NATO: Time is not on allies' side in Afghanistan

If NATO countries fail in Afghanistan the alliance will eventually fail, because the sacrifice of the few countries to step up will only serve to allienate those without the will to do so!!

The alliance deserves to fail.

The only people doing the working and dying on this are the US, UK, Canada and to a lesser extent the Dutch (bless 'em!).

It’s Raison d'être was to counter the USSR. That collapsed.

This mission in Afghanistan is only carried out by the four countries I mentioned.

The rest are just well armed foreigners having the odd walk through of a souk or two before they shag the whores that are available.

Leave the half-hearted Europeans to defend themselves from the still remaining Russian threat.

Sod ‘em.

We should build a new alliance of those actually willing to defend each other and take on the bad guys and leave the French, Spanish, Germans, Italians etc to look after themselves.

After all, its what they do best.

There is a G20 for economics because too many were left out from the G8 that were real up and coming powers but NATO needs to focus on being a G7 of military readiness as it has lost focus. The expansion of NATO into ex-Warsaw pact nations is a huge mistake and a serious distraction on the primary reason for the alliance. Not to mention it ruffled a whole lot of feathers that NATO simply didn't need to pick a fight with. Afghanistan ends up bearing the brunt of that reckless expansion and lack of focus. Hardly enough was done in the 1st years and now they really need help and now sounds like the boy who cried wolf to the only nations who stepped up to begin with. Now we are talking about a seat at the table for the Taliban and simply focusing on Al Qaeda while looking at the exits. Now is the time that Canada can really cash in some chips to make or break NATO. They want our help but they don't want to change course, something must give. Harper plays his cards right he could really spearhead reform in NATO and end up with a much better seat at the table for Canada. I hope he doesn't pass it up.

EyeBrock, you have a petty decent way of saying things

NATO expansion was as much political as military, a stepping stone on the way to
full integration into Europe. 120 million people now free. Not a bad thing.

Also a good way of keeping the peace in Europe; with the exception of Yugoslavia,
Europe has been at peace.. something they had not achieved for a thousand years,
driving both the Canadian and US economies. Not a bad thing.

However, EB is also right, the Euros have become fat, weak and complacent.
The governments, I think the individual soldiers are still ok.
Telling them to sod off will accomplish nothing, and we all know that.


Perhaps it really is time for the creation of a Euro military, full of volunteers
and deployable as we are. Just put it under NATO command.

I think this a great quote from Rick Hillier in todays National Post:

Gen. Hillier also raises some gloomy concerns about NATO’s fate as it suffers from lagging soldier contributions — and he obviously lets the prose run away with his opinion.


“Afghanistan has revealed that NATO has reached the stage where it is a corpse decomposing and somebody’s going to have to perform a Frankenstein-like life-giving act by breathing some life-saving air through those rotten lips into those putrescent lungs or the Alliance will be done.”

Can Europe take care of itself yet or does it still need the help of those who left its shores centuries ago, to escape the constant conflict? Looking at the ways things are going it doesn't seem that it has any interest in savings itself so what can we do. We created a new life in a new world, so maybe it's time we got our own house in order and left the old folks to their own problems. Those who wish to leave the Old World and its old problems behind should be welcomed with open arms.

Shep, it's time Europe looked after it's own security. NATO is irrelevant and I like Scape's idea of a G7 security alliance but instead of the wimpy and self-serving Euro's, lets bring in the Aussies and Indians and maybe Brazil.

Let's bring in the regional powers that are democratic and share our general aims.

Imagine this for an alliance:

US
UK
Canada
Brazil
India
Japan
Australia-New Zealand

More contentious members would be:

Israel
South Africa

Or everybody could all just agree to mind our own f'n business. Let the Europeans worry about Europe, NA's about NA, ME about ME, .....

Or everybody could all just agree to mind our own f'n business. Let the Europeans worry about Europe, NA's about NA, ME about ME, .....

We could but things that happen to one country seem to affect the global community.

Isolationism is an option but it's an option that precipitated the First World War and the Second World War.

Its not isolationism. Its called be a good neighbour. WW1 happened because every country was acting like a child and were racing to build the biggest and most toys. With such a build up war was inevitable. It certainly wasn't isolationism but a policy of intervention on behalf of allies. If everybody was isolationist then no alliances would have been triggered.

The seeds of WW2 were sowed in WW1 with the draconian conditions imposed on Germany making the population more amiable to radicalism. Without those conditions its quite probable a man like Hitler would never have come to power. Poverty is a power motivator for people to do such things.

So far all Iraq and Afghanistan has done is further alienate us from the very people who are joining the ranks of radicalism and to fracture the very bonds of NATO, something I bet Russia and China are laughing about.

A shitload of world problems could be solved if we simply treated others like we want to be treated just as we expect it in our society.

Political isolation (minding your own business) is a great idea that only the crazy would not endorse. Further it's been tried plenty. The problem is political isolation means economical isolation. This is not an opption.

Every country is not isolationist.

Nations do not treat each other as they would like to be treated.


So your idea won't work Derby.