[Bubba_Leroy]

NATO is a joke and Putin knows it.

[Vendome]

And NATO still says no, as they don’t want to get into a war with Russia.

Uhmmmm....WTF is NATO for, if not to protect its interests?

Pussies....

[SeeSharp]

Europe pretty much did the same thing to Turkey and now they too are moving into the problem column.

[nathanbedford]

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.

[Objective Scrutator]

When you consider that the socialist EU and the US seem to be willing to capitulate entirely to Islam, and also consider that Putin is at least somewhat willing to deal with Russia’s Muslim problem (although, unfortunately, not on the level of Stalin), it may just be in the Crimea’s interests to ally with Russia over the EU. NATO seems to be more than willing to help out Islam spread across the world like the cancer it is.