Because small countries fear the Russian Bear.
Pray for these people and their small countries. They have lived thru communism before.
AUSTRIA, IRELAND, MALTA, SWITZERLAND
Along with our 2 new members it is also other neutral countries, including Austria, Ireland, Malta, and Switzerland urging NATO to boost cooperation amid Russian aggression.
“Neutral countries, including Austria, Ireland, Malta, and Switzerland, have proposed that NATO deepen cooperation, including expanding participation in military exercises and intelligence sharing in the WEP4 format, amid Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, according to Die Presse.
At the end of December last year, diplomats from four neutral countries sent a letter to NATO proposing to expand cooperation.
Representatives of the neutral countries made specific proposals to deepen ties with the Alliance, ranging from increased participation in exercises to privileged access to documents and information. In particular, Austria, Ireland, Malta, and Switzerland intend to increase intelligence sharing and establish cooperation in the areas of cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, and the fight against new disruptive technologies.”
This is why NATO has expanded.Because small countries fear the Russian Bear.
And now small countries do not fear the Russian Bear, and poke the Russian Bear?
Has NATO expansion in violation of the Russian Monroe Doctrine worked? Has the U.S. Monroe Doctrine worked for the Americas?
The United States dictates to the little countries on two continents that they shall not be permitted to allow any foreign military dominion upon their sovereign territory.
Black's Law Dictionary, 11th Ed., 2019
Monroe Doctrine. (1850) The principle that the United States will allow no intervention or domination in the Western Hemisphere by any non-American country.
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Polk Doctrine. Int'l Law. The principle by President James K. Polk that the Monroe Doctrine (dating from 1823) remained sound and that the United States would oppose any European interference in North America. Cf. MONROE DOCTRINE.
Below is the Polk Doctrine, reaffirming and extending the Monroe Doctrine, from Polk's First Annual Address to Congress of December 2, 1845.
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-2-1845-first-annual-message
[excerpt]
It is well known to the American people and to all nations that this Government has never interfered with the relations subsisting between other governments. We have never made ourselves parties to their wars or their alliances; we have not sought their territories by conquest; we have not mingled with parties in their domestic struggles; and believing our own form of government to be the best, we have never attempted to propagate it by intrigues, by diplomacy, or by force. We may claim on this continent a like exemption from European interference. The nations of America are equally sovereign and independent with those of Europe. They possess the same rights, independent of all foreign interposition, to make war, to conclude peace, and to regulate their internal affairs. The people of the United States can not, therefore, view with indifference attempts of European powers to interfere with the independent action of the nations on this continent. The American system of government is entirely different from that of Europe. Jealousy among the different sovereigns of Europe, lest any one of them might become too powerful for the rest, has caused them anxiously to desire the establishment of what they term the "balance of power." It can not be permitted to have any application on the North American continent, and especially to the United States. We must ever maintain the principle that the people of this continent alone have the right to decide their own destiny. Should any portion of them, constituting an independent state, propose to unite themselves with our Confederacy, this will be a question for them and us to determine without any foreign interposition. We can never consent that European powers shall interfere to prevent such a union because it might disturb the "balance of power" which they may desire to maintain upon this continent. Near a quarter of a century ago the principle was distinctly announced to the world, in the annual message of one of my predecessors, that—The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for colonization by any European powers.
This principle will apply with greatly increased force should any European power attempt to establish any new colony in North America. In the existing circumstances of the world the present is deemed a proper occasion to reiterate and reaffirm the principle avowed by Mr. Monroe and to state my cordial concurrence in its wisdom and sound policy. The reassertion of this principle, especially in reference to North America, is at this day but the promulgation of a policy which no European power should cherish the disposition to resist. Existing rights of every European nation should be respected, but it is due alike to our safety and our interests that the efficient protection of our laws should be extended over our whole territorial limits, and that it should be distinctly announced to the world as our settled policy that no future European colony or dominion shall with our consent be planted or established on any part of the North American continent.
Grant's Corollary
https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1927012000
The doctrine promulgated by President Monroe,” he said, “has been adhered to by all political parties, and I now deem it proper to assert the equally important principle that hereafter no territory on this continent shall be regarded as subject to transfer to a European power.
And then there was the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/roosevelt-corollary
[Excerpt, Theodore Roosevelt’s Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1904]
Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Monroe_Doctrine
President John F. Kennedy said at an August 29, 1962 news conference:
The Monroe Doctrine means what it has meant since President Monroe and John Quincy Adams enunciated it, and that is that we would oppose a foreign power extending its power to the Western Hemisphere [sic], and that is why we oppose what is happening in Cuba today. That is why we have cut off our trade. That is why we worked in the OAS and in other ways to isolate the Communist menace in Cuba. That is why we will continue to give a good deal of our effort and attention to it.