Biden Deploys 3,000 Troops To NATO “Eastern Flank” Countries

[F2d5thCav]

Since NATO is often depicted as an aggressive bugbear of sorts, for those who haven't had actual contact with the organization, these comments might be eye-opening.

First off, it is critical to understand that the "military bits" of NATO are NOT NATO.  The military forces are the armed forces of various countries and they might (or not) be subordinated to NATO command.

NATO itself does not make policy.  What happens is that all of the COUNTRIES that make up NATO decide on common approaches, from questions as mundane as what size of bolts to use on a particular piece of equipment to how the entire alliance should react to an international situation.  This, in part, is why there was no sense in disbanding NATO after the Cold War ended.  FFS, multiple countries had spent decades deciding on common approaches to support a common defense, and for all the flaws, it still worked better than everybody doing everything their own way and expecting a defense to be successful.  That was the Allies in the 1940 campaign -- no commonality, no standardization, and a complete CF when the Germans attacked.

NATO, minus the national military forces, is really just a bureaucratic organization of a permanently hired civilian staff who work with military personnel detailed from the alliance's component nations for a tour of duty at a location where NATO has staff.  Those bureaucrats implement the common approaches mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

There is some idiot on TOS comparing NATO's "advances" in eastern Europe to the territorial expansion of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.  But it doesn't work that way, because, first, NATO is not a national entity pursuing a national agenda; and second, the countries that become part of NATO both have to want that for themselves AND have to be accepted by the nations who are already a part of NATO.  This isn't exactly "Third Reich" in form or function.

So, arguments that seek to color NATO as "bad" or "good" are inherently flawed.  NATO is a tool of a group of nations; any "good" or "evil" behind NATO's actions inevitably lead back to the member nations.

If people really want to know why western Europe wanted more influence in eastern Europe ... follow the money.  Which means dig into EU policies and find out which COUNTRIES stand to benefit from those policies.  That is where the power games are coming from; they are the financial tail wagging the NATO dog.

The article from eurointelligence.com I pointed out above mentions a significant aspect driving EU policy (and, to some extent, dragging NATO along with it).  Like I mentioned before, none of this is cut and dried.

Cheers