Although many members of the defense establishment haven’t seemed to notice, the Evil Empire collapsed. The Soviet Union is gone, along with the Warsaw Pact. Europe is wealthier than America. Why is Washington still pushing to expand NATO?
In May, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that “We are very supportive of Georgia’s aspirations with respect to NATO.” In June NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited Tbilisi, where he said that once Tbilisi made needed reforms “the burden will be on us to live up to our pledge that Georgia will be a member of NATO.”
Alas, the biggest burden of adding Tbilisi would fall on the United States. The administration should halt the process before it proceeds any further.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created to contain Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R.’s demise left NATO without an enemy. The alliance desperately looked for new duties, finally settling on “out-of-area” responsibilities.
In essence, the alliance would find wars to fight elsewhere, such as in Afghanistan and Libya, while expanding eastward toward Moscow. That process continues today. For instance, Rasmussen declared: “Georgia’s full Euro-Atlantic integration is a goal we all share”
That’s a dumb idea. Georgia would be a security liability to the United States and Europe.