What's the difference between United Nations and NATO?

[Boats]

What's the difference between United Nations and NATO?

NATO and the U.N. are two organizations trying to work together despite the fact that they have very different philosophies: NATO is an organization designed to fight war, if necessary, in order to defend peace; whereas the U.N. is an organization designed to avoid war in order to maintain peace.

Here's another report" (I found it interesting)
Putin sets the stage for NATO's second act:
By: Will Marshall Opionion Contributor - The Hill News -06-03-22
Re: https://thehill.com/opinion/national...nventing-nato/

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – the most successful and enduring mutual security pact in history – is about to start its second act. In Act 1, the United States played the leading role in deterring Russian aggression and keeping the peace in Europe. In Act 2, Europeans will take center stage.

With longtime neutrals Sweden and Finland knocking on its door, NATO likely will grow to 32 members. For the transatlantic allies, however, the wise course isn’t merely to expand NATO, but to reinvent it.

How to seize that opportunity – which goes well beyond hackneyed calls for greater “burden-sharing” – should be the focal point of NATO’s Madrid summit later this month.

NATO should be fundamentally reconfigured to reflect three geopolitical realities. First, since its creation in 1949, the alliance has expanded dramatically as many of Europe’s ancient feuds and rivalries have been subsumed within pan-European values and institutions.

Second, NATO’s 27 European members (excluding Turkey) vastly exceed Russia in economic clout, population and military spending. Third, America inexorably is turning its strategic gaze to China and the balance of power in Asia.

All three developments point toward the same conclusion: It’s time for Europe to cast aside the crutch of dependence on U.S. military might and assume primary responsibility for defending itself.

What’s brought Europe to this moment is not so much Russian President Vladimir Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people’s valiant and effective resistance. Their fight for freedom has revived and unified the democratic West, while also puncturing the myth of Russian military prowess.

At the end of World War II, there was no way a devastated and destitute Europe could stand up to a victorious Soviet Union without U.S. power. But the Soviet imperium dissolved decades ago, while Europe has steadily become more prosperous, more economically and politically intertwined, and largely liberal and democratic in outlook.

As a result, what Russian strategists call the “correlation of forces” has shifted decisively in Europe’s favor.

With a population of around 145 million, Russia has the world’s 11th largest economy with an annual Gross Domestic Product of $1.48 trillion. NATO is a juggernaut in comparison. Its 30 members have a combined population of nearly 604 million and GDP of $18 trillion.

But even if you take the United States out of the equation, our European allies are more than a match for Moscow in both economic and military terms. Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy all have economies larger than Russia’s. Moscow devotes about $66 billion a year to its military forces; these four NATO countries alone spend more than three times as much.

The key questions are whether Europe can muster the will to translate these enormous advantages into a credible military deterrent of its own, and whether this should happen within or outside of NATO.

“Overreliance on American protection has had catastrophic effects on E.U. security,” contend Vincent-Immanuel Herr and Martin Speer of Germany’s Charlemagne Prize Academy. They and others propose a “European army” organized under the auspices of the European Union.

This is in keeping with French President Emmanuel Macron’s ambitious call for Europe to embrace “strategic autonomy” and become a global foreign policy actor.

Former President Trump’s abrasive “America First” policy convinced many Europeans that they can’t rely on U.S. power in perpetuity. Given its preponderant strengths and demonstrated habits of cooperation, there’s no longer any reason for Europeans to contract out their security to anyone else.

True, but it makes little sense to organize Europe’s common defense forces under the EU, which has no security remit or mutual defense assurances. If Sweden and Finland join, NATO will encompass almost all of Europe except four small countries. It has a unified command structure, Article 5’s “one for all, all for one” guarantee and, crucially, North American partners.

As Europeans develop forces capable of protecting themselves from a Russian attack, the United States must stay engaged in NATO both as a strategic reserve and an arsenal for our democratic allies.

What’s more, while Britain and France are members of the nuclear club, they can’t supplant America’s indispensable role in nuclear deterrence. Russia’s stockpile of more than 4,000 nuclear weapons is really all that remains of its former superpower status. That’s why Putin and his cronies keep raising the specter of nuclear escalation as the NATO allies funnel arms into Ukraine and clamp stringent sanctions on the Russian economy.

So far, Europe hasn’t blinked. On the contrary, Germany has announced a $100 billion increase in military spending, and – with the conspicuous exception of Hungary – European governments also are moving to reduce their heavy reliance on Russian gas and oil.

By taking charge of their own security, Europeans would remove a major irritant in their relations with the United States, while also enabling Washington to devote more strategic attention and resources to shoring up stability and security in the Asia Pacific.

Already, Washington’s contribution to NATO’s budget has fallen from 22 percent to 16 percent, roughly the same as Germany’s. Over time, the United States should be able to bring home many of the 100,000 U.S. troops now stationed in Europe, while leaving smaller forces to act as a tripwire.

After 70 years of deference to Washington on security matters, European leaders will need to reacquaint themselves with the risks, responsibilities and moral ambiguities of wielding hard power. They (and especially Germans) also will need to question habits of passivity and pacifism and disabuse themselves of sanctimonious notions about the efficacy of their multilateral and “soft-power” approach to containing international conflicts.

Americans should welcome Europe’s return to the historical stage as a second “liberal bulwark,” alongside the United States, to defend the free world against the league of pugnacious autocracies led by Russia and China.

Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).

TAGS: CHINA - NATO - NATO ALLIES - NATO MEMBERSHIP - NATO TREATY - NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION - RUSSIA - RUSSIA–NATO RELATIONS - UKRAINE - and VLADIMIR PUTIN.
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Personal note: Since NATO is cleaning up its issues currently at hand - I
would surmise that the US can now concentrate on its Southern border
and South American issues - that are in play. One country can't fix the
world - it has to fix itself or fail and/or die. The United Nations & NATO
can clean up the European issues - but still leaves the China - North
Korea and the onging South America & Africa issues - that are in play
as well.
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If our World Order is to advance - we have but one world we live on.
All Peoples - of this planet must concentrate on the issues at hand, that
without world peace - and working together to improve our planet and
its people's environment - will surely have major short comings in the
very near future.
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The planet's envirament is a critical issue - as the weather is changing
more and more. The North & South poles are melting. The Sea Levels
are rising. Freshwater Supplie's are drying up. And as we all know our
worlds temperature issues are currently rising - and will this cause undo
shortages of fresh water.
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This has caused an increase in Forest fires around the globe that have
to be addressed & reduced to allow for the trees to purfiy the air and
cool the planet.
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