Posted on 08/07/2014 9:51:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
ISTANBUL -- April marked the 65th birthday of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, formed at the height of the Cold War to stop the huge postwar Red Army from overrunning Western Europe.
NATO in 1949 had only 12 members, comprising Western Europe, Canada and the United States. Its original mission was simple. According to the alliance's first secretary general, Lord Hastings Ismay, NATO was formed "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."
Western Europeans were terrified of the Soviet Union, which had just gobbled up all of Eastern Europe. They feared that the American army would go home after World War II, just as it had after World War I, consistent with its isolationist past. And the war-torn democracies were scared that Germany might quickly rebound to prompt yet another European war for the fourth time in less than a century.
Sixty-five years later, the Cold War has been won and has now been over for a quarter-century. Germany is quite up. The Russians are not so out. America seems not to want to be in anywhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
To this day it baffles me that Turkey ever for in
I think they jumped the shark somewhere around Libya.
In the 70’s, and into the 80’s, NATO was a Military Organization that could counter any conceivable threat.
When Clinton’s “Peace Dividend!” came around in the early 90’s, it became a political org, not a military one. Euro countries downsized their militaries beyond all common sense, because they believed the liberal BS that there would never be another threat again, and wouldn’t the money be better spent giving voters FREE STUUFF!
Now, “NATO” exists pretty much in name only, with the only real military organization belonging to the U.S.
Things are going to get real interesting with NATO when ISIS attacks Turkey, maybe not in the immediate future, but it’s coming.
When Russia retakes the Baltics, Nato will die.
“So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause.” ....................
>> Russia retakes the Baltics, Nato will die.
Nah, I’m betting that while Obama dithers, the French will lead a coalition of mighty Yurpeans that will man up and stop ‘em in their tracks.
Looks like it already has.
They own the Dardanelles, which kept the Soviet Black Sea Fleet bottled up.
Things are going to get real interesting with NATO when ISIS attacks Turkey, maybe not in the immediate future, but it’s coming.
Turkey is a Supporting ISIS
Ismay’s comment was repeated by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and not so approvingly, either. But given the option of having the Russians in, Kohl wasn’t going to throw the Americans out.
I believe Erdogan supports ISIS.
NATOs justification for existence ceased with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The existence of NATO was politically possible only with the existence of a hostile Soviet Union dominating the land behind the Iron Curtain. However, when the Warsaw Pact disintegrated, NATO decided to dilute itself with expansion into eastern Europe. That would have been OK so long as the political will existed to keep the clamps on Russia.
That political will evaporated with the end of Soviet communism, and with it, NATOs existence continued simply because it always had. It never repurposed itself.
Without US muscle and money NATO barely qualifies as a Paper Tiger let alone as an effective military force.
They own the Dardanelles, which kept the Soviet Black Sea Fleet bottled up.
I believe we could have kept them bottled up without Turkey. And their Baltic/North Sea fleet would never get out into the Atlantic. Their Pacific fleet has one major base at Vladivostok and we could easily take that one out. That leaves their Northern fleet and I believe our subs and airpower could keep that one in check. I’ve never considered the Russian fleet a “true” threat. Whatever did get to open waters wouldn’t last long with our hunter subs.
??? Why would ISIS attack Turkey if Turkey supports ISIS? Both ISIS and Turkey are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims. And Turkey is ramping up its rhetoric against Israel in support of Hamas - another Sunni dominated group.
The Shia in Iran/Iraq/Syria/Lebanon(Hezbollah) are still fighting for supremacy over the Sunni in Saudi Arabia(Wahhabists)/Egypt(Muslim Brotherhood)/Turkey/Pakistan/Afghanistan(Al Qaeda)/Iraq(ISIS)/Syria(ISIS).
NATO has become the military arm for European and global banking interests.
“I’ve never considered the Russian fleet a “true” threat. Whatever did get to open waters wouldn’t last long with our hunter subs.”
It was never designed to be. The Soviet Navy was/is still largely a “fire-And-Forget” weapon, with the mission of sea lane interdiction, not control.
Wonder if Turkey will ask us to help.
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