Why does the US need to defend Europe without a Soviet threat? Ever since the end of the Cold War NATO has been an alliance insearch of a mission.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
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Why does the US need to defend Europe without a Soviet threat? Ever since the end of the Cold War NATO has been an alliance insearch of a mission.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
Isn't it way past time for Europe to start carrying its own weight, defensewise?
We play a calculated role in a larger scheme. We are the police force for a larger machine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
Do tell.
If we look at this from the liberal point of view, and I'm assuming of course...Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
European nations were compelled to help us in Iran after 9/11 occurred. Part of the way the treaty is worded. Maybe, if it happens again, liberals want us to stand alone?
They were not. Iraq didn't attack us on 9/11, and the Iraq invasion wasn't a NATO operation, unlike Afghanistan.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
Remember the coalition of the willing, and Rummy taunting "old Europe"?
You're veering very close to pure nonsense here, WC.
You're right. I meant hunting Osama.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
Coffee time. :wakeup
Maybe so. Just woke up before logging in, and its now 4:10 AM here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
Read more: NATO's Lack of a Strategic Concept | STRATFORQuote:
Thus, at the heart of NATO today lies a lack of resolve bred in the divergent interests and threat perceptions of its constituent states. The disparate threat environment is grafted on to a membership pool that can be broadly split into three categories: the United States, Canada and committed European Atlanticists (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark); Core European powers (led by Germany and France, with southern Mediterranean countries dependant on Berlin’s economic support in tow); and new Central European member states, the so-called Intermarum countries that stretch from the Baltic to the Black seas that are traditionally wary of Russian power and of relying on an alliance with Western Europe to counter such power.
With no one clear threat to the alliance and with so many divergent interests among its membership, the Group of Experts recommendations were largely incompatible. A look at the recommendations is enough to infer which group of countries wants what interests preserved and therefore reveal the built-in incompatibility of alliance interests going forward from 2010.
- Atlanticists: Led by the United States, Atlanticists want the alliance oriented toward non-European theaters of operation (e.g., Afghanistan) and non-traditional security threats (think cybersecurity, terrorism, etc.); an increase of commitments from Core Europeans in terms of defense spending; and a reformed decision-making system that eliminates a single-member veto in some situations while allowing the NATO secretary-general to have predetermined powers to act without authorization in others. The latter is in the interests of the United States, because it is Washington that will always have the most sway over the secretary-general, who traditionally hails from an Atlanticist country.
- Core Europe: Led by Germany and France, Core Europe wants more controls and parameters predetermined for non-European deployments (so that it can limit such deployments); a leaner and more efficient alliance (in other words, the freedom to cut defense spending when few are actually spending at the two percent gross domestic product mandated by the alliance); and more cooperation and balance with Russia and more consultations with international organizations like the United Nations (to limit the ability of the United States to go it alone without multilateral approval). Core Europe also wants military exercises to be “nonthreatening,” in direct opposition to Intermarum demands that the alliance reaffirm its defense commitments through clear demonstrations of resolve.
- Intermarum: The Central Europeans ultimately want NATO to reaffirm Article 5 both rhetorically and via military exercises (if not the stationing of troops); commitment to the European theater and conventional threats specifically (in opposition to the Atlanticists’ non-European focus); and mention of Russia in the new Strategic Concept as a power whose motives cannot be trusted (in opposition of Core European pro-Russian attitudes). Some Central Europeans also want a continued open-door membership policy (think Ukraine and Georgia) so that the NATO border with Russia is expanded farther east, which neither the United States nor Core Europe (nor even some fellow Intermarum states) have the appetite for at present.
The problem with NATO today, and for NATO in the next decade, is that different member states view different threats through different prisms of national interest. Russian tanks concern only roughly a third of member states — the Intermarum states — while the rest of the alliance is split between Atlanticists looking to strengthen the alliance for new threats and non-European theaters of operations and the so-called “Old Europe” that looks to commit as few soldiers and resources as possible toward either set of goals in the next 10 years.
It is unclear how the new Strategic Concept will encapsulate anything but the strategic divergence in NATO- member interests. NATO is not going away, but it lacks the unified and overwhelming threat that has historically made enduring alliances among nation-states possible — much less lasting. Without that looming threat, other matters — other differences — begin to fracture the alliance. NATO continues to exist today not because of its unity of purpose but because of the lack of a jarringly divisive issue that could drive it apart. Thus, the oft-repeated question of “relevance” — namely, how does NATO reshape itself to be relevant in the 21st century — must be turned on its head by asking what it is that unifies NATO in the 21st century.
During the Cold War, NATO was a military alliance with a clear adversary and purpose. Today, it is becoming a group of friendly countries with interoperability standards that will facilitate the creation of “coalitions of the willing” on an ad-hoc basis and of a discussion forum. This will give its member states a convenient structure from which to launch multilateral policing actions, such as combating piracy in Somalia or providing law enforcement in places like Kosovo. Given the inherently divergent core interests of its member states, the question is what underlying threat will unify NATO in the decade ahead to galvanize the alliance into making the sort of investments and reforms that the Strategic Concept stipulates. The answer to that question is far from clear. In fact, it is clouded by its member states’ incompatible perceptions of global threats, which makes us wonder whether the November Summit in Lisbon is in fact the beginning of the end for NATO.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougband...ding-alliance/Quote:
Russia’s United Nations ambassador recently proposed investigating the killing of civilians by NATO in Libya. His American counterpart, Susan Rice, complained that Moscow was attempting “to obscure the success of NATO.”
The trans-Atlantic does a great job fighting little wars. Conflicts essentially without opponents.
Some 16 years ago the U.S. and Europeans bombed the ethnic Serb forces in a three-way civil war in Bosnia. A dozen years ago the world’s most powerful military alliance took on beleaguered Serbia, the remnant of the polyglot Yugoslavian state. This year NATO challenged slightly deranged Moammar Qaddafi as he attempted to fight off armed rebels.
NATO advocate Ira Straus enthused: “The alliance is three for three.” Next up is an invasion of Monaco.
Of course, none of these incredible feats of military prowess could have been achieved without the U.S. France and Great Britain led the charge for war in Libya but found that the European members of the alliance were ill-equipped to take on even the decrepit Libyan forces. Only eight governments contributed militarily; several of them ran short of munitions. Most NATO members contributed nothing of consequence.