Posted on 02/26/2010 3:26:58 AM PST by Scanian
European leaders were shocked this week when Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a NATO audience that the alliance faces a "crisis" because the continent has largely demilitarized. Why the surprise -- have they been in a coma?
Europe's free defense ride -- thanks to the rock-solid US security guarantee within the NATO alliance -- has been a problem for decades. Taking the US protective umbrella for granted, the continent has raided defense budgets to cover its ever-growing welfare bills.
Just four of NATO's European members (Bulgaria, France, Greece and Britain) spend the alliance's recommended benchmark of 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. Just 2.7 percent of Europe's 2 million military personnel were deployed overseas in 2007, reflecting badly on NATO's 1999 pledge to engage in important "out of area" operations.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Like the U.N., NATO has long outlived its usefulness and needs to be disbanded.
ISAF=I Saw Americans Fighting
Our NATO allies aren’t fighting enough so you want to disband the alliance completely so we won’t have any allies at all? Your “solution” to the problem is worse than the problem itself.
NATO never was much of an alliance. We get more support from the former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics than we do Western Europe. So screw the Euroweenies-—disband NATO.
Those former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet Republics are now part of NATO. Disband NATO and we will be screwing them, our friends, not the "Euroweenies" in the west.
Disband NATO, make separate treaties with Eastern European countries and Georgia. Problem solved.
We can't afford it anymore.
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