Is NATO Defensive?

In April of 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed…..it was suppose to be a defensive move to block the Western expansion of the USSR after they engulfed most of Eastern Europe.

In the beginning a US Senator was opposed to the creation of NATO….

Sen Robert Taft (R-OH)…..made his thoughts known…..

Sen. Robert Taft arguing against the creation of NATO: “The building up of a great army surrounding Russia…means inevitably an armament race, and armament races in the past have led to war…[NATO] will do far more to bring about a third world war than it ever will to maintain the peace.”

Damn a very prophetic thought on the function of NATO…..

Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union more countries…..today there are 30 member states and others waiting for approval…..

File:NATO Members and Dates of Accession.jpg

Advertisement

13 thoughts on “Is NATO Defensive?

    1. I agree….but He had to run against Eisenhower for the nomination….and that close to the end of WW2 he did nit stand a chance…..sadly chuq

  1. For context this was interesting….
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing#:~:text=NATO,-Weapons%20provided%20for&text=Of%20the%20three%20nuclear%20powers,of%20NATO's%20nuclear%20sharing%20policy.

    Apparently the nuclear sharing is in the form of bombs that are deliverable from aircraft (that are in theory vulnerable to being shot down), and not missile systems, nor even tactical nukes from what I can determine. And all of it is under American security control.

    I believe NATO in Afghanistan was in response to the first time NATO members invoked Article 5 (the “Musketeer” thing) as a result of America being attacked on 9/11. It wasn’t some arbitrary escapade to join the U.S. in Afghanistan. I am not aware that any nukes of any kind were deployed in Afghanistan for any reason.

    NATO involvement in Kosovo was assigned as a humanitarian intervention as a result of Milosevic was into some genocide thing (interesting comparison to Ukraine now) and refugees were heading into neighboring countries in a mass exodus. China and Russia vetoed any UN involvement.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia#:~:text=The%20North%20Atlantic%20Treaty%20Organisation,1999%20to%2010%20June%201999.

    “In 1991, as the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent a letter to NATO, suggesting that Russia’s long-term aim was to join NATO.”

    Yet…

    “Russia engaged in hostile threats or actions against Moldova/Transnistria (1992–2016); Georgia (2004–2012); Estonia (2006–2007); Ukraine (2014–present); Syria (2015-present), and Turkey (2015–2016), among others.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#:~:text=The%20NATO%20Secretary%20General%2C%20Manfred,aim%20was%20to%20join%20NATO.

    Given what NATO initiated in Kosovo, they seem to have real restraint regarding Ukraine even if only for the idea that Putin could be nuts enough to use chemicals or nukes.

    It’s all been about how Putin feels in the world and how HE interprets NATO’s roll. NATO was formed because of fear from an aggressive Russia all along.

      1. We are already paying for it. Those arms shipments to Ukraine are not cheap. Plus, if we get caught up in THIS war, we will be paying for the war production that we will have to be doing on an emergency basis … and if Russia uses nukes, we will have to pay the price that comes with a world wide nuclear conflagration.

  2. I will have to disagree with you for once. NATO arose from the fears of USSR/Russia wanting to expand it sphere of influence. Russia historically care shit for its neighbors. It wants to control them because of the mistaken belief that subjugated states protect Russia from the outside world. This knowledge is why so many former Eastern Bloc countries in Europe rushed too join NATO. Not to attack Russia, but to have a collective security against Russia.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.