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That's a meaningless hypothetical. No Americans are dying to defend Eastern Europe. History shows us that treaties are easily discarded in the face of actual wa

That's a meaningless hypothetical. No Americans are dying to defend Eastern Europe. History shows us that treaties are easily discarded in the face of actual war with another great power. But the value of NATO for the US right now is not hypothetical. You don't buy billion dollar submarines because of NATO either. When the DoD talks about preparing for near-peer adversaries, Russia is not the primary concern. Do you really think we would stop spending massive amounts of money on military technology development if NATO didn't exist?

remarkEon 8y ago
>When the DoD talks about preparing for near-peer adversaries, Russia is not the primary concern. Are you kidding? Then what's Grafenwöhr for? Entire procurement strategies have been - and are - focused on countering Russian military hardware (the IAV is just one example - there are plenty of others). >Do you really think we would stop spending massive amounts of money on military technology development if NATO didn't exist? You should really reconsider that statement, and which clause follows from the other. This has nothing to do with my first point, which no one seems interested in answering. My original question was attempting to tease out why people think NATO is useful in a post-post Cold War world. I don't think it is, and struggle to understand this obsession with Russia that continues to warp people's perception of the global security situation. Instead people pivot to "well it was actually about reducing the amount of nuclear weapons" or "we would spend that money anyway", neither of which address the fundamental question of whether or not NATO in its present form is useful or whether the US should have to continue shouldering the vast majority of the security responsibility in the Western World.
rdl 8y ago
Near-peer is essentially {Russia, China}. New funding is generally "counter the rise of China", especially in maritime spending, but land force "reset from the counterinsurgency back to fighting a near-peer adversary" is basically Russia.

remarkEon 8y ago

>When the DoD talks about preparing for near-peer adversaries, Russia is not the primary concern. Are you kidding? Then what's Grafenwöhr for? Entire procurement strategies have been - and are - focused on countering Russian military hardware (the IAV is just one example - there are plenty of others). >Do you really think we would stop spending massive amounts of money on military technology development if NATO didn't exist? You should really reconsider that statement, and which clause follows from the other. This has nothing to do with my first point, which no one seems interested in answering. My original question was attempting to tease out why people think NATO is useful in a post-post Cold War world. I don't think it is, and struggle to understand this obsession with Russia that continues to warp people's perception of the global security situation. Instead people pivot to "well it was actually about reducing the amount of nuclear weapons" or "we would spend that money anyway", neither of which address the fundamental question of whether or not NATO in its present form is useful or whether the US should have to continue shouldering the vast majority of the security responsibility in the Western World.

rdl 8y ago

Near-peer is essentially {Russia, China}. New funding is generally "counter the rise of China", especially in maritime spending, but land force "reset from the counterinsurgency back to fighting a near-peer adversary" is basically Russia.