No, I was not.
It's a question the American people ought to be studying on right now. We may be faced with a choice to walk away from NATO or expel Russians from Estonia.
It COULD happen. Putin smells blood in the water and I can't see him not being anxious to take another bite.
There's really no need for US ground forces to get involved. We'd shoot down anything the Russians sent up, and recreate the highway of death for Russian ground forces in Estonia, with the help of Baltic ground forces. In a way, it would be similar to the Korean and Vietnam Wars, where Russian pilots went up against US pilots over the skies of Korea and Vietnam. Nobody's going to use nukes. We wouldn't and the Russians certainly wouldn't, not over a failed invasion of Estonia, any more than Stalin used nukes while we were fighting in Korea.
Article 5 of the NATO Washington Agreement:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.
Article 5 is at the basis of a fundamental principle of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked. This is the principle of collective defense.
If the US "walks away" from NATO, we are finished. You can expect China to go after Taiwan. Japan will no longer be able to depend on the US nuclear umbrella nor will South Korea be safe.
We had no problem with Article 5 during the Cold War. Why would we back down now?
“It COULD happen. Putin smells blood in the water”
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The problem is that the territories that are being disputed were part of the SSR, unlike the other countries of Communist dominated central Europe, such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc.
The worlds a bitch when your leader is a bitch.
What are we going to do in that circumstance?
Unleash the nukes? Not happening.
Deploy our armored divisions?
Nope, now only deployed at 15% of our 1989 troop levels, and we have closed hundreds of bases and radar stations.
I believe that we have 40,000 or so troops left in Germany but a large number of that are not combat troops.
The average EU country spends 1.7% of GNP on defense and they are in the middle of military drawdowns.
England does have about 20,000 troops left in Europe.
War? Hardly, unless you are going to use strategic nukes.
On this, I agree with you.