> Valiant Max:
> I fail to see any victory in the decay of NATO. Its
> main mission -- contra
> the USSR and Warsaw Pact -- was accomplished in spades.
>
> Nowell:
>
> Actually the defect of the post WWI settlement included
> two main deficiencies: the economic reprisals, about
> which Max knows enough, and the failure to "occupy
> until stable." Hitler would have been unthinkable
> under conditions of continued occupation. So NATO
> *did* accomplish its *other main mission* --
> integration of German military power into a western
> alliance--in spades as well.
>
> One of the primary benefits of NATO, not often thought
> about, was that with several hundred thousand British &
> US troops stationed on German soil, the entire
> political context was changed. "Defending against
> Russia" provided an opportunity to reinforce
> international liberalism in Germany.
The picture painted by Martin Lee in *The Beast Reawakens*, for example, is not nearly so rosy. Nothing anywhere NEAR to serious de-Nazification occured.
Perhaps Greg is speaking of "liberalism" in the Hayeck/Ayn Rand/Ronald Reagan sense?
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
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