John R. Schindler is a strategist, author, and commentator whose security-focused career has included a couple decades as both a scholar and practitioner. Previously a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught courses on security, strategy, intelligence, terrorism, and military history, before joining the NWC faculty, he spent nearly a decade with the super-secret National Security Agency as an intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer. There’s not much he can say about that, except that he worked problems in Eastern Europe and the Middle East with a counterespionage flavor, and he collaborated closely with other government agencies who would probably prefer he didn’t mention them. He’s also served as an officer specializing in cryptology (now called information warfare for no particular reason) in the U.S. Navy Reserve. Read his full bio here: http://20committee.com/about/
End of NATO??
NO...
But a realignment of NATO is entirely possible.
NATO? That’s so “Cold War”. Uhhh, wait.
Active Duty ping.
Both Putin and Obama want it to end.
Army: noun - a group of armed men who retify the mistakes of diplomats.
The Balkan front in the 1990's exposed NATO once and for all as a paper alliance, unwilling to take action on its own doorstep. It took Willie Clinton, of all people, to finally put some iron on some targets. Even then he arguably hit the wrong side.
The current attempts to avoid dealing with Russia simply underscore the fact that the "moral collapse" of Europe has been severe. Whether they are beyond resuscitation remains to be seen. As for NATO, it is already an expired fiction.
NATO is simply security theater. Expanding it to include 28 nations, with such pro-western stalwarts as Albania and Turkey, made it a bureaucratic paper tiger. It gave the socialists of the West a fake security blanket, to continue running their welfare states into the ground - which actually makes it more dangerous, because its bound to be proven to be sham soon. And then what? After the Cold War, NATO should have been disbanded, with the USA rather establishing alliances with the UK and Germany.
NA TO effectively ended when Turkey denied the flyover in the 90-91 war against Iraq. A lot of people were just too damned shocked at the time to believe what was happening before their eyes.
The stupid ones remain in denial to this day.
Let Europe defend itself ... or ... let it be overrun!
There’s been a virtual blackout of news coverage on this significant conference with the exception of the postings here in FR.
The conclusion Schindler comes up with may be escapeable but it is a harbinger of problems within NATO over the very concept the organization was organized to confront; Russian expansion.
In Ukraine’s case you had it’s spokesman presenting irrefuteable evidence of Russian involvement beside the invasion and seizure of the Crimea receiving a toilet paper condemnation from the major powers in Europe .But a refusal to offer the necessary military equipment to defend their territory from furthur aquisition not only by the US but Germany and France. It’s taken a change in political partys in the US to change that. Will the same happen in Europe ?
NATO is seen correctly in Russia as anti-Russian alliance.
Hence the Kremlin’s devotion of vast resources to rebuilding Russia’s armed forces.
NATO is a relict of the Cold War and has continued the Cold War policy to “contain” Russia.
Which of course Moscow seeks to thwart.