] Communist Party of China, their replacements need time not just to learn their new duties, but to become utterly facile with them and capable of quick actions.

On the other hand, Ben Lewis, PLATracker Founder, has a different view. He suggested the lull could serve as an olive branch signaling a desire for stability ahead of Xi’s meeting with Trump.

Maybe. Xi has been toughening is stance vis-à-vis the US over the last year, or so. With US combat shipping and anti-missile units transferred away from the Western Pacific to support operations against Iran, Xi has little reason to soften up.

One last thought, more remotely possible, is that the PRC’s struggling economy needs more time to fund the PLAAF’s activities. If that’s the case, look for the pause to last a while longer. If Lewis is right, look for the pause to end with the end of Xi’s meeting with Trump, or not, depending on what concessions Trump yields to Xi.