Citizen G'kar: Musings on Earth

September 27, 2008

Poland wants more forceful NATO to check Russia

Izvestia's map of

Image by moacirpdsp via Flickr


Now that the US has tied down it's army in Iraq, lost the perception of invincibility, NATO is bogged down in Afghanistan and I suspect feels just as powerless as the US in the face of a resurgent Russia. I suspect this was Putin's intent all a long. He just may successfully demonstrate that NATO is impotent. Poland and Ukraine could be left out to dry.
International Herald Tribune
An ideological gulf has opened between the West and Russia after the war in Georgia, one that requires a more forceful response from the European Union and NATO, Poland's foreign minister said on Thursday.
In a speech at Columbia University, Radoslaw Sikorski said NATO must get back to the basics of exerting its role as a military organisation in light of the war.
Sikorski called Russia's August military foray into Georgia a challenge to the European Union's unstated ideology of abolishing borders in order to avoid war.
"I think there is a profound ideological difference between the European Union and the Russian Federation," he told an audience of diplomats, students and journalists.
[..]
Sikorski, calling it the "Medvedev Doctrine," said the implications were worrying for countries with large ethnic Russian populations such as Ukraine and the Baltic states.
"Any further attempt to redraw borders in Europe by force or by subversion will be regarded by Poland as an existential threat to our security and should entail a proportional response by the whole Atlantic community," Sikorski said.
"We need to make NATO's traditional security guarantees credible again," he said. "NATO needs to recover its role, not just as an alliance but as a military organisation."
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