Fresh from his last NATO meeting, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel today warned that there is a growing division within the alliance along a north-south axis.
Hagel saw the problem as two-fold, and seemed to blame southern member nations on both counts, saying the north wants to focus on “the growing threat from Russia,” while southern nations are worried about Northern Africa.
That’s a big, obvious division, but Hagel also saw a problem in that many of the nations with less gargantuan militaries believe the alliance can only handle a war with one or the other, while Hagel assured it was a time for unity and heavy military investment so NATO could fight a whole bunch of conflicts at once.
Ultimately, this split reflects the reality that NATO hasn’t had a “unified threat” since the Cold War ended, and keeping the alliance around for the sake of hostility toward whoever the US is riled up against at any given time is making less and less sense.
Let's hope he's right and that the division ends up dividing NATO in two and then in little pieces.
but who would protect them when putin aka hitler aka chengis khan aka ivan the terrible aka the mummy aka vlad the impeller aka jason the chainsaw wielding maniac attacks them. TELL ME
heh…round up all the warmongers in Congress and the think tanks of neocons and Israeli-Firsters (might as well clear the scum out completely) and ship them to the front lines – wherever that might be – and as they deplane, slap a desert eagle .50 cal into their hands, give them each 200 rounds, slap them on the ass and wish them good luck and then close the door and leave.
I agree. Time for the think tank brigade to ship out in real tanks.
It's time for Americans to get their nose out of the Ukraine…
That would be fine were it not for the fact that the problem was created by Americans sticking their nose into Ukraine in the first place. In everyday life, if you damage something belonging to someone else, you have to make good the damage. All the Ukrainians are asking is that the US make good the damage Victoria Nuland did to them while acting in her official capacity as an Assitant Secretary of State (amazingly, she's still in office!).
So NATO should be able to fight a thermonuclear war with Russia and colonize Africa at once.
The split is actually east-west, not north-south. The eastern members have very bad memories of Soviet occupation and have no wish to repeat the experience. The western members have a problem with third world immigration. The combination of Putin and Charlie Hebdo has been to bring them together in the realisation that they can only meet both threats by sticking together. That has enormously consolidated the EU and will undoubtedly lead to some sort of European defence system, including Russia but excluding the US, and the consequent winding up of NATO. None of that will be possible until Putin leaves office (which the astrologers are still predicting for this summer!). He has utterly destroyed his credibility by tearing up the Helsinki Final Act. Ultimately, the Russian Federation, a dinosaur from the colonial era, will no doubt follw the Soviet Union into the proverbial dustbin of history, with the 30 million subject peoples getting their independence and the ethnic Russian part becoming the EU's largest Member State, rather than the second smallest BRICS country, as it is now. Better to be a big fish in a small pond that the reverse!