NATO and Giuliani

"Powers once assumed are never relinquished, just as bureaucracies, once created, never die." - Charley Reese

NATO "established a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party." - Wikipedia

NATO formed in 1949 in reaction to the Soviet Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe. When the Cold War ended, NATO did what any other entrenched bureaucracy would do when it's original purpose had ended: it attempted to expand.

And what exactly has this mutual protection bought us since the Cold War ended? Well, every time we are attacked or seek to go to war as NATO, France, one of the only NATO members with a functioning military, refuses to support us. What happens when two NATO members threaten to go to war with each other as Turkey and Greece nearly did on a few occasions? Nothing. Or rather we act as a mediator, which has nothing to do with our role in NATO and does not depend one iota on our role in NATO. We also likely sent money to both sides as supposed foreign aid to keep them quiet.

So now Giuliani wants to expand NATO to Japan, India, and apparently the rest of the known world. Which will mean what? Nothing except more expenses. Pakistan, our long-time quasi-ally, has been involved in three major wars with India since their independence after WWII. Would we defend a NATO India against a non-NATO Pakistan, then? A better question, of course, is why we would spend U.S. money and risk U.S. lives over who controls Kashmir? Would we attack China if India engaged in another war over Sikkim? Has Giuliani ever even heard of these wars?

I'll write more on this later, but for now it seems that our only reason to keep expanding NATO is basically to give the appearance and perhaps the reality of diplomatically isolating Russia and China from the rest of the world. Constitutionally this is the wrong decision. Morally it is the wrong decision. In practical terms it will ruin our economy and just give us new enemies that we do not need to fight wars over lands where no American lives. Do we really need to gear our foreign policy to making sure their is an American soldier buried in every square mile of soil on Earth just to show we can do it?