K. A. Pital wrote:TimothyC wrote:A better joke might have been "Maybe letting the Russians reoccupy part of Germany might work [to fix the problem]."
That would also be a tasteless and lame joke. The fact that Germans are not happy, in general, about being dragged into a NATO war, be it European or not, does not mean it is a problem.
It is only a problem for the US and NATO, perhaps, and the entire "problem" exists only if one values the US or NATO as allies/structures somewhat. If it does not value neither NATO nor the US, then what? It is simply an opinion the citizens hold. Like it or not, but it's like that. After many decades of US troops stationed in Germany, it turned out people don't like the US that much. Boo hoo.
Maybe they get the idea of mutual defence, they just don't want to do it with the US.
Perhaps - I mean NATO is something of a Cold-War relic, and the Warsaw Pact doesn't even exist anymore. Perhaps NATO has outlived it's usefulness.
Still, Russia
is being demonstrably belligerent with it's neighbors. NATO at least has some semblance of purpose in terms of balancing power between Russia and the West. Although in practice it's sort of useless, because any actual armed conflict between multiple nuclear powers is a game not worth playing. Indeed, one might argue NATO is actually
counter-productive, much like the fragile network of pre-WW1 European alliances which spiraled out of control into a trans-continental war that redefined the meaning of "casualty count".
The reality is that if Putin blatantly invades some country like Poland or whatever, there's little anyone could really do about it other than bitch a lot in front of the UN, plus more economic sanctions blah blah. Anyway, Putin should take a cue from the US and invade countries that nobody cares about, like Kazakhstan or something. Nobody would give a shit and no NATO problems would ensue, plus he takes back one more piece of the former USSR, so everyone wins! (Except Kazakhstan.)
Seriously though, any acts of Russian aggression will inevitably have to be countered via more subtler strategies, like funding the opposition insurgents, or whatever.