{"id":1572,"date":"2006-09-14T23:48:31","date_gmt":"2006-09-15T04:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2006-09-14T23:48:50","modified_gmt":"2006-09-15T04:48:50","slug":"an-amphibian-a-dictionary-and-an-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1572","title":{"rendered":"An Amphibian, a Dictionary and an Alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cdrsalamander.blogspot.com\/\">CDR Salamander<\/a> takes a look at the current situation of NATO&#8217;s involvement in Afghanistan and struggles to find the <a href=\"http:\/\/cdrsalamander.blogspot.com\/2006\/09\/nato-culminates.html\">right word<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Culminate is a strong word in this line of work. <\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>In military terms, it can often be seen as a high-water mark. A point where a force has lost its ability to advance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My concern is that Salamander may have the right word but the wrong verb tense.  I&#8217;ve repeatedly expressed my concerns about the value of NATO in the post-Cold War era [see <a href=\"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1378\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1055\">here<\/a> for examples].  I even briefly held out a resurrection of <a href=\"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1510\">personal optimism<\/a> for the alliance after a commitment to the Afghan theater, but CDR Salamander points out that my hope for a better distribution of burden among our allies was misplaced.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Notice what troops are where. Notice where the fighting is (RC South, and RC East). Have we reached the point that only English speakers will die for NATO? Is that a fair alliance? Is this what you get for keeping (most of) them safe from Communism? At least Poland will try to step in some, after the fact. Maybe. They have a history of helping.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He provides more information, including some sweet military history links, before concluding the following:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is gut check time NATO, and from what I see, you have a yellow stain running down your pants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is not too far from something I <a href=\"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1240\">wrote<\/a> not too long ago:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not very complimentary to brag that NATO, an alliance based upon mutual defense, can heartily be relied upon for humanitarian disasters but is rather pick-and-choose on military assistance, always quite willing to find a reason to avoid exposure to potential danger. That is not a strong foundation for mutual defense. NATO really must be re-envisioned or cast away as a Cold War relic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Culminates or culminated?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CDR Salamander takes a look at the current situation of NATO&#8217;s involvement in Afghanistan and struggles to find the right word. Culminate is a strong word in this line of work. [&#8230;] In military terms, it can often be seen as a high-water mark. A point where a force has lost its ability to advance. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-central-asia","category-europe","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}