As one who lives in Germany, I confess to a degree of schadenfreude on observing moments of apprehension among my German neighbors over Ivan. Just yesterday a Ukrainian refugee of our acquaintance came to our door and was terribly apprehensive about the future of her country to which she is terrified to return. She concedes the Crimea is lost and questions whether the eastern provinces will also go. She is certainly concerned for the Western part of Ukraine.
If Obama's fecklessness has done anything good it has been to begin to alert Europeans to the need to see to their own defense. They are clearly a day late and a dollar short but the direction at least has changed.
The downside of NATO for the United States is much like our commitments to countries like Korea and to some degree Israel, they commit us to making wars on behalf of smaller countries which might lead to nuclear conflagration, would certainly cost us a fortune in dollars, and might well generate considerable casualties with uncertain chances of victory. In effect, we give away power over our foreign policy and even mortgage our right to make or to refrain from making war.
It is a very dangerous policy in the nuclear age to make the United States hostage or a tripwire to deter tyrants. We should identify core national strategic interests and make firm alliances with those nations, like Great Britain, who are pivotal to our survival.
Germany remembers all to well the wall that divided the two countries, and; many of them recall riding on the river only to have East German patrol boats come with ten yards or so of the imaginary medium/talwig. I walked the main street in Berlin in 1968 before departing for Vietnam. My father was a NATO Rep then. The Germans will never let the Russians on their terrain again. Older Germans still recall some who picked through our garbage cans in 1957 looking for food/anything of value. Many do not know that much of Germany in the cities was still bombed out/damaged in certain areas in the late 50’s. In fact, Germany is taking a tougher stance then Obama.
Germany remembers all to well the wall that divided the two countries, and; many of them recall riding on the river only to have East German patrol boats come with ten yards or so of the imaginary medium/talwig. I walked the main street in Berlin in 1968 before departing for Vietnam. My father was a NATO Rep then. The Germans will never let the Russians on their terrain again. Older Germans still recall some who picked through our garbage cans in 1957 looking for food/anything of value. Many do not know that much of Germany in the cities was still bombed out/damaged in certain areas in the late 50’s. In fact, Germany is taking a tougher stance then Obama.