What exactly is the point of expanding NATO?

[mswas]

@unconventional

Parag Khanna wrote a must read in the NYT describing the realignment of the world into three major economic superpowers: The EU, the Unites States, and China.

must read

I’m looking it over. Here’s a good article too:
Ethnic Nationalism

[BrainGlutton]

@Declan

Regardless of what they say , Russia can be contained , but a full up EU military would be a major inconvience.

To whom?

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

To whom?

Europe

[BrainGlutton]

@unconventional

NATO expansion is a point of contention with Putin because he fears it is the forging of a new international alliance to replace the UN.

And he’ll have something to worry about there if McCain wins the WH.

But what you may not have heard is an extended critique of the kind of Commander in Chief that Captain McCain might be. To combat what he likes to call “the transcendent challenge [of] radical Islamic extremism,” McCain is drawing up plans for a new set of global institutions, from a potent covert operations unit to a “League of Democracies” that can bypass the balky United Nations, from an expanded NATO that will bump up against Russian interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus to a revived US unilateralism that will engage in “rogue state rollback” against his version of the “axis of evil.” In all, it’s a new apparatus designed to carry the “war on terror” deep into the twenty-first century.

<snip>

The UN, too, would be shunted aside to make room for McCain’s new League of Democracies. Though the concept is couched in soothing rhetoric, the “league” would provide an alternate way of legitimizing foreign interventions by the United States when the UN Security Council won’t authorize force. Five years ago, on the eve of the Iraq War, McCain said bluntly before the European Parliament that if Security Council members resisted the use of force, or if China opposed US action against North Korea, “the United States will do whatever it must to guarantee the security of the American people.” Among the targets McCain cites for his plan to short-circuit the UN are Darfur, Burma, Zimbabwe, Serbia, Ukraine and, of course, Iran–and he has already referred to “wackos” in Venezuela. According to Scheunemann, it’s an idea that bubbled up from some of McCain’s advisers, including Peters and Kagan, but it alarms analysts from the realist-Republican school of foreign policy. “They’re talking about a body that essentially would circumvent the UN and would take authority to act in the name of the international community, sometimes using force,” says a veteran GOP strategist who knows McCain well and who insisted on anonymity. “Well, it’s very easy to predict that the Russians and Chinese would view this as a threat.”

McCain seems almost gleeful about provoking Russia. At first blush, you’d think he’d be more nuanced, since many of the foreign policy gurus he says he talks to emanate from the old-school Nixon-Kissinger circle of détente-niks, including Henry Kissinger himself, Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft. Their collective attitude is that as long as Moscow doesn’t threaten US interests, we can do business with it. But there is little evidence of their views in McCain’s policy toward Putin’s Russia. “I think it’s fair to assume that he’s most influenced by his neoconservative advisers,” says the GOP strategist.

“We need a new Western approach to…revanchist Russia,” wrote McCain in Foreign Affairs. He says he will expel Russia from the Group of Eight leading industrial states, a flagrant and dangerous insult, one likely to draw stiff opposition from other members of the G-8. He refuses to ease Russian concerns about the deployment of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, saying, “The first thing I would do is make sure we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia [sic] and Poland, and I don’t care what [Putin’s] objections are to it.” And he’s all for rapid expansion of NATO, to include even the former Soviet republic of Georgia–and not just Georgia but also the rebellious Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Since Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17, which was opposed by Russia, Moscow has said it intends to support independence of the two Georgian regions, making McCain’s goal of expanding NATO provocative, to say the least. “McCain says [NATO] ought to include Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are not under the control of the current Georgian government,” says a conservative critic of the Arizona senator. “Which, if not a prescription for war with Russia, is at least a prescription for conflict with Russia.”

[BrainGlutton]

@mswas

It’s a bit naive to think that the global market and NATO are not linked.

They are linked only to the extent that NATO deters war and war interrupts trade.

But the Russians don’t want their access to the global market interrupted any more than we do. NATO is no threat to their interests in that regard. Nor is Russia any threat to our interests in that regard. Same reasons.

[Declan]

@unconventional

I don’t understand why Russia needs to be contained. It isn’t a military threat. The Russian oligarchs are more concerned about the global market than NATO. Putin’s new Russia isn’t going to make the same mistakes made by the former Soviet Union, nor is the EU going to alienate Putin because almost half of EU’s oil comes from Russia.
NATO expansion is a point of contention with Putin because he fears it is the forging of a new international alliance to replace the UN.

This is the same country that went from being everyones best buddy after the wall went down and yeltsin faced down the tanks, to Putin who has restarted bomber flights that skirt various countries just to prove the New and improved USSR is still a threat and we better take em seriously.

So effectively , as long as they have a power projection capability coupled with strategic nukes then they are going to be concidered a threat.

The difference now is that they are a low level threat that cant accomplish much compared to their former glory, but in ten years that could change.

Declan

[Ocean_Annie]

@BrainGlutton

And he’ll have something to worry about there if McCain wins the WH.

I hope McCain doesn’t win this election, not only because of the dismal domestic situation, but also because the U.S. needs a skilled leader to repair critical international relations.
Mswas, thank you for the article. I haven’t finished reading it but plan to tonight – rather this morning.

Putin wants peaceful and cooperative relations with his neighbors and the world, but he also believes that Russia needs to control its destiny. Putin doesn’t want to feel marginalized from international allegiances, especially those in his back yard. Americans may dislike or even fear Russia because of the Soviet specter or because of Putin’s mockracy and aggressive posturing, but the Russian elites want to thrive economically not assert military dominance. As expected, Bush isn’t going to win his NATO push.

Angela Merkel has opposed the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine into the NATO alliance. Upon her arrival in Bucharest shortly before the start of the NATO summit, she announced that Germany was convinced that it is still too early to include the two states in the action plan for membership. At the same time, however, she made it clarified, “It is undisputed that both countries have the prospect of joining.” The door remains open.

US President George W. Bush has often urged that Georgia and the Ukraine be included in the alliance. “We must make clear that NATO welcomes their efforts toward membership and will offer them a clear path toward their goal,” he said. Bush advocated that NATO accept both the former Soviet republics into the MAP (Membership Action Plan). German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned, however, against straining relations with Russia, which opposes membership of both countries.

Berliner Morgenpost

Bush was driven by the simple, egotistical desire to make one last attempt to deliver his message of democracy and freedom to the world. Bush did this in a confrontational and undiplomatic manner; he ignored the fact that the last round of NATO expansion worked only because Russia was involved.

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

They are linked only to the extent that NATO deters war and war interrupts trade.

But the Russians don’t want their access to the global market interrupted any more than we do. NATO is no threat to their interests in that regard. Nor is Russia any threat to our interests in that regard. Same reasons.

And Russia is not a threat because of NATO. The threat of war is deterred because there is a multilateral response team poised to halt Russian advance into Europe.

[Declan]

@BrainGlutton

What are the odds of the latter happening anyway? Movements to establish a European Defense Force have got nowhere so far.

As long as the USA in involved with NATO the odds that a separate force in being , as opposed to a paper force is very slim to none.

With America backing Europe , the smaller nations got a decent defense for very little outlay. With the reduction in the soviet threat and the new world reality , the defense alliance should have gone more eurocentric in outlook back in the nineties, but the dithering remained and Kosovo became desert storm redux.

In twenty years from 90 to 2010 the Europeans could have had a federal force in being , with national armies being reduced to a hybrid national guard, with a clear command structure and enough time to work out the bugs and placate the various egos in France , Germany and England for the same benifit that they receive from NATO , without the threat of being involved in a nuke shootout they have no control over.

@BrainGlutton

To whom?

At the very least a Federal European defense force is going to have a made in europe policy regards to defense purchases, so instead of a single nation choosing to buy F16s , a federal tax would have an amortized buy of a fleet of rafales or typhoons , or even migs with western electronics for that matter.

Declan

[Ocean_Annie]

@mswas

And Russia is not a threat because of NATO. The threat of war is deterred because there is a multilateral response team poised to halt Russian advance into Europe.

Nah, I disagree. Economic collapse and the ten years of unimaginable chaos that followed ended any future Russian aggression. Putin brought Russia back from the dead. He is the CEO of Russian recovery. Now, wealth is controlled by a handful of powerful elites who wield influence. They are not willing to trade wealth and privilege for Russia’s military or regional supremacy.

[mswas]

@unconventional

Nah, I disagree. Economic collapse and the ten years of unimaginable chaos that followed ended any future Russian aggression. Putin brought Russia back from the dead. He is the CEO of Russian recovery. Now, wealth is controlled by a handful of powerful elites who wield influence. They are not willing to trade wealth and privilege for Russia’s military or regional supremacy.

Ummm…Economic collapse happened because of the arms race and brinksmanship that it had with uh…NATO.

[mswas]

To add to that, they are not willing to trade for military supremacy because military supremacy is difficult to achieve because of well…NATO.

[Ocean_Annie]

To add a comment about the missile defense shield, I think there is a connection between the defense shield and Nicolas Sarkozy’s speech to Congress. In his speech, Sarkozy did say that Europe should be able to defend itself. Europeans are afraid of terrorism, which also explains the apparent trade off of shield for troops in Afghanistan.