Final Word from Tuesday, December 10, 2019

In the declaration at the Nato summit in Brussels in July 2018, the Alliance didn't mention China by name a single time. At this year's summit in London last week, China was mentioned in the final declaration once. It was in the paragraph about 5G and other new technologies. Yet since the Brussels summit, it has become public knowledge that China now has the largest navy in the world. It has more warships and submarines than the U.S., although the U.S. fleet remains superior. When French Pres. Emmanuel Macron spoke last month about the "brain death of Nato," he said that there is "no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its Nato allies." Czech Defense Min. Lubomír Metnar will sign a Kč 14.6bn contract at the Pentagon on Thur. to buy 12 U.S.-made helicopters for delivery in 2023. Whom might they be used to defend against? China? Russia? It's symptomatic of what Macron said that Czechs really have no idea. [ Czech Republic United States of America NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization France Chinese ]