Nato plan for rapid-reaction force to counter Russian aggression

Source: Times Online

Nato defence ministers are today considering the creation of a rapid-response military force to respond to Russian aggression.

The proposal, a compromise dreamed up by the Pentagon to reassure allies, will be under discussion at today’s Nato defence ministers meeting in London.

Britain called that meeting in April to discuss how Nato could be transformed to better address post-Cold War needs. But the creation of such a force would take Nato back to its roots as a deterrent on its own eastern borders after years of expeditionary missions to Kosovo and Afghanistan.

A senior US defence official told the Los Angeles Times that Washington would push for the creation of a small, light defensive force that could be deployed to a threatened member country.



Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4787565.ece

:rofl:

This is SO insane and totally unnecessary.

we aren't currently making any claims on any Mexican Territory.

I'd expect we set up forces to guard against any incursions on to US soil, but we wouldn't go in and annex part of Mexico. And if we did it would be just as wrong as what the Russians did, and I'd fully expect the rest of the world to condemn such actions.

And I don't mean the Mexican-American War.

I mean after that.

1913, during the Mexican Revolution:

President Woodrow Wilson, who had taken office in March 1913, declared that "Mexico has no government." When Huerta sent a representative to Washington to negotiate a settlement to the Chamizal dispute, Wilson refused to recognize him as a diplomatic agent of the Mexican government. Huerta, in turn, withdrew recognition of the American ambassador to Mexico and broke off the Chamizal negotiations. Rebel forces attacked the port city of Tampico on April 5. They were repulsed twice by the federal defenders, but on April 9 a group of American sailors was detained temporarily by the federals. The commander of the American naval forces at Tampico demanded a formal apology, which Huerta refused to issue. The locus of the tensions between the two nations shifted south when the United States learned that a ship loaded with weapons for the federals was about to dock at Veracruz. The United States invaded the city on April 21. As Huerta had expected, the invasion of Veracruz led to an outpouring of patriotic sentiment in Mexico, and he hoped for a reconciliation with the revolutionaries to fight the common Yankee enemy.


http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HH/fhu81.html

a century ago, and we didn't lay waste to much of the country and annex a significant part of their country. Not an exact analogy.

Plus I'd like to think that world politics has changed slightly since 1913.

As exemplified in Iraq, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cambodia...

We've come a long way, baby!

from the equation, very convenient.

Lead a peaceful non violent demonstration so as the Russians don’t perceive them as a threat and hand them their asses on a platter like they did to the Bush / Cheney backed Georgia junta that brutally attacked the people of South Ossetia? Or maybe it’s just better to have a small light defensive force instantly vaporized because it’s to hard to find a large number of idiots willing to commit mass suicide all at once. Either way I’m sure they will accomplish their goal of spreading fear amongst the naïve and clueless sheep of the world who will beg the barbaric new world order criminal empire to protect them from the evil Russians!

This is political posturing, it has nothing to do with real military operations.

Oh look, those meanies are picking on our small light defensive force!

In a world filled with nuclear weapons, they continue escalating conflicts. Why vote for movement towards extinction?

"A senior US defence official told the Los Angeles Times that Washington would push for the creation of a small, light defensive force that could be deployed to a threatened member country."

This does raise the point, that an alliance has to be careful to ensure its member countries are worth going to war over. For all the bluster, I doubt even right wing Americans would favor suffering a nuclear holocaust to protect various central Asian republics from Moscow.

It is nothing more than a warmongering organization carrying out imperialist aggression against other states. Remember Yugoslavia?