Rick Fischer
Aug 23, 2017 · 1 min read

NATO is neutering itself by expanding its membership beyond all reason.

The foundation of NATO was the guarantee that an attack on one would be an attack on all. That was a reliable guarantee by the original 12 members, because they were all Western nations with a history as allies and a commonality of values and culture. The guarantee would be honored.

But since then, 16 more have been added. Nations not with such commonality and history. Some with policy disputes with their neighbors. Nations more likely to get into local shooting wars with their neighbors than were the original 12. I seriously doubt the reliability of the guarantee should some of those nations find themselves under fire.

NATO nations would never go to war to rescue Ukraine, so that membership was always a bluff.

It just makes sense that the greater the number of nations with membership, and the smaller and more contentious those nations are, the greater the likelihood of eventually hostilities. And the less strong the commonalities and histories of the new member states are with the original 12, the weaker the guarantee of mutual war-making.

The prospect of an ill-fitting country like Turkey gaining membership would signal, for me, the end of NATO, at least its demise in its original form and purpose. I think it is changing into something else entirely, and not necessarily a force for peace.

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Rick Fischer

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