Robert Gates Lays It on the Line with NATO
Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates addressed NATO, and delivered a message that the U.S. is getting tired of towing the line for its allies. Americans have been grousing about this for a long time, and it needed to be said. Of course it remains to bee seen how seriously anyone in Europe will take this speech, given the circumstances. It was delivered by a man that won't be Defense Secretary on July 1st, for one thing.
Arguably, Germany was one of the states Gates was loosing his venom. However, it's unlikely that his comments will carry much weight in Germany regardless. Either it was a colossal scheduling mistake, or yet another indication that the Obama administration is incapable of dealing with foreign relations on a serious level, but while Gates was delivering his message to NATO, Obama was giving Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel a medal. Needless to say, Germany's representatives in Brussels at the NATO conference were quick to point out that their nation must be doing something right. Their leader was getting a medal from the U.S. president, and apparently that cancels out Germany's failure to act on Libya, right
The primary issue of course is money, in one way or another. Gates complained about the U.S. having to pick up the slack for nations that cut their military budgets due to the global recession. NATO's chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, while not as fiery as Gates, was also crying for more defense money from the European Union. To keep the proverbial defense policy ping-pong game going, Gates suggested that the European nations needed to spend their money on defense wisely, pointing out that the current patchwork of defense programs covering the European nations was ineffective. The bottom line was that Gates was not happy, and since he is leaving his post soon anyway, presumably he figured it would be a good idea to get the NATO allies riled up. If his goal was to make his replacement regret the choice to take the job, perhaps he accomplished that goal. Only time will tell.
One important issue that Gates brought up was the concept of NATO remaining intact. As alliances go, it has been a fairly good one over the years, particularly during the Cold War. But now, with varied opinions on which nations are really enemies of the alliance, the usefulness of the organization may come into question. Without a common enemy as in the past, it isn't difficult to understand why anyone might question the validity of keeping the alliance intact. Add to that the fact that NATO itself is slimming down (link in German), and perhaps Gates was on the right track when he sort of suggested that the organization is at a crossroad. True, it could be salvaged, but should it?
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