you seem to miss the point.
the alliance was created for a specific purpose — once that purpose was no longer needed, then the alliance should have been disbanded or majorly shrunk back.
You need two to tango, and if one side knocked down the wall and offered an olive branch to genuinely have an East meets West mindset, then there is no need for NATO.
but 30 years later AFTER the fall of the wall, it’s still expanding??????????
seems like one side wasn’t interested in the tango.
The last thing we need are billion dollar budgets involved in humanitarian efforts.
Official NATO founding charter -
Pop quiz, hotshot. Count how many times Russia, or Soviet, appears ANYWHERE in it.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm
You’ll find NONE. Because the entire point of NATO was to create a subset of the United Nations WITH A MUTUAL DEFENSE CLAUSE.
The primary threat at the time was the Soviet Union, but there was nothing in the charter to limit its mission to ONLY the Soviets.
And even if it had done, the end of the Soviet Union allowed ALL states formally in the Soviet Union to join the club if they so wished.
At one point, Putin even entertained the idea of joining the club. Unfortunately, as we can see with his flagrant disregard for UN Charter principles, he disqualified Russia from joining.
Because signatories to the NATO alliance have to abide by these three paragraphs:
“The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.”
Russia doesn’t believe in any rules-based world order other than its own - and has said so at the UN. It’s only because of some idiotic oversight during the formation of the UN that Russia hasn’t already been kicked off the Security Council, and some would not be unhappy if it were booted out of the General Assembly.
“They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area.”
There’s literally not a single word of that, that Putin can reasonably be expected to comply with. He’s a rampant ethnonationalist with fascist mates, running an authoritarian regime where even calling his war a war can get you fifteen years in prison.
“They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.”
Russia keeps saying that it wants demilitarisation of NATO. Well, then Russia has disqualified itself from membership of NATO.
NATO is a powerful organization/bureaucracy. Bureaucracies don't willingly cut back, shrink, disband, or dissolve.
And like all successful alliances between free countries, NATO manifests not just common self-interest but bonds of respect and sentiment that ought not to be discarded because they might seem uneeded in mankind's all too infrequent eras of peace.
Recall, for example, an incident that occurred shortly after the 9/11 attack. An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the Winston Churchill, was off the British coast when a nearby German destroyer, the Lutjens, approached to bid farewell to the NATO ally she had been training with.
As is naval custom, the Churchill’s crew manned the rails and port bridge wing to wish their foreign comrades well. As the Lutjens pulled alongside, the Star Spangled Banner was flying with the German flag at half-mast and the crew at the ship’s rails in their blue dress uniforms. As both vessels steamed alongside each other with sailors rendering honors with crisp salutes, a banner came into view on the German warship: “We Stand by You.”
NATO has its faults, but it is an extraordinary achievement that has joined former enemies together and become a key to peace and security in Europe. As it was, NATO support and expansion helped vulnerable post-communist democracies in East Europe to reform and consolidate politically and to establish new militaries with NATO standards. After the 9/11 attack, NATO countries supported US counter-terror operations, with Britain and even Poland participating in the invasion of Iraq. Germany sent units to help the US in Afghanistan.
Most of all, NATO expansion eastwards came at the urging of the new member countries eager to have effective military allies against post-Soviet Russian aggression. This seems wrong of course if one assumes like Putin that Russia has a right to dominate and rule over her neighbors. I do not. And since Russia kept and updated the massive Soviet era nuclear arsenal aimed at the US and renewed the USSR's anti-American political alignments and activities, I am all for sticking it to Putin and Russia.
As for Scott Ritter, his pro-Iraq and pro-Saddam statements came after he got into legal trouble and became friendly with and received loans that were never paid back from an Iraqi businessman. Funny how that works, with dollops of cash so often seeming to trigger changes in political alignment and point of view.
More broadly, there is a sucker's argument at work here. Really, does the Leftism and globalism of the EU make NATO unworthy to oppose thuggery by Russia and Putin against Ukraine? Some conservatives seem to think so, just as there are conservatives -- yes, I'm talking about you, Pat Buchanan -- who seem to toss hearts and flowers toward Hitler and Nazi Germany because America was led in WW II by the reviled FDR, with the UN a result of the Allied victory.
As always, one must be careful not to take up a point and argue it past the limits of good sense. Maybe NATO expansion was ill-chosen -- I disagree -- but NATO expansion does not in any way validate Putin and Russia in attacking Ukraine. On balance, events have proven NATO's expansion eastwards to be not just correct but perhaps too timid.
Stronger NATO ties with Ukraine might have deterred Putin to general good effect. Even Putin now regrets the attack on Ukraine and must boil with fury about how sly America and NATO are in seeming lethargic until some line has been crossed that triggers action.