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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (3974)	10/30/2000 12:18:37 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 10042

X.. NATO has been in transition for years now, focusing more on its mutual defense mission, but expanding into a political framework as a regional alliance. There have even been overtures to Russia inviting them to join. So NATO WILL ALWAYS HAVE A PLACE so long as nations choose to enter into collective security alliances. A 60,000 man European rapid response force is no more a threat to the existence of NATO than is the French Foreign Legion. The key to this is for the mission to be handed over to the UN, who originally held it. For the Europeans, it will mean essentially trading in their helmets for blue berets and continuing on with what they were doing the day before. The Europeans are just griping because they think the US has to be there to hold their hands and provide the heavy lift capacity they lack. But under US auspices we can still provide that kind of support when necessary. But for the Americans, it means we can stand down and prepare for the next eventual crisis. The essential question is what do we do when we find ourselves so overextended that we are unable to respond anywhere in the world without having to disengage from one of these long-term mission? When we start calling up reserve units for 9 month peace-keeping stints in Bosnia, disrupting their civilian lives in the process, I would suggest that we're already overengaged. That's how long my previous unit has been deployed over there.