Bribing The Bidens was the best money Ukraine ever spent. NATO Can Have Ukraine or the USA--Not Both 'Russia’s decision to pursue military objectives in Ukraine was due in large part to the prospect of further NATO expansion for both Ukraine and Georgia, a redline that Vladimir Putin drew as far back as 2008. Rather than taking such warnings seriously, the U.S. and European capitals continued to beat the drum of expansion by touting the foolish desires of the “rules-based international order” above realism.' 'NATO is not a social club. NATO is a military alliance rooted in shared security interests in the transatlantic area of responsibility. NATO is not a catch-all, feel-good get-together of democratically inclined nations. Admittance is not a stamp of global approval or a reward for good behavior—a framework antithetical to a military alliance. In fact, at this point, the alliance neither needs nor should seek additional members to achieve its stated “defensive” aims. We should consider new members only when they bring demonstrable and credible hard power, promote greater burden sharing across existing member states, and conceivably reduce the chances of sending allied troops into war. This is the only standard by which collective defense may work.' 'Ukraine is incompatible as a member on all fronts. What strategic value would Ukraine bring to the alliance? But for the goodwill of international donors, Ukraine would still be operating with Soviet-era weaponry and bygone military doctrine. So much for credible hard power or meaningful burden sharing.' 'The entire premise undergirding NATO is that when under attack, when your resources and capacity run low, your allies come to your aid. An ally wholly dependent on others for training, equipment, and financing is hardly an ally. As for lowering the specter of conflict, admitting Ukraine—a country of historical and strategic significance to its nuclear superpower neighbor—seems nothing less than a gamble with the lives and treasures of the alliance’s members.' We'd like to avoid WWIII. NATO needs to remember that their responsibility is to dues paying members not Biden Bribing Ukraine. The US needs to make it clear, you can have us or Ukraine, but you cannot have both.
I would ad a corollary to that; NATO can have Turkey or the US, not both. Now that Turkey has gone authoritarian Islamic, we don't really have shared interests.
Russia's only warm water ports open to the Black Sea. Turkey is important to NATO because the straits make it rather easy to bottle up the Russian Navy. In warmer weather they can go the other way, but, we can bottle them up by filling the GIUK Gaps.
The US needs to get out of NATO. Period. Or US taxpayers will continue to get hosed by the MIC. If you like that your standard of living continues to go down, keep supporting NATO. We need to take care of our country, not be Europe's babysitter. Seal the border. Help the homeless. Fix our infrastructure.
