China has no income tax, no unemployment and not a single soldier outside its borders. – Chou En Lai
“The most successful alliance in history,” it was called at the end of the Cold War in which NATO, for 40 years, deterred the Red Army from overrunning Berlin or crashing through West Germany to the Channel.
And when that Cold War was over, Sen. Richard Lugar famously said, “Either NATO goes out of area or goes out of business.”
In Afghanistan and Libya, NATO went out of area. And given the trend in both conflicts, NATO may soon be going out of business.
NATO faces “collective military irrelevance,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates on his valedictory visit to a stunned Brussels last week:
“The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country — yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference.”
Gates’ patience with the Europeans is, understandably, just about exhausted. Two decades after the Soviet Union disintegrated and the Red Army went home, America is still carrying 75 percent of the NATO burden for the defense of Europe.