NATO

So there was a NATO summit in Strasbourg last week. This being the 21st Century and France, there were a series of protests. It looks like the protests turned quite violent, with a couple of hotels and a supermarket set on fire.

I find this all a little hard to comprehend. The protests in London against the G20 meeting almost make sense in comparison. At least with the G20 meeting there is something dramatic to protest: millions of people are now unemployed, and many will be struggling to make ends meet, let alone the millions of people in the developing world who will face severe hardship, because of the greed of a few thousand captains of industry. But what exactly are the NATO protesters protesting?

The BLOCK NATO group seems to be one of the main groups, but I cannot get much sense from their web site, beyond an interest in peace and a visceral reaction to what they term a "war alliance". There doesn't seem to be much to explain or argue their position on their website, though perhaps I missed it.

To be honest, this all just strikes me as pathetic, sad and uninformed. One of the more wonderful things to have happened in my lifetime has been the collapse of the Soviet Union and the escape of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and many other countries from Russian influence. And the military guarantee of NATO membership provided to these countries is to my mind the core foundation underpinning this freedom.

Moreover, several of the key historical reasons that NATO actually became a strong military alliance include the blockade of Berlin and North Korean invasion of South Vietnam. What exactly would these protesters have had their governments actually do when confronted with these situations?

It is not as though I disagree with their desired ends. I too would far prefer more peace in the world, and frankly would rather our political leadership spent their time dealing with global warming, poverty or other myriad issues.

But evil does exist, with Stalin and the early USSR being particularly good examples, and there is a practical matter of what exactly to do about that. The Kremlin seems quite happy right now to deploy rather brutal means to ensure favorable political arrangements within its' zone of 'privileged interest' as described by Medvedev. Given this, I would very much like to know how Block NATO would propose to help Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia maintain real independence from the Russian bear right next door.