Oh good grief:
Nato needs to reform into a global alliance against Islamic terrorism – or become obsolete
That's the title of the article. The suggestion is, to use a technical term, stupid.
NATO needs to focus on its core mission of protecting NATO Europe from threats, whether from Russian tanks, terrorists, or migrants from the south.
The fight against Islamic terrorism is a nice bonus created by well-trained European military forces used to working with each other and America under common standards and procedures that the alliance requires.
NATO nations have been and are taking part in anti-jihadi operations without this new and improved NATO that downgrades defense of the continent itself.
UPDATE: Stratfor discusses Europe and NATO, which lost the simple mission of stopping the Soviets when the USSR collapsed.
Our problem is really with Europe and not with NATO:
In the end, there is no NATO problem. There is a European problem. A European consensus on defense does not exist any more than a consensus on economics does.
So even the political arm of Europe, the European Union's proto-imperial state, can't agree on goals. And the political arm works at cross purposes to the military arm, NATO.
As far as I'm concerned, the solution isn't for Europe to get a military arm under the EU that weakens NATO. What good does that do when the EU can't agree on political goals; and when such a program would weaken the NATO military arm without building a real replacement?
For me, the solution is to get rid of the EU political arm that can't be effective unless it becomes the autocratic empire it clearly wants to be with their "ever closer union" vision.
The continued existence of NATO with a strong America involved at least makes sure that European states continue to maintain common weapons and operating standards to work together on a volunteer basis outside of NATO.
And to be prepared to defend Europe from a Russia that could develop a military threat to NATO or to react to a threat from the south, as Libya was in 2011. Sure, that didn't work out so well as a means to stop a migrant wave to Europe, but European states were able to operate together because of NATO habits.
