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NATO isn't what you think it is

Westphalian

Westphalian

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Stephen Walt, celebrated Professor of International Relations at Harvard, enunciates what is increasingly obvious to thoughtful people. NATO has made some terrible mistakes in the post cold War era.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/26/nato-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/


NATO expansion was a mistake. Really.

If Trump is mostly confused about NATO, its most ardent defenders remain committed to a set of truisms and dogmas that were questionable when first advanced and have become less and less defensible with time. Chief among these myths is the idea that NATO expansion would create a vast zone of peace in Europe and give the alliance a new and lofty purpose in the wake of the Cold War.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way. For starters, NATO expansion poisoned relations with Russia and played a central role in creating conflicts between Russia and Georgia and Russia and Ukraine. It’s not the only reason, of course, and I’m not saying Moscow’s responses were legal, proper, justified, or based on an accurate perception of NATO’s intent. I’m only suggesting that Russia’s response was not surprising, especially in light of Russia’s own history and the George H.W. Bush administration’s earlier pledges not to move NATO “one inch eastward” following German reunification. The architects of expansion may have genuinely believed that moving NATO eastward posed no threat to Russia; unfortunately, Russia’s leaders never got the memo (and wouldn’t have believed it if they had).

Furthermore, expanding NATO increased the number of places the alliance was formally obligated to defend (most notably the Baltic states) but without significantly increasing the resources available to perform that task. Once again, proponents of expansion assumed these commitments would never have to be honored, only to wake up and discover they had written a blank check that might be difficult to cover. And we now know that expansion brought in some new members whose commitment to liberal democracy has proved to be fairly shallow. This situation may not be a fatal flaw, insofar as NATO has tolerated nondemocratic members (e.g., Turkey) in the past, but it undermines the proponents’ claim that NATO is a security community based on shared democratic values and an essential element of a liberal world order.
 
I honestly think NATO ought to be disbanded. Theyre serving as nothing but a military intervention force by the West now, and have nothing to do with their original intent, which was to be a defensive organization.
 
PoS said:
I honestly think NATO ought to be disbanded. Theyre serving as nothing but a military intervention force by the West now, and have nothing to do with their original intent, which was to be a defensive organization.
Click to expand...

I think so too.

They've outlived their purpose and they've become a coercive force. That's not a good thing.
 
Not to gripe about any of the individual points (countries raised) since the address of some of them makes sense (IMO Georgia does, Ukraine not so much).

However:

There's this constantly repeated myth over the Bush administration’s earlier pledges not to move NATO “one inch eastward” following German reunification. When in fact there have never been political or legally binding commitments, let alone written declarations, of the West not to extend NATO beyond the borders of a reunified Germany.

That having been said, the German foreign minister of those times (Genscher) made precisely such a promise of non-expansion, even if verbally only.

Now one may argue that nothing in writing means nothing and that a German foreign minister is not authorized to speak for the whole of NATO anyway. Nevertheless one cannot deny that a general diplomatic disaster occurred at the time, leading to the disparate convictions prevailing on both "sides" today.

Here's an interesting article from the German "Spiegel", straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

NATO's Eastward Expansion: Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow? - SPIEGEL ONLINE

as we tend to say, "nuthin' is all that cut'n dried".
 
PoS said:
I honestly think NATO ought to be disbanded. Theyre serving as nothing but a military intervention force by the West now, and have nothing to do with their original intent, which was to be a defensive organization.
Click to expand...

That was not its original intent. That was only the official presentation. Like the Martial Plan, NATO served as a pulling mechanism that tied Western European countries financially and militarily to the U.S. against communism. From this NATO provided an enduring vehicle for American influence into Europe. The Soviet Union, with its overwhelming ground forces, unnecessarily created the Warsaw Pact for this same reason. It was to deny Eastern Europe the ability to request U.S. economic aid and to turn them towards Moscow.

As Afghanistan showed, NATO still serves a purpose, both as an international military/political unifier and as a vehicle of influence into local governments. Trump has shown this bit by insisting on trying to dictate European member economic qualifiers out of their GDPs.

It is a matter of geoeconomics (something we do poorly anymore while everybody else is doing well) and geopolitics.
 
PoS said:
I honestly think NATO ought to be disbanded. Theyre serving as nothing but a military intervention force by the West now, and have nothing to do with their original intent, which was to be a defensive organization.
Click to expand...
Well, that'll depend on how the Kremlin behaves in future. An invasion of the Baltic States for instance would constitute exactly that kind of defensive action that NATO was made for.

I personally don't see anything of that sort happening but then what do I know?

What I also don't know is whether one could rule out such a move (by the Kremlin), if the current deterrent didn't by now exist. Protecting Russian citizens seems to be a convenient excuse these days (see Eastern Ukraine, for one) and there are quite a few Russians still spread thruout "the Baltics". With the Kaliningrad Oblast being even more of a Russian exclave than Crimea (was).
 
MSgt said:
As Afghanistan showed, NATO still serves a purpose, both as an international military/political unifier and as a vehicle of influence into local governments.
Click to expand...
The only thing Afghanistan has shown is that the whole debacle has become a prime recruitment tool for terrorist attacks against the West.
 
PoS said:
The only thing Afghanistan has shown is that the whole debacle has become a prime recruitment tool for terrorist attacks against the West.
Click to expand...
Now imagine what a hot bed it would really be without NATO forces there, what with many IS fighters having meanwhile fled to Absurdistan from Iraq and Syria.

One also needs to note that there was no Western military presence (US and/or others) in either Iraq or Absurdistan, yet 9/11 happened anyway.

The argument of our fighting them bringing them new recruits gets a bit worn with time. They don't really need a reason and if they can't find any, they make one up.
 
PoS said:
The only thing Afghanistan has shown is that the whole debacle has become a prime recruitment tool for terrorist attacks against the West.
Click to expand...

Oh, is that the "only" thing Afghanistan shows?

Back to my point and the issue, Afghanistan also shows that NATO is not obsolete; and as Trump has demonstrated even though his poor coercion abilities, NATO is still a vehicle for American influence into Europe.
 
MSgt said:
That was not its original intent. That was only the official presentation. Like the Martial Plan, NATO served as a pulling mechanism that tied Western European countries financially and militarily to the U.S. against communism. From this NATO provided an enduring vehicle for American influence into Europe. The Soviet Union, with its overwhelming ground forces, unnecessarily created the Warsaw Pact for this same reason. It was to deny Eastern Europe the ability to request U.S. economic aid and to turn them towards Moscow.

As Afghanistan showed, NATO still serves a purpose, both as an international military/political unifier and as a vehicle of influence into local governments. Trump has shown this bit by insisting on trying to dictate European member economic qualifiers out of their GDPs.

It is a matter of geoeconomics (something we do poorly anymore while everybody else is doing well) and geopolitics.
Click to expand...

Using Afghanistan as an example (poster child?) for NATO effectiveness is ridiculous.
 
Westphalian said:
Stephen Walt, celebrated Professor of International Relations at Harvard, enunciates what is increasingly obvious to thoughtful people. NATO has made some terrible mistakes in the post cold War era.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/26/nato-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/


NATO expansion was a mistake. Really.

If Trump is mostly confused about NATO, its most ardent defenders remain committed to a set of truisms and dogmas that were questionable when first advanced and have become less and less defensible with time. Chief among these myths is the idea that NATO expansion would create a vast zone of peace in Europe and give the alliance a new and lofty purpose in the wake of the Cold War.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way. For starters, NATO expansion poisoned relations with Russia and played a central role in creating conflicts between Russia and Georgia and Russia and Ukraine. It’s not the only reason, of course, and I’m not saying Moscow’s responses were legal, proper, justified, or based on an accurate perception of NATO’s intent. I’m only suggesting that Russia’s response was not surprising, especially in light of Russia’s own history and the George H.W. Bush administration’s earlier pledges not to move NATO “one inch eastward” following German reunification. The architects of expansion may have genuinely believed that moving NATO eastward posed no threat to Russia; unfortunately, Russia’s leaders never got the memo (and wouldn’t have believed it if they had).

Furthermore, expanding NATO increased the number of places the alliance was formally obligated to defend (most notably the Baltic states) but without significantly increasing the resources available to perform that task. Once again, proponents of expansion assumed these commitments would never have to be honored, only to wake up and discover they had written a blank check that might be difficult to cover. And we now know that expansion brought in some new members whose commitment to liberal democracy has proved to be fairly shallow. This situation may not be a fatal flaw, insofar as NATO has tolerated nondemocratic members (e.g., Turkey) in the past, but it undermines the proponents’ claim that NATO is a security community based on shared democratic values and an essential element of a liberal world order.
Click to expand...

Yeah, NATO is anti-Russian.

When Russia tries to throw it's weight around those nasty NATO types keep stopping it doing what it wants to in other people's countries. Nasty NATO!

Russia; You LOST the cold war. Your empire will never be great again.
 
Chagos said:
Now imagine what a hot bed it would really be without NATO forces there, what with many IS fighters having meanwhile fled to Absurdistan from Iraq and Syria.

One also needs to note that there was no Western military presence (US and/or others) in either Iraq or Absurdistan, yet 9/11 happened anyway.

The argument of our fighting them bringing them new recruits gets a bit worn with time. They don't really need a reason and if they can't find any, they make one up.
Click to expand...

Well, one of the big problems is that our Foreign Policy is wrong headed. It does not identify the Middle East's true issue. We are trying to fix broken bones with band-aids, thus the problem simply festers. Al-Qeada, IS, and Boko Haram are symptoms of decay that we do not want. The Arab Spring is symptom of decay that we failed to support.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Using Afghanistan as an example (poster child?) for NATO effectiveness is ridiculous.
Click to expand...

That's because you missed the point.

The point is not whether or not Afghanistan turned into heaven on earth.

The point is that NATO responded and gave what was already a legitimate retaliation even more legitimacy with the stationing of multilateral forces under Western command. When it comes to seeking military support, it is far easier to coerce NATO than it is to create a UN force.

And using Afghanistan as the example comes with the fact that it happened after a decade of argument on whether or not NATO needed to exist and the first tie it activated outside of Europe to represent more of a global force.
 
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Chagos said:
Now imagine what a hot bed it would really be without NATO forces there, what with many IS fighters having meanwhile fled to Absurdistan from Iraq and Syria.

One also needs to note that there was no Western military presence (US and/or others) in either Iraq or Absurdistan, yet 9/11 happened anyway.

The argument of our fighting them bringing them new recruits gets a bit worn with time. They don't really need a reason and if they can't find any, they make one up.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, there would not have been an ISIS had the Coalition not invaded Iraq.

And if you read up on Bin Laden's motives- the reason why 9/11 happened is because of US troops in Saudi Arabia stayed after the first Gulf War, so yes, the West has been meddling in that region for decades- whether by direct military force or by other means, and it eventually led up to that.
 
MSgt said:
That's because you missed the point.

The point is not whether or not Afghanistan turned into heaven on earth.

The point is that NATO responded and gave what was already a legitimate retaliation even more legitimacy with the stationing of multilateral forces under Western command. When it comes to seeking military support, it is far easier to coerce NATO than it is to create a UN force.

And using Afghanistan as the example comes with the fact that it happened after a decade of argument on whether or not NATO needed to exist and the first tie it activated outside of Europe to represent more of a global force.
Click to expand...

When (not if) an enemy force with absolutely no air or naval power and using a rag tag, at best, army can manage not to be defeated by the most powerful military force (alliance?) on the planet in less than 17 years then that is a very bad example of NATO effectiveness. Far too many have come to accept that having a 'military presence in the region' is the same as having control or assured victory if we 'stay the course' and 'pull together and show unity' in some strategic planning meetings.
 
MSgt said:
That's because you missed the point.

The point is not whether or not Afghanistan turned into heaven on earth.

The point is that NATO responded and gave what was already a legitimate retaliation even more legitimacy with the stationing of multilateral forces under Western command. When it comes to seeking military support, it is far easier to coerce NATO than it is to create a UN force.

And using Afghanistan as the example comes with the fact that it happened after a decade of argument on whether or not NATO needed to exist and the first tie it activated outside of Europe to represent more of a global force.
Click to expand...


By 'global force' you mean NATO operated outside Europe.

But by most objective measures, Afghanistan has been a military defeat for NATO. 17 years later the Taleban still control large swathes of the country, the Afghan army remains weak and prone to defection, and the Taleban are suppressed only by the US holding operation.

Afghanistan never had any threat impact on the security of NATO states, and it still doesn't. If you argue that it fostered 9/11, those same forces are still there and in that sense nothing has changed.

Afghanistan is now a mill-stone round NATO's neck. Far from enhancing its reputation, or providing a reason for its existence, it has done neither. In any case, the NATO operation there is overwhelmingly a US one, more than ever, and after 17 years of 'surges' and withdrawals and expensive but futile 'nation building', it's all getting rather embarrassing.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Yeah, NATO is anti-Russian.

When Russia tries to throw it's weight around those nasty NATO types keep stopping it doing what it wants to in other people's countries. Nasty NATO!

Russia; You LOST the cold war. Your empire will never be great again.
Click to expand...


Interestingly, of course, it hasn't.


Not that Georgia or Ukraine were NATO members, but your claim is not supported by any tangible evidence, and the only evidence that is available attests to the fact that NATO has never engaged Russia.
 
That's funny comrade, I thought Russia's behaviors poisoned the U.S. relations with Russia.

- their essentially being an organized crime ring at the time, corrupt to the core, with fake elections, state run media
- their penchant for killing the free press...enemy of the people
- overtly poisoning opposition with incredible rare and spectacular methods to show it was both Russia, and was fearless
- illegally occupying Crimea against Ukraine/UN/US
- And the latest, meddling in our election and putting Trump into office in the U.S.
- their nuclear power

Claiming all of that is due to NATO, would be absurd.
Ukraine was ready to join, but it poisoned our relationship with them? lol. Still just Russia, which is really just Putin, the wealthiest man in the world.

And you mean to tell me new NATO members might take a while to adopt a more western style approach to policy/governance? Well, yeah, things of that sort do in fact take time.

Russia would love nothing more than the U.S. to abandon NATO. That's all that's going on here. Elitists Republicans who know Putin is the richest person in the Universe, want to get a piece of that big energy money pie, and know they are in unique positions to do so, if they can just improve U.S. relations with Russia...they both allow it to occur, and it's quid pro quo for having done so. Open your eyes.
 
Westphalian said:
Stephen Walt, celebrated Professor of International Relations at Harvard, enunciates what is increasingly obvious to thoughtful people. NATO has made some terrible mistakes in the post cold War era.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/26/nato-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/


NATO expansion was a mistake. Really.

If Trump is mostly confused about NATO, its most ardent defenders remain committed to a set of truisms and dogmas that were questionable when first advanced and have become less and less defensible with time. Chief among these myths is the idea that NATO expansion would create a vast zone of peace in Europe and give the alliance a new and lofty purpose in the wake of the Cold War.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way. For starters, NATO expansion poisoned relations with Russia and played a central role in creating conflicts between Russia and Georgia and Russia and Ukraine. It’s not the only reason, of course, and I’m not saying Moscow’s responses were legal, proper, justified, or based on an accurate perception of NATO’s intent. I’m only suggesting that Russia’s response was not surprising, especially in light of Russia’s own history and the George H.W. Bush administration’s earlier pledges not to move NATO “one inch eastward” following German reunification. The architects of expansion may have genuinely believed that moving NATO eastward posed no threat to Russia; unfortunately, Russia’s leaders never got the memo (and wouldn’t have believed it if they had).

Furthermore, expanding NATO increased the number of places the alliance was formally obligated to defend (most notably the Baltic states) but without significantly increasing the resources available to perform that task. Once again, proponents of expansion assumed these commitments would never have to be honored, only to wake up and discover they had written a blank check that might be difficult to cover. And we now know that expansion brought in some new members whose commitment to liberal democracy has proved to be fairly shallow. This situation may not be a fatal flaw, insofar as NATO has tolerated nondemocratic members (e.g., Turkey) in the past, but it undermines the proponents’ claim that NATO is a security community based on shared democratic values and an essential element of a liberal world order.
Click to expand...

I believe the UN and NATO are flawed because of the one world philosophies and policies so many emerging national leaders hold to which are substantially anti-American at their core. The emerging communist and socialist views of American democrats, however, are not frequently in conflict with the emerging world views which do not allow for American patriotism and individualism.
 

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ttwtt78640 said:
When (not if) an enemy force with absolutely no air or naval power and using a rag tag, at best, army can manage not to be defeated by the most powerful military force (alliance?) on the planet in less than 17 years then that is a very bad example of NATO effectiveness. Far too many have come to accept that having a 'military presence in the region' is the same as having control or assured victory if we 'stay the course' and 'pull together and show unity' in some strategic planning meetings.
Click to expand...

Again, I stated absolutely nothing about effectiveness or how to fight in Afghanistan. NATO's use in Afghanistan comes with the fact that it involves Afghanistan. Afghanistan itself is another matter, and that was not the point. If we want to start dabbling in conversations about limited warfare, one reason why we failed in Vietnam, Iraq, and in Afghanistan, then we can move on to that topic.

But NATO's use in Afghanistan is the point. It is not obsolete, and still functions as a coercive vehicle for U.S. relations in Europe. Merely blasting on it because we want to play an America First game is shallow and misses the entire point on why NATO exists in the first place.
 
Westphalian said:
By 'global force' you mean NATO operated outside Europe.

But by most objective measures, Afghanistan has been a military defeat for NATO. 17 years later the Taleban still control large swathes of the country, the Afghan army remains weak and prone to defection, and the Taleban are suppressed only by the US holding operation.

Afghanistan never had any threat impact on the security of NATO states, and it still doesn't. If you argue that it fostered 9/11, those same forces are still there and in that sense nothing has changed.

Afghanistan is now a mill-stone round NATO's neck. Far from enhancing its reputation, or providing a reason for its existence, it has done neither. In any case, the NATO operation there is overwhelmingly a US one, more than ever, and after 17 years of 'surges' and withdrawals and expensive but futile 'nation building', it's all getting rather embarrassing.
Click to expand...

Again, "defeat" is not the point. The U.S. military was defeated in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet, the U.S. military remains relevant...or is there now no reason for its existence? The point, again, is that NATO is useful.
 
MSgt said:
Well, one of the big problems is that our Foreign Policy is wrong headed. It does not identify the Middle East's true issue. We are trying to fix broken bones with band-aids, thus the problem simply festers. Al-Qeada, IS, and Boko Haram are symptoms of decay that we do not want. The Arab Spring is symptom of decay that we failed to support.
Click to expand...
No quarrel with any of that, I quite agree.

I was merely addressing the (partial) aspect that if we had chosen not to go after AQ or IS, they'd not have become any more peaceful either.
 
PoS said:
With all due respect, there would not have been an ISIS had the Coalition not invaded Iraq.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah? (with equal respect :)). I seem to remember that IS originated as AQ in lraq, IOW as a branch of a terrorist network that already existed. And I'll come to what you state on that now
And if you read up on Bin Laden's motives- the reason why 9/11 happened is because of US troops in Saudi Arabia stayed after the first Gulf War, so yes, the West has been meddling in that region for decades- whether by direct military force or by other means, and it eventually led up to that.
Click to expand...
If I read up on OBL I see that his motives were not linked to the staying of US troops but to the fact that they were there at all.

Also, as far as I remember, the West didn't invade Kuwait at the time, it was Iraq.

Beyond which I agree with the assessment of meddling. Since and even before WWI.
 
Afghanistan is not a NATO defeat.. it is a US defeat.

NATO agreed to goto Afghanistan to train up a new police and military because the US said that the Taliban were defeated. Denmark, Canada and others agreed to send NATO troops into Hellmand because the US said it had defeated the Taliban.

Reality was the US was over extended and need it's troops in Iraq and lied to get NATO into an offensive action in Afghanistan. For that lie Denmark suffered the most casualties of any nation per capita and I will never forgive the Bush administration for this.

What NATO has been trying to do for years now is to get out of the mess created by the US and it's lack of focus.

Sendt fra min SM-N9005 med Tapatalk
 
quite frankly i don't want a Independent Scotland to be part of NATO, NATO is a pact that is bonded in conflict, when it bombed Yugoslavia it lost all legitimacy
 
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