Display:
And I'd like to add that:

  1. Russia was a reliable supplier of energy when it was called the Soviet Union too. They wanted to sell gas, we wanted to buy it.

  2. NATO is a defensive alliance. NATO has not been involved in the mad little Georgia adventure.

  3. NATO is not about supplying troops to mad American endevours. Many NATO-countries doesn't do that, and many non-NATO countries do. There just isn't any strong correlation.

  4. The European nations have a world class arms industry and have no need to rely on American arms imports. Of course we still buy their stuff when it is better, and there's no secret that the Americans nudged certain new NATO members against US companies when they began replacing obsolete Soviet arms.


Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Fri Aug 15th, 2008 at 07:55:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
seems to have more troops occupying other people's countries than any other allaince we can mention. Then again guess someone had to drink the coolaid. I could question a few of the other assumptions but there isnt really much point if you view an alliance that occupies others countries as defensive.
by observer393 on Sat Aug 16th, 2008 at 05:28:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
NATO, as far as I am aware off, is not occupying any other nation. There are troops from several NATO nations in Afghanistan under a UN mandate, for example German troops. There are also troops from non-NATO nations, like Sweden.

If you look at Iraq which is indeed under occupation there are troops there from NATO nations, like the UK, the US and Poland (at least there used to be Poles, I'm not sure if they're still there). But there are also major NATO nations, like Germany who haven't deployed troops there while there are troops there from non-NATO nations. Remember the third(!) largest contingent was from the non-NATO nation of Georgia.  

So it's really hard to find a correlation between NATO membership and deployment of troops in foreign nations. NATO nations and non-NATO nations alike do it.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Sat Aug 16th, 2008 at 10:46:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:
Login
. Make a new account
. Reset password
Occasional Series