Saturday, December 26, 2009

NATO Isn't Enough?

While I was rather upset that we pulled the rug out from underneath the Poles (especially) by cancelling the Bush-era plans for missile defense in Eastern Europe, I thought the Obama administration had at least since then made efforts to make up for that sense of abandonment with new commitments and new plans.

Apparently, the Poles aren't fully confident that NATO membership will protect them from a potentially aggressive Russia (from my Jane's email updates):

Poland and China have signed an inaugural military agreement in a bid to improve bilateral relations in the defence sphere. The accord was signed on 16 December between Poland's Minister of National Defence, Bogdan Klich, and his counterpart Liang Guanglie during Klich's visit to China, according to a statement released by the Polish Ministry of National Defence. Among the areas for future co-operation are implementing international treaties in the fields of defence, security and arms control; military education and training military personnel; military medicine; and science and military research ...

This is a worrying sign about the credibility of NATO as a security organization. If Poland--or Georgia or Ukraine--seek to join the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation instead of staking their future on NATO--you'll know the alliance is just the most massive collection of military muscle that won't ever be used to defend anyone ever to exist.