[QUOTE=Diceman]
Also, now that the Soviet Union is gone, you need to ask yourself: why the hell does NATO still exist? Russia figures, correctly, that Western Europe still feels threatened by them, and is trying to create a “shield” of WE-allied countries around Russia.
[/QUOTE]
NATO continued to exist after the fall of the Soviet Union because it works pretty well as an intergrated organisation that has taken years of tinkering,adapting and member states armed forces training and working together under a unified command structure with efficient communications between the various air/sea and land units.
Even when they dont agree on policy the countries involved work well together politically.
Something this good does not get thrown away merely because starry eyed liberals and the usually undeclared agents of less then benign national blocks portraying themselves as nothing more then concerned citizens say so.
Before we compare the Warsaw Pact with NATO let us remember that it was entirely a Soviet Union commanded,policy driven organisation with the occupied vassal states of E.Europe only there to supply troops and material,bases and funding without any decision making capability permitted whatsoever.
Unlike NATO where the member states are independant and make their own political decisions,decide how much they are prepared to spend,what equipments etc they are going to supply and can even leave the treaty organisation whenever they wish to without the fear of the other treaty nations invading their country.
In many ways it serves the functions that the U.N. was supposed carry out but which instead became mostly a talking shop that the better off nations pay for and the poorer nations use as a device to try to squeeze more money out of.
And lets not forget that NATO allowed the WW2 ENEMY nations(Austria and Germany)their freedom not too long after the end of the war whereas The Soviet Union continued an often brutal occupation of FRIENDLY nations(Poland/Czech etc.) right up until the collapse of the USSR so the old chestnut about the West trying to “surround” the S.U.was pretty nonsensical then and ref. Russia just as much now.
At the end of the war we had nuclear weapons and they didn’t so if we had had any agressive intentions we could have taken them out quite easily as an economic/military force without too much difficulty,without huge losses and there was very little that they could have done about it.
As far as I know the West never had a single plan to make a ground/air assault on the Eastern Bloc before the War Pact had actually attacked Western Europe,not even as a spoiling attack,whereas the WP had several serious not brainstorming plans.
The ONLY reason that they never put any of those plans into effect was because the Wests response would have cost them dearly and the prize would have been smouldering,radioactive ruins.
Not because of any ethical or moral constraints.
And frankly if for some bizarre reason we DID decide that we coveted their territory!The result would have been global nuclear war.
But why am I talking about the S.U. when it no longer exists?
Because it seems that the aggressive political and military stategy back then was NOT as we thought part of the Marxist/Leninist long term goal to spread Socialism to the exploited masses worldwide.
But judging by their behaviour in recent years it seems to be a Russian Nationalist/Imperialist mind set.
All emotion and pride without any genuinlly logical aim at the end of it.
Bullying and attention seeking on the international stage for its own sake.
We should thank god that we didn’t dissolve NATO because the Russian Federation would be running riot now if they still had the big stick and we were defenceless.
Now they’ve planted a flag on the seabed as an attempt to claim the Arctic Ocean I wonder what they want to grab next?
