As for NATO obligations regarding the 9-11 attacks, I could never figure out why ALL of NATO was not immediately mobilized to invade Afghanistan. It was a clear attack on a member nation which, by charter, had to be answered by EVERY member nation.
NATO started to die with the Serbian war, where it attacked a nation that was not even threatening a NATO member. It expired on 9-11.
It really is tiresome to try to make these comparisons. How many Canadians were lost in Iraq? Vietnam? The Canadians have been sitting on the sidelines for over 50 years and now we must listen to them huffing and puffing about losing 116 personnel in Afghanistan. As a veteran, I respect the individual sacrifice, but I really don't like the Canadians whining about their suffering disproportionate casualties even more than the Anericans in Afghanistan. In the WOT, which includes Iraq, the US has suffered far more even allowing for the population difference.
The US has suffered disproportionate casualties and contributed disproportionately more resources to the defense of the Free World since the end of WWII. Canada's reduction in its defense forces to 65,000 active duty members and contributing just 1.1% of its GDP to defense, 132nd in the world, is a cruel joke. And the head of the Canadian army wants the army to take a year off beginning in 2011 from operational duties.
NATO started to die with the Serbian war, where it attacked a nation that was not even threatening a NATO member. It expired on 9-11.
NATO started dying after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has been dying a slow death because the members, except for the US, have been cutting defense expenditures in order to support their aging welfare states. It was a luxury they could afford because the US was picking up the tab. The Europeans couldn't even pull off defeating the Serbs in their own backyard without the US taking the lead.