NATO Springs Eternal
Train, John
"NATO Springs Eternal" THE ALLIANCE SPRINGS ETERNAL BY JOHN TRAIN As I found on a recent field trip to the Balkans and Brussels, some Europeans maintain that we dragged them into Kosovo, but that idea is of course...
...Had Slobodan Milosevic's "ethnic cleaning" not been reversed, the flood of Albanians into Macedonia would have destabilized that country, too, since the Albanians already there want to escape from vicious and corrupt Macedonian control by uniting with their Kosovar brothers...
...Order it today...
...In our January/February issue, we conferred our first Coogler for shabby journalism to The Washington Post's Michael Grunwald for his reporting on PCB phantasms in deepest Alabama...
...Thus, de facto, we and the Russians are in the same boat, as is solemnized by our inviting them to the NATO conference table...
...by Gerardo Joffe Only $29.95* *But see below for an even better deal...
...The whole procedure has a highly invigorating effect on the applicants...
...After that, we hope, a Northern Alliance-style advance from the South and the North, covered, as in Afghanistan, by our airpower...
...One can almost hear those brain cells crackle...
...The 10th Mountain Division, part of which is covering Kosovo, is preparing for extensive retraining when its deployment ends...
...We contrarians sitting on the committee that confers the J. Gordon Coogler Award pursue a different quest, namely, "Why not the worst...
...The question is, who is "we...
...Our generals seem remarkably confident...
...If you listen to the Powell State Department, you hear that we've become coalition-minded, that our foreign policy is based on collaboration, of which NATO is a part...
...Four hundred thousand Kosovar Albanian refugees fled into Germany, and many remain there...
...30 days refund/return, except for shipping/insurance...
...I have served on the Coogler panel for years and endured some excruciatingly bad books, both fiction and nonfiction.This year the Coogler R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...And Lloyd Hammett of Winnfield, LA says: "If this book will not make you smarter, nothing will...
...A $30 Haverhills gift certificate is bound into the book...
...There may even be a bonus of better sex and longer life...
...So now Kosovo is more or less tranquil—in the Balkan sense, that is, with NATO troops holding things down...
...Alas, they will be there forever...
...I found agreement that, if necessary, we could carry off the campaign solo...
...Also, alas, their own duplicate satellite-based Global Positioning System, at frightful expense...
...As General Huber, our commander in Macedonia, put it, "the troops learn leadership skills, but degrade mechanical skills...
...Saudi bases would not be essential...
...Furthermore, the Europeans all start by conceptually defending their own borders, so their strategic dispositions are inefficient...
...To get through this phase, the applicant has to reform its military, to bring it under civilian control and make it an efficient fighting force...
...Then begins the MAP—Membership Application Process...
...So NATO most assuredly has a purpose, just not the original purpose...
...It has to settle quarrels with its neighbors and internal minorities.And it must develop inter-operability with the rest of NATO—including introducing English in the armed services—and, in general, shape up...
...Where our serious interests are engaged and when time is a factor, we can't possibly act through NATO: too much consultation, too much difference in capability...
...This can take years...
...But Probably this year's most important self-improvement book...
...Everybody in the NATO orbit is, of course, buzzing about Iraq...
...Pulitzers, Emmys and Oscars are the awards conferred by convention-al critics responding to that main-stream American quest, "Why not the best...
...Your friends and relatives will thank you for this important gift...
...Security in Macedonia is passing to the European Union, partly to breathe life into its "military pillar," the silly Western European Union being essentially defunct...
...It is scientifically proven: Your brain is like a muscle...
...Henceforth, in urgent matters we'll assemble a "coalition of the willing" and just move in, while State assembles a cheering section...
...It's better this way...
...Perhaps less well-known, but surely more exacting in their standards, are the Cooglers...
...J. Gordon CooglerAward Worst Book of the Year BY R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR...
...Greece and Turkey might well have gone to war already if they'd not both been NATO members...
...Add $4.95 shipping/insurance for one book ($9.90 for three), plus sales tax for CA delivery...
...A cat fight would almost certainly have exploded, with Turkey and/or Greece piling in...
...The United States is one-quarter of NATO—declining as NATO enlarges—but Secretary Rumsfeld promised Congress that our participation in KFOR, the Kosovo peacekeeping force, would be capped at 15 percent...
...The answer isn't obvious.The Kosovars well understand that NATO is their salvation, and they prefer us to any other country in the alliance, but that doesn't mean we're the only military that can in fact do the job...
...The situation is worse than it seems, since our procurement and R & D are concentrated, while theirs are diffuse...
...Order directly from the publisher by toll-free phone (800) 600-2777, by fax (415) 356-7804, or by mail...
...And without the border protection given by the international force, the tough and able Serbian Army would march in, starting the dreadful sequence all over again...
...I t is that time of year when critics in various fields of intellectual endeavor bestow their awards for "the best"There are the Pulitzers, the Emmys, the Oscars...
...Recent successful applicants are detailed to coach the petitioners, like getting an upperclassman to tutor you in college...
...And, finally, a rigorously exercised brain will not develop Alzheimer's disease.This breakthrough book (soft cover, 460 pages, 8-1/2" x 11" format) will be your trainer and monitor to your new well-developed brain...
...Critics of a contrarian cast of mind also suffer the urge to solemnize...
...Ht3W 'YOU TOO CAN DEVELOP A RAZOR-SHARP MIND AND A STEEL-TRAP MORY s,;-a it '=n hvGerard,, JotIu sW Y? due books division of jomira/advance 470 Third St., #211, San Francisco, CA 94107 © Order by toll-free phone: (800) 600-2777 or (fastest...
...Our defense obligations are very heavy indeed in Asia, where the European allies do not contribute meaningfully...
...is editor in chief of The American Spectator...
...Result: a major regional war...
...As Bush told Putin, our cardinal foreign policy aim is stopping that from happening...
...The reason is that both of them are ready, willing and able to leak weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, of which many are already based within our borders...
...Sid Tuchman of Indianapolis, IN says: "What an astonishing book...
...combat division lose itsfighting capability during an extended peace-keeping mission?You sometimes hear this denied by high-level Army spokesmen, but not on the ground...
...Interestingly enough, the process of enlarging NATO, quite aside from the fact of its expansion, has a tremendous effect on those concerned...
...Thus, we're stuck...
...by fax: (415) 356-7804 Visit our website at www.haverhills.com JULY/AUGUST 2002 • THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 17 if you listen to the Rumsfeld coterie, and if you consider what we actually did in Afghanistan, you realize that the State Department is just being stately...
...So we're going from A to M, as it were, while the 19 other members are each going from A to D. Inter-operability suffers.They are, however, making an effort to develop airlift capacity, which had been a U.S...
...So it's practically FREE...
...For Afghanistan, they had to hire Russian-built transports from Uzbekistan...
...tively bloated and confused—there are 400 committees—but that can be straightened out over time...
...Playing cop or schoolteacher to a civilian population is uplifting, but using an armored unit for the purpose costs too much...
...THE ALLIANCE SPRINGS ETERNAL BY JOHN TRAIN A s I found on a recent field trip to the Balkans and Brussels, some Europeans maintain that we dragged them into Kosovo, but that idea is of course complete rubbish...
...Hugh Cunningham, DDS, of Albany, GA says: "This is marvelous...
...Countries that look both east and west, like Turkey, become more directed toward Europe...
...For the Europeans it is both...
...But should we stay even at that level...
...18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR • JULY/AUGUST 2002...
...Sit in front of the tube, preferably with a six-pack and a bag of potato chips and it will turn flabby and quite useless...
...They're all in the same fraternity, as it were...
...Now we have settled on a Coogler for the worst book...
...Balkan massacres are a humanitarian horror story, but not a vital U.S...
...There is little risk of another Gulf War, or a Korean War, nor will Iraq lob a missile at London and get obliterated for its pains...
...and so we confer Cooglers upon the worst: the worst book, the worst journalism...
...As Jim Baker once said, truthfully, but inappropriately: "We don't have a dog in that fight...
...monopoly...
...On the other hand, we look out to the Pacific as well to the Atlantic...
...Exercise it vigorously and you will indeed be able to develop a razor-sharp mind and a steel-trap memory...
...Top commanders assured me that action by NATO as such was not now contemplated, and that's very easy to believe...
...We are the publishers of this book and are able to sell it for just $29.95...
...To enter, a country enlists in the Partnership for Peace, and eventually may be considered as a possible candidate...
...How You Too Can Develop a Razor-Sharp Mind...
...Since Putin has the same problem, thanks to the Chechens, he understands perfectly...
...The big reason is simply that while it took 10 sorties to kill a tank in the Gulf War, thanks to improved munitions, one sortie killed up to two tanks in Afghanistan, making an Iraq air campaign possible with our carrier wings plus flights from Insirlik...
...First would come flak suppression, then killing Iraqi tanks if they concentrated...
...So why fret...
...It creates a lake of stability in what had been an area so turbulent that for centuries it engendered horrible conflict after horrible conflict, two of which America entered to restore the balance...
...If not restrained, the Albanian Kosovars would promptly finish off the few remaining Serbs...
...NATO is, by general consent, administraJohn Train writes on foreign and military matters for a number of publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times...
...This book may (really...
...Perhaps we should cut back by degrees, to 10 percent and then 5 percent, continuing to furnish leadership as desired...
...change your life...
...Does a U.S...
...Had we failed to bail out the Europeans, our reluctance would have been bitterly resented...
...strategic interest...
...What a deal...
...Once inside the alliance, the member country can be relatively relaxed about local threats, since there is a ring of increasingly compatible neighbors to calm things down...
...We have been hectoring the Europeans to up their defense spending, from 1.5 per-cent of GDP toward our level of 3 percent...
...On the other hand, the Palestine uproar seems to have thrown off our timing very seriously The Europeans ask why we are so excited about Iraq and North Korea...
...Mention order code 1092Y337 and give Visa/MC # and expiration date, or send check for $29.95...
...But we have an even better deal: Buy three books and we will let you have them for the price of two -- only $59.90...
...So just with respect to Europe, our 3 percent must be discounted substantially—perhaps to no more than the NATO average...
...I already feel a whole lot smarter than before I immersed myself in Joffe's 16-Level Paradigm...
Vol. 35 • July 2002 • No. 4
