@whiskey:
Very interesting contrast between East-Euro’s adopting a “trip wire” collaboration with us (USA) or choosing to independently rearm. I think “Nukin’ Czar Putin” is making the second option appear awfully risky, unless we give them enough cover to get away with it.
Enough cover” presupposes an American (USA) committment which must presume a non-proliferation commitment by our protectees in return.

At least, so one might expect in a semi-rational world.

As far as the Euro Far West being utterly hapless goof-balls (or is that goofs without?), well, that is the real news out of Afghanistan, as seen in the hot retorts by a US commander cited in that article. NATO is simply no longer even remotely a military alliance. It is no economic or political cooperation sphere, either.

NATO is nothing. Worse than nothing, NATO is a falsehood.

Well, Lord Putie sees this and leaps. Georgia buys a few hours respite, Bush wakes up, NATO grunts quietly, and Putie has to pause. Why?

Well, then Poland gets the USA to give up the Patriots. How “destabilizing”. NATO farts quietly. Is this the official beginning of NATO’s effective dissolution?

I, for one, hope so, if only because gouty old John Bull might yet awaken at 15 seconds before midnight, and hustle his weary bones the h*** out of the EU.

Then an Anglospherian Alliance could be free to support the East-Euro’s, the Black Sea States, and a Caspian-Central Asian Trade Consortium.

As for the Frenchies, their Belgian mothers and the Sauer Krauts, well, let them try Islamic welfare, if they can get it. We should keep a few applications on hand or our brand of welfare, too…just in case.