Stop Treating NATO as a Social Club

Members of NATO are meeting in Warsaw. They are dragging the U.S. back into its traditional role of guaranteeing the security of Europe, even though the continent is well able to defend itself. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a necessary part of Containment, preventing the Soviet Union from dominating or conquering Western Europe. But after recovering from World War II the Europeans remained dependent on America. NATO lost its raison d’etre once the Warsaw Pact disbanded and Soviet Union collapsed. Alliance officials eventually added “out of area” activities, that is, wars of choice irrelevant to Europe’s defense (Balkans, Libya, Mideast, Afghanistan). Such conflicts have wasted lives and resources with no benefit to Europe and America. Still, enabling ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and spawning chaos in Libya were better than returning to a quasi-Cold War with Russia. Vladimir Putin is a nasty character, but upon taking office he appeared to bear the West little animus. However, the allies did their best to change that, expanding the alliance up to Russia’s borders, lawlessly dismembering historic Russian friend Serbia, backing Georgia in 2008 after it started the shooting, and supporting a street putsch against an elected Ukrainian president friendly to Moscow. None of that justified the Putin government’s response, but Moscow’s ambitions have been limited. He shows no interest in conquering the NATO countries which so fear him; rather, he unsettled th...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs