Posted on 03/27/2014 3:54:03 PM PDT by Mariner
Will Putin call NATO's bluff?
The Russian invasion and rapid absorption of the Crimean peninsula might seem like the spark ready to ignite a new Cold War. In fact, given the feeble Western response so far, the more likely outcome is not the division of Europe once more between NATO's Western alliance and a neo-Soviet Russia, but rather the fracturing and ultimate demise of NATO and the Western alliance itself.
Of course, no one expects the West to use military force to protect Ukrainian territory, despite the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which Russia, the U.S., and the U.K. guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for its relinquishing the nuclear weapons that remained on its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet even the Russians now seem surprised, indeed somewhat amused, by how disunited and weak the Western response has been. So what comes next?
Having demonstrated to the Ukrainians with his Crimean excursion the emptiness of Western guarantees...
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
You don't think the Congress and the American People are going to get a vote in that?
It's one thing for the professionals to talk of the essential need to honor the treaty but it's a whole nuther ballgame when it comes to an actual fight.
I thing it unlikely Congress would quthorize military force to protect Estonia. Very unlikely.
No. We have no business fighting over Narva than we have over Crimea. What strategic interest do we have there? None as far as I can see.
Few Americans even know who the VP is.
I agree, when US weakness is combined with European weakness, NATO will wither on the vine and will soon be little more than a parlor joke.
Sadly. It was once the bulwark of civilization.
We have been talking about Narva for weeks here. Looks like somebody is reading FR. LOL.
You have fun with that.
I bet "peace thru strength" will not be the answer by more than a few here. And that peace thru retreat and appeasement will be the answer.
Besides Estonia is way over there, they will say.
This could be fun, ...for undertakers.
A lot of people would say this is exactly why NATO should not have been expanded eastward. We find ourselves on the hook defending tiny countries no one cares about. The original NATO made sense. The new one doesn’t.
the vast majority of Americans are either too stoned or drunk to read the question, let alone know that estonia was a country or where it was.
we’ve got a nation of drooling half wits demanding the competent 20% pay for everything they need
I agree. Wars start over such miscalculations.
What if it is not just Estonia? What happens if it is all the Baltics and Poland at the same time? We live in interesting times.
That’s what happens when libs control the schools.
No one will ever die over Narva.
NATO is a bloated organization without nowhere near the resources to adequately defend every member country.
We would do well to drop every country east of Germany and get back to NATO’s core mission of defending the West, which is sustainable.
A NATO of 28 is far less credible for Western security than a NATO of 12.
The Russians can take over the Baltics in 48 hours. It would’t be a close contest. We have nothing with which to stop them and the Cold War Tripwire is gone. And if Russia re-annexed those countries, we wouldn’t instigate World War III over it.
NATO guarantees are so much p*ss*ng in the wind and we know it and Moscow knows it. At the moment the Kremlin doesn’t want to bite off more than it chew.
If the original NATO made sense then an expanded NATO makes sense.
And if there is any country worth defending in the expanded NATO it's Estonia.
Peace thru strength (dare I say).
I’m at the point where i have a serious problem bringing myself to pay for their support
And how do you propose we do it?
We’re cutting our military to the bone and there is no political constituency in the EU for higher defense spending.
NATO is a sad joke under the current circumstances. And we’d be fighting a war on terrain advantageous to the Russians.
I am one of those who disagreed with the eastward expansion of NATO. By aggressively recruiting former Soviet satellites, the formerly defensive alliance shifted to offense by planting its flag on Russia's doorstep -- and then attempting to flank its "former" enemy and seize its sole year-round warm water outlet. The aggressive expansion also diluted NATO's franchise, reducing the small, united and committed alliance to a large and disparate gaggle with less in common and fewer shared interests.
NATO is a sad joke under the current circumstances. And we’d be fighting a war on terrain advantageous to the Russians.
Hardly. It’s simple op to defend the Baltics. Put up some air defense. Then deploy an armored brigade and some of the 173rd Airborne from Italy. Pansy Putin won’t do a thing with a credible NATO force on station. His no insignia homo army would be crushed immediately if they tried to play games inside a NATO country.
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