“Forget NATO. What are the leaders of France, Germany and England saying?”
NATO is, if not the cause, certainly the enabler of this war. When Germany vetoed Georgia’s admission to NATO (something I hadn’t picked up until I read this BLOG), NATO in effect gave Putin a green light to anything he wanted to do in Georgia and the other former Soviet republics. There was much hand-wringing in Europe and abroad about the relevancy of NATO during the post-Yugoslavian civil wars. If NATO couldn’t keep the peace in Europe’s own backyard, of what use was NATO at all.
Well, now we have a situation where a fellow European nation, a new democracy at that, asked for admission to the “big club”, pledged to put it’s blood on the line in defense of Europe proper (and to actually spend the money to do it). NATO said “Nein”, and now Georgia is probably a province of the reconstituted USSR.
NATO is dead. NATO had the opportunity to open it’s doors before; not it’s too late to save NATO. The U.N. has been a corpse for probably 50 years. The issue isn’t whether the U.S.A. should remove herself from these useless dead-weight alliances, but whether it’s profitable to remain. If the U.N. doesn’t promote “world peace” (however that might be defined), NATO doesn’t guarantee the freedom and survival of free European states, and neither track closely with American interests, we need to be out of both organizations and “in” to more relevant alliances. We can no longer waste time or resources on NATO.
America must lead. Bush needs to assemble a new “coalition of the willing” in Europe, a new NATO (e.g. NATO2). Potential NATO2 applicant countries include Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine and of course, Turkey, plus a few I missed. NATO was formed post-WWII as a bulwark against Russian aggression. Admission was based on need, not on the ability to contribute. Old Europe need not apply. (However, if Germany does apply, route their application to Georgia first for comment.) On the other hand, France being the contrarian (and opportunist) that it is, might just be the first European country to join.
Again, America must lead. No one else will (unless you count “peace” loving Putin’s Russian, Venezuela’s Chavez, or Ahmadinejad’s IRAN). NATO2 will not be “toothless”. The member states will remember Russia’s unkind acts more so than old Europe. They will arm. They will defend. Hungary will not forget. Poland will not forget. The former Czech states will not forget. Georgia will never forget.
And, Russian will take notice. Putin may pick off an “easy” target on Russia’s border, but the prospect of facing Hungarian, Polish, and Czech F16′s and F22′s, as well as a European embargo on Russian goods and oil, will curb his appetite.
Nothing else will change Russia, other than a credible threat of force and realization of economic pain.
For now, unfortunately, the Georgian’s will likely face their fate by themselves. While I’d personally be thrilled to see the USAF and USN aircraft challenging Russian air superiority and reducing Soviet (oops “Russian”) tank columns, in fact, anything the West now does is probably too little, too late. The Georgian’s may yet pull an Israeli-stype 1948-1956-1967 miracle. I wish them well. The next best thing the West can do for Georgia is to make certain Russia pays an economic and military price Putin cannot afford.
Putin may grab Georgia. A NATO2 embargo will kick his micro-sized gonads up into his throat. Hopefully, our friends the Georgian’s will make him choke on his prize.
And yes, to echo RWE’s sentiments, it’s high time to get our own house in order, to drill, build nuclear plants, mine oil shale, coal, as well as develop all those pretty new “clean” technologies which are probably 50 years from being economically viable. We no longer have the luxury to listen to Gore’s children’s fairy tale of global warming “not-science”. Men with guns are at the gates, and they are after the women, the children, and everything else we hold dear.
