Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim O
Quote:
Originally Posted by PatBC
Without NATO the US would have had no Coalition forces in Iraq. In 2004 NATO membership cost the US 450 million.
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Iraq is not a NATO mission and never was. It primarily involved US and British forces. I believe that Australia was the next largest contributor followed by Poland.
Afghanistan was also a primarily US, British, and Canadian operation although it has since been turned over to NATO. Despite that, most troops are still from those three nations.
NATO did agree that the attacks on New York and Washington DC were acts of war against a NATO nation and therefore they were considered an attack against them all. But those attacks originated from terrorists given free reign in Afghanistan. Where was NATO when the US took action on Afghanistan?
The case in Iraq is different. There was no attack by Iraq on a NATO member.
The biggest "NATO missions" have primarily been "US/UK/Canada missions". In other words, the traditional allies of the US have participated irrespective of NATO and others have not, at least not on large scales. Australia has also joined in with US actions and they are not part of NATO.
So why support almost one third of the infrastructure of an alliance whose primary purpose has become irrelevant? That was my question. |
The existance of NATO and the mutlilateral exercises because of NATO SEATO, etc enabled a coallition to made in Iraq.
Without NATO
Poland, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Denmark, Bulgaria, Hungary, Portugal, Lithuania, Slovakia, Norway, Latvia would not have sent troops to iraq.
In order of forces contributed it is
US
UK
South Korea
Italy
Poland
Australia is tied with Georgia at 2,000 peak
The 17(beside the US) NATO nations training the Iraqi Police Force would not of happened.
While it true that some NATO countries are not leting their troops fight in Afghanistan currently, like Germany, Germany did take part in previous combat there. The Dutch and the Danes are currently involved in the fighting in Afghanistan. Every NATO country has soldiers in Afghantistan.
While there is certainly things wrong with the NATO mission in Afghanistan without NATO there would likely be 20,000 less coalition troops in Afghanistan.