Fra denne ukes
Stefan Korsak rant:
General Zaluzhny Thinks NATO is Sort of Funny
General Valery Zaluzhny the former ZSU top commander was giving a talk in Europe somewhere this week and the discussion came around to Russia strikes against Ukraine spilling into Romania, and more generally, how effective he think NATO’s Article 5 is at protecting a country in the Atlantic Alliance.
Zaluzhny is known for a well-developed sense of humor and this is what he said: “There is no Article 5. They called me from Romania, and they asked not to say that the Russians were sending Shahed drones against us (Ukraine) that were hitting Romania. The Romanians said ‘Why are you jamming the Russian drones? They’re flying into our air space!’.
“I told them ‘Shoot them down yourselves, you have 40 F-16s standing by, why are you asking me to defend NATO?….The Baltic countries understand that there is no Article 5 of NATO (on collective defense) and never was. Poland understands this, where periodically our missiles fall, then Russian ones. Romania understands everything, but is silent.”
I would say Zaluzhny’s view is very much the conventional wisdom on NATO among people who think about it these days. Honest people point out that Russia’s theoretical casus belli and justification for war- that Ukraine might join NATO — is obsolete and irrelevant, because NATO credibility to stand up to Russia already was weak, and that was before the US government changed and the Trump administration threw NATO and American commitment to NATO under the bus. So why invade Ukraine to keep Ukraine out of NATO if NATO is useless?