Skybird
06-06-08, 04:10 AM
Good arguments pro and contra the NATO alliance.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,druck-557914,00.html
I disagree with the Pro-essay's reference to the East-movement of NATO, and the realistic potential of NATO to project "war-solid" ground power outside Europe. From a russian perspective, NATO sitting at it's gate necessarily is a most valid strategic threat, within and beyond the immediate military context, and necessarily also must raise fears from lessons learned in the past, which disturb the water of solid and realistic strategic concerns with emotional ballast even more. And on ground force projection, the main contingent are american troops, and these prove to be dangerously stretched already, and having demotivated the next generation of future recruits, while driving old hands of professional skill and experience away (Army ranks around Captain and Major, also Sergeants, and pilots). Many other NATO nations lack meaningful transport capacities and would depend on foreign nations for logistics, even if not engaging in huge war action, which for example is true for the Germans in Afghanistan whose airmobile mobility and possible emergency evacuation is totally at the mercy of other'S wellmeaningness. If anything, then Afghanistan is the one story that shows more then anything else the end of solidarity, strategic insight, and future vision and orientation of the alliance's purpose
The contra-essay rightly points out that too many cooks spoil the brew, and that there is no consensus on why NATO is still there, and what it should be there for in the future. That the "OSCE-ization" of NATO, as the author puts it, should be desirable, is something I halt my applaus for. I estimate total stagnation and inability to act and come to decsions and results, but plenty of foul compromise, and potentially opposing factions gaining access to our decsion making regarding the use of OUR ressources and potentials - much like we saw things detoriating in the UN. Do we need more of that? Simple answer: No. I have no trust in international mega-organizations like that - again: too many cooks spoil the brew.
For me, both the EU and NATO consists of far too many member states watering both ideas down, and making it almost impossible to form decisions and agendas on issues where nobody gets a free ride, and all share the same burdens and benefits, without creating a long rat tail of special rules for special memebers, and appendices, and exceptions, and individual special ways, a list that often is longer than the original general decision that was being made (or better: was not made). That only boosts the dictatorship of the bureaucrats, lets any solid vision, goal and ideals fade away into the mist of relativised meaninglessness, and creates no exquisite delicate dinner, but only a pot of feature-less grey-green brew into which everything has been thrown into. I do not buy it that there is an oligation of NATO or the EU must or should want to accept everybody as a memeber just because he wants that. The newcomer has a right to ask wether or not he can join and would be accepted. And both organisations have had the right and freedom to say No. Bigger is not always better. And in fact: very often it is not. But regarding the size of NATO and the EU, the damage now has been done. And especially regarding the EU, living with it proves to be more and more annoying, and damaging to our democracies.
In the end the one truth remains that today's wars are too expensive to wage them for aristocrat'S entertainement and philanthropic arguments of defending humanism only, but are only battled out for solid economical payoffs coming from the aimed outcome of the war. and this will be even more the case in the future than it has already been the case in the imminent past. Otherwise, huge wars can no longer be afforded. As noble-prize economist Stiglitz pointed out: calculating all the follow on costs of the Iraq war results in a conservatively calculated numer of 3 trillion dollar so far, with multiple billions (a mean of 12 billion) in costs per future month. He said that the more realistic, less conservative calculation probably is as high as around 5 trillion. And that already is several months ago again.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,druck-557914,00.html
I disagree with the Pro-essay's reference to the East-movement of NATO, and the realistic potential of NATO to project "war-solid" ground power outside Europe. From a russian perspective, NATO sitting at it's gate necessarily is a most valid strategic threat, within and beyond the immediate military context, and necessarily also must raise fears from lessons learned in the past, which disturb the water of solid and realistic strategic concerns with emotional ballast even more. And on ground force projection, the main contingent are american troops, and these prove to be dangerously stretched already, and having demotivated the next generation of future recruits, while driving old hands of professional skill and experience away (Army ranks around Captain and Major, also Sergeants, and pilots). Many other NATO nations lack meaningful transport capacities and would depend on foreign nations for logistics, even if not engaging in huge war action, which for example is true for the Germans in Afghanistan whose airmobile mobility and possible emergency evacuation is totally at the mercy of other'S wellmeaningness. If anything, then Afghanistan is the one story that shows more then anything else the end of solidarity, strategic insight, and future vision and orientation of the alliance's purpose
The contra-essay rightly points out that too many cooks spoil the brew, and that there is no consensus on why NATO is still there, and what it should be there for in the future. That the "OSCE-ization" of NATO, as the author puts it, should be desirable, is something I halt my applaus for. I estimate total stagnation and inability to act and come to decsions and results, but plenty of foul compromise, and potentially opposing factions gaining access to our decsion making regarding the use of OUR ressources and potentials - much like we saw things detoriating in the UN. Do we need more of that? Simple answer: No. I have no trust in international mega-organizations like that - again: too many cooks spoil the brew.
For me, both the EU and NATO consists of far too many member states watering both ideas down, and making it almost impossible to form decisions and agendas on issues where nobody gets a free ride, and all share the same burdens and benefits, without creating a long rat tail of special rules for special memebers, and appendices, and exceptions, and individual special ways, a list that often is longer than the original general decision that was being made (or better: was not made). That only boosts the dictatorship of the bureaucrats, lets any solid vision, goal and ideals fade away into the mist of relativised meaninglessness, and creates no exquisite delicate dinner, but only a pot of feature-less grey-green brew into which everything has been thrown into. I do not buy it that there is an oligation of NATO or the EU must or should want to accept everybody as a memeber just because he wants that. The newcomer has a right to ask wether or not he can join and would be accepted. And both organisations have had the right and freedom to say No. Bigger is not always better. And in fact: very often it is not. But regarding the size of NATO and the EU, the damage now has been done. And especially regarding the EU, living with it proves to be more and more annoying, and damaging to our democracies.
In the end the one truth remains that today's wars are too expensive to wage them for aristocrat'S entertainement and philanthropic arguments of defending humanism only, but are only battled out for solid economical payoffs coming from the aimed outcome of the war. and this will be even more the case in the future than it has already been the case in the imminent past. Otherwise, huge wars can no longer be afforded. As noble-prize economist Stiglitz pointed out: calculating all the follow on costs of the Iraq war results in a conservatively calculated numer of 3 trillion dollar so far, with multiple billions (a mean of 12 billion) in costs per future month. He said that the more realistic, less conservative calculation probably is as high as around 5 trillion. And that already is several months ago again.