How to deal with Russia after its war with Georgia in August has become a key issue for NATO, whose defence ministers met in Budapest on October 9th. America wants the alliance to drop its taboo on making contingency plans to defend members that feel threatened by Russia, such as Estonia.
Excuse me? NATO has a taboo against making plans to defend its members from a Russian threat? Not that I think that NATO is in danger of a Russian drive west, but this is outrageous.
Amidst all the cries about the danger of extending NATO's security guarantees east, we collectively decided that we'd extend the guarantees east but not extend east the actual basis for making good on those guarantees? What kind of rock-pounding stupidity is this? When did NATO just become a geographic term?
I guess I know why we don't have anything in place even remotely like REFORPOL to defend our eastern allies. Our old European allies have forgotten that NATO is a military alliance. Or at worst, Old Europe has decided that NATO is a two-tiered alliance after all, with the nouveau-Nato countries just not our kind of people, if you know what I mean.
Heck, what could possibly go wrong by placing our Eastern European friends outside our defensive perimeter?
