Russia/NATO

"Continuing and unwavering commitment to defend the populations, territory, sovereignty [of the alliance; authorized deployment of military assets on a] rotational basis; reviving manoeuvres, and members spending 2% of GDP on defence] within a decade."
"In more peaceful times, it was right to reduce defence spending. But we do not live in peaceful times."
Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general, NATO

Photo NATO - NATO is held one of the largest post-cold-war maneuvers and the largest maneuver in a decade in Poland and the Baltic States Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. The “NATO Response Force” (NRF) exercise, codenamed “Steadfast Jazz”

"The first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies, can be performed only by means of a military force."
Adam Smith, Scottish 18th Century economist

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (3R) and Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas (L) visit the Amari air base that hosts the defence alliance's air policy mission over the Baltic states in Amari, Estonia on November 20, 2014 (AFP Photo/Raigo Pajula)

Given the above statement from the hugely respected-and-cited Adam Smith, it is somehow fitting that the Kremlin's unapologetic use of force in extracting concessions and taking muscular opportunities to expand its territory, has resulted, if only by default of happenstance in falling oil prices, of Russia's failing economic well-being. The sanctions imposed on Moscow by the international community have helped considerably, needless to say.

All of which is meant to spite Russian President Vladimir Putin's imperialistic territorial ambitions in the hope that the strain will convince him to back down, to surrender the Crimean Peninsula back to Ukraine, to withdraw Russia's military support from the Russian-speaking Ukrainian rebels, to convince the strutting tyrant to draw back from his strenuous efforts in war games' upsmanship. To no evident avail, however.

NATO is now faced with an increasingly belligerent Kremlin with Vladimir Putin glorying in his dismantling of Ukraine and Georgia, swaggering over his cyberwar in Estonia, boasting of reopened military bases to justify claims in the Arctic and the conducting of war games on NATO's borders while venturing into its airspace and gloating over its long-range bombers "to maintain military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific".

He's on a roll, and enjoying himself far too much for restraint to creep into the picture to rain on his military parade. While most NATO countries have lowered substantially their military spending, despite NATO's pleas to advance them to 2% of GDP, Russia has managed gleefully to increase its in lock-step with threats against Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, all quavering with the reality of Abkhazia, Crimea and Donetsk.

Mr. Putin rails at NATO, but it is the United States that he knows funds it and supplies the military assets, accounting for 75% of NATO spending. Aside from the U.S. only Britain, Greece and Estonia have retained a NATO-acceptable level of military spending; Italy, France and Britain have diminished their military procurement substantially, Canada, Germany and others falling far short of the NATO commitment.

Formed in 1949 to protect its members from invasion, NATO increasingly has its work cut out in relation to Russia's obvious return to the ideological underpinnings that motivated the avaricious tentacles of the Soviet Union. NATO is obligated to meet its commitments even while years of underfunding have led to "alarming deficiencies in the state of NATO preparedness" (British analysis).

Russia has felt entitled, given its history in what it terms its 'near abroad' to insist that Ukraine not be admitted to NATO. NATO, on the other hand, has an obligation to insist that a sovereign state must itself make that determination; no neighbour may perform that function on behalf of another state. As for who will be admitted to NATO membership; that is an internal NATO matter, not to be interfered with by any outside source.

Russia bridles at NATO's presence so close to its borders, but the fact is that NATO has never strong-armed any nation into joining it; doing so has been the free choice of any country entering NATO in stark contrast to Moscow's imperialist annexation of part of Georgia and Ukraine.