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NATO Should Never Be Waging Wars of Choice

Read this line from Kori Schake, and reflect on how completely NATO’s purpose has been perverted: The big risk is not whether the alliance can win whatever wars it chooses to fight. It can. The risk is that NATO will choose not to fight, that its members will withdraw into their own narrowly defined interests, […]

Read this line from Kori Schake, and reflect on how completely NATO’s purpose has been perverted:

The big risk is not whether the alliance can win whatever wars it chooses to fight. It can. The risk is that NATO will choose not to fight, that its members will withdraw into their own narrowly defined interests, close to home.

Yes, the worst thing that a defensive security alliance can do is to be focused on narrowly defined interests too close to home! It went without saying that Libya had nothing to do with NATO, but America, Britain, and France chose to fight there anyway, and NATO was dragged along for the ride so that the alliance did not have to split over the issue. NATO should obviously never be waging wars of choice. Its sole reason for being is to provide for collective defense against attack. If any alliance member starts a war, the others are in no way obliged by treaty to support them. Unfortunately, members of the alliance uninterested in starting unnecessary wars do feel political pressure to provide cover for the more aggressive members, so wars of choice that do not involve any allied security interests still receive the backing of the entire alliance. What Schake is describing is the “risk” that NATO will operate according to its original purpose as a defensive alliance. Unless one believes that NATO should be used as a platform for starting new wars, this is something to be hoped for rather than avoided.

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