From the fifties through the early nineties, NATO deterred Soviet aggression by very publicly treating an attack on any NATO member as an attack on all of them.

To enforce that, we stationed hundreds of thousands of American troops – the largest peacetime overseas deployment in US history, and one of the biggest ever – overseas; mostly in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and Italy, but also South Korea and Okinawa (to deter a different bunch of communists). They were joined by troops from all that NATO partners – the Germans and Spaniards back when they were serious about defense; the Brits, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Dutch, Belgians, Norwegians, even Letzenburgish, along with de facto partners in France, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and eventually Finland. For forty years, the various countries stayed at what seems to kids today an absurd degree of readiness (or might, if any of them learned about it); the US military in 1988 was almost twice as large as today, with a national population considerably smaller than it is in 2008. Many European nations went further; they maintained military conscription well into the nineties, and some nations (Norway, Sweden, Finland) maintained Swiss-style national-service armies, where virtually every male serves in the military, the reserves or the home guard from their twenties through their fifties, keeping their uniforms and rifles at home to be ready to fight the moment they walked out the door (hypothetically).

The whole point? To deter Soviet aggression.

HEavy Handed POlitics links to a piece by Dick Morris with some perspective sorely lacking from a major media that is fairly illiterate on the subject.  He wants to accelerate the admission of Ukraine to NATO:

The clear implication of the invasion of Georgia is that Russia cannot be trusted to live in peace with its neighbors. The impetus to imperial conquest predated and has outlasted communism. As Henry Kissinger argues, Russia must either be expanding or contracting. With so many divergent and often hostile nationalities inside and around Russia, the momentum of conquest is the only way to avoid an inertia which leads to decomposition.

Ukraine wants to enter NATO but our European allies, led by Germany, are so dependent on Russian gas that they are reluctant to antagonize the bear. Until now, the case of expanding NATO’s protection to Ukraine has been hypothetical, based on fear of Russian intentions. But by breaking the civilized rules of national conduct, Russia has demonstrated the folly of leaving smaller democracies exposed on its border.

Some – initially including Barack Obama – treated the Russian invasion as a border war for which both sides were responsible. The Democratic candidate called for mutual restraint and, only after two days had elapsed, did he label the Russian actions as “aggression”. Others have sought to blame Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili for the war because he sent troops into South Ossetia, long a part of Georgia which the Russians have egged on to seek its independence. The breakaway province is an example of Moscow’s oft-used strategy of encouraging emigration to other countries so as to use the new demographics to justify a takeover.

That’s been almost funny – the notion that Georgia, with a population smaller than Minnesota and a military maybe twice the size of the Minnesota National guard, would seek a military showdown with Russia

Of course NATO cannot extend its protection to every nation in Europe. It is, in the final analysis, a military alliance and it must be certain that it can back its guarantees with adequate might. The location of Georgia makes this difficult to assure. But Ukraine, located right next to NATO members Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, can and must be defended by NATO.

And there’s the rub.  We talked about this on the show on Saturday.  For forty years, NATO kept immense garrisons in (West) Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and other western European nations.

And while the garrisons are smaller today, that’s where they still are.  While the “front” between the West and newly-imperialistic Russia has moved hundreds of miles to the east, the US military still maintains a big clutch of bases in Germany – in exactly the same area that the US VII Corps occupied from the end of WWII through the Cold War.  But in the countries that actually face potential Russian aggression?  Poland, the Baltic Republics, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Bulgaria?

Nichevo.

Why does it matter?

Russia is rapidly losing its population. It has the lowest birth rate in Europe and loses half a million people every year. Its GDP is only $1.7 trillion, a tenth of the Euro Zone’s. It is only through energy reserves that Russia is able to project its influence. And Russia must realize that the West’s likely movement away from oil and toward alternative fuels may make the energy card obsolete in the future. It is only through blunt, blatant military force that Russia can expand and trouble its neighbors. And if the U.S. and NATO stand up to it, Russia will back down. And Ukraine is where we must make a stand.

In other words, it is “Back to the Eighties”; the Russians once again realize, perhaps, they’re playing a short hand, and have nothing but force to make it work.

Fear and desperation make bad neighbors.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 7:49 am and is filed under War On Terror, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.