NATO: Jens Stoltenberg Is Wrong

Yesterday in a little reported radio interview on BBC R4, the NATO Secretary General, in answer to a question, said there was no reason why countries like Georgia and Ukraine should not join NATO if their populations voted to do so and the other members accepted their applications, and once members they would be subject to the guarantee that their territory would be defended against aggression by another power. IE Russia. When asked by the interviewer whether that was not provocative, he said no it was democracy or words to that effect.

There are several things which are bang out of order here. First Mr. Stoltenberg does not make policy, he promotes the policies agreed by members. It is a condition of joining that there can be no outstanding territorial disputes; Georgia does not recognise the departure of South Ossetia and Ukraine is one big territorial dispute and simmering civil war. So neither would qualify.

But there is a wider issue. NATO is itself getting out of control and becoming the problem rather than the solution. It has no boundaries any more; there is no clear strategy; its involvement in wars well outside its original context have not been without problems and its analysis of the issues in the Ukraine region was deeply flawed and has contributed to the crisis there. NATO cannot just go on  all over the place canvassing for members with no limit on its expansion. It is not a tennis club. It is a nuclear armed military alliance. The purpose for which it was brought into being ended with the cold war, but it kept itself going. It has to now be reined in and given a proper defensive agenda within agreed theatres and boundaries. No part of its original purpose was to provoke and it is no part of its purpose now.