Evidently we’ve decided to pay some serious attention to Afghanistan… and we’re also getting pretty fed up with some of our NATO allies:
The imbalance in Afghanistan has become a sore point among allies.Troops from Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and the United States have been doing most of the fighting and leaders of those countries have been lobbying the other 22 allied countries to do more. Countries such as Germany, for instance, don’t allow their forces to deploy to the heart of the Taliban insurgency in the south and east.
[snip]
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Californina, said on Capitol Hill that allies in Europe and the Gulf must step up.
“It is simply unacceptable that NATO commanders are left to beg for troops from countries like Germany, France, Italy, and Spain,” he said. “It is an outrage that only troops from the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are deployed to the most hazardous spots. … No longer should this administration stand passively by while our so-called allies take advantage of American generosity and courage.”
Yup. Five years on — fully enmeshed with Iraq and moving toward wider regional chaos, and there sits that embarrassing mess in Afghanistan.
I can hear the Russian laughter all the way from Katy.
The questions about NATO members and what they are or are not contributing, though, goes beyond the current situation. It’s increasingly obvious that a number of former alliances are looking a bit frayed around the edges. Some of that’s the direct result of the Iraq war — but not all of it.
As we move further toward isolationism (and that definitely feels like the direction we’re going), I wonder how many of the relationships forged from WWII will survive.
My guess is not very many…
Being isolated is most of our history. First it was because we didn’t have enough of a standing military to be involved. And now its because we are nearly the only ones with a big enough military to both protect the homeland and fight far away battles.
Allies work together best when they share a common threat, not a common goal. As soon as Afghanistan tries to take over Poland we will have plenty of European allies.
Russian laughter?
That laughter is an echo from the Macedonians from 2300 years ago.