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- NATO Bad – Top Shelf**
NATO Bad – Top Shelf**Reducing NATO’s role key to accelerate EU security development – solves conflict and other benefits from the alliance Bandow ’08 [Doug Bandow is the Robert A. Taft Fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance, A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire, “Incoherent Empire: The Case for Getting Out of NAT”, Dec 18, http://www.takimag.com/site/article/incoherent_empire_the_case_for_getting_out_of_nato/] Europeans have little more enthusiasm for defending Europe. EU ministers recently agreed on creating a deployable force of 60,000 EU troops—but only “in the years to come,” whatever that means. The people and politicians of Europe may view the risk of war as too small to warrant devoting more resources to their militaries. They may decide that the Eastern Europeans and beyond are not in real danger or are not worth saving. That’s fine too. After six decades of treating Europe as a helpless dependent, Washington should metaphorically kick its child out of the house, leaving the Europeans with full control over—and responsibility for—their own destiny. Moreover, turning NATO over to Europe would in no way limit formation of future “coalitions of the willing” to cooperate in military expeditions elsewhere. Recognizing the threat to European commerce posed by increasing piracy caused the EU to send a small naval force to patrol waters off Somalia. Nevertheless, most European states are unlikely to enthusiastically join in real conflicts requiring real forces: witness the reluctance to send a peacekeeping force to Congo or transform the ceasefire monitoring mission into a peacekeeping operation in Georgia, let alone engage in combat in Afghanistan. At best, the alliance encourages some countries which otherwise wouldn’t participate to mollify Washington by reluctantly send minimal forces hobbled by national caveats. The price to the U.S. of such “help” isn’t worth paying. EU better – common goals, Russian aggression, entanglement Conry ’95 [Barbara, former associate policy analyst, was a public relations consultant at Hensley Segal Rentschler and an expert on security issues in the Middle East, Western Europe, and Central Asia “The Western European Union As NATO's Successor”, Sept 18, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-239.html] Washington unwisely clings to outdated Cold War policies instead of devising new policies that better address America's security requirements in the post-Cold War era. Nowhere is that more evident than in the effort to maintain or even expand NATO, even though the enemy it was created to face, the Soviet Union, no longer exists, and the United States and Europe now have relatively few common security interests. The Western European Union, the security arm of the European Union, should replace NATO as the primary guarantor of European security. A robust WEU would have a number of advantages over NATO. WEU member states have many common security interests, in contrast to the increasingly divergent U.S. and European perspectives that have already produced serious disarray in NATO. The West European nations have ample economic resources and are capable of providing for their own defense without a U.S. subsidy. Finally, Moscow is likely to view the WEU as less provocative than a U.S.-dominated NATO--especially an enlarged version that expands to Russia's borders. Maintaining NATO as the primary European security institution both is expensive and risks drawing the United States into military entanglements even when no vital American interests are at stake. Replacing NATO with the WEU would emphasize that most disputes in Central and Eastern Europe are more relevant to the European nations than to America and that dealing with such problems is properly a European responsibility. Moreover, once the West Europeans develop a full independent military capability, the WEU would be a strong partner for the United States in the event of a future threat to mutual U.S.-European security interests. NATO Bad – Top Shelf**No impact – NATO obsolete and can’t solve conflict - No Russia threat – EU Solves – No troops/military support – Predictive ev, judge Guttman 5-1-09 [Robert Guttman, Director of the Center on Politics & Foreign Relations (CPFR) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. where he co-hosts a series of conferences on politics and foreign policy with the Financial Times newspaper group, “Happy 60th Birthday NATO; Time to Go Out of Business?”, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-guttman/happy-60th-birthday-nato_b_181734.html] But, the Soviet Union is gone and has been for a long time. The main threat from Russia comes not from their military but from their economic role as a provider of natural gas and oil to Europe. Europeans fear a cutoff of energy from Russia more than any type of military action. NATO was successful in its original goal and Europe is a peaceful place these days; the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact no longer exist; and the European Union now encompasses most of the countries of Europe. It is a completely different situation now than in the 1940s and during the Cold War years. NATO was successful and NATO was competent and NATO kept the peace but a new era is upon us and NATO is grasping for a new role and it may not have a role to play in 2009 and beyond. The main threat today to Europe and the United States is the economic meltdown and the huge financial crisis we are all facing. Certainly we are facing terrorist threats but is NATO really the organization to keep terrorists at bay? The crunch for President Obama will come in Strasbourg when he asks for more troops for the NATO mission in Afghanistan. And, the reply from many of our NATO allies will be sorry but we will not provide any more troops because we do not see Afghanistan as that large of a problem. Europeans are more inward looking today. They see no huge threat to their countries from Afghanistan. President Obama is seeking more NATO troops from countries who do not want to provide them and if they do provide them have certain restrictions--not going into battle in the southern part of the country--that makes them almost useless. We now have a military alliance where many of the members do not want to engage in military operations. This is hardly a recipe for a successful future for NATO. When I interviewed NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer several years ago he told me: "We cannot lose in Afghanistan. We have to succeed in Afghanistan. If we fail, then who will have confidence in us again? Our credibility as NATO, as the Euro-Atlantic community is on the line. And our credibility is one of our strongest assets. To preserve it, we have no choice but to succeed. NATO has a tradition to keep. NATO has never made empty promises. So NATO should not make empty promises now." Well, NATO is not succeeding in Afghanistan at the moment and the political will seems to be missing from many of our NATO allies to continue the mission in that war torn nation. There are many military threats in the world today that will rear their ugly head and take over the headlines from the economic crisis in the near future but the question is: Is NATO the right military organization to deal with these crises? Maybe we should call NATO a huge success, pat every one on the back and dissolve the military organization and move on. Could the European Union take on the military role? Could a new military organization take the place of NATO? Instead of planning new missions around the globe for NATO why not ask the basic question: Is NATO still necessary anymore? NATO did its original job and the peace was kept in Europe and Soviet tanks did not attack during the Cold War--its goals were met and met successfully so why keep coming up with new out of area missions that do not have the full backing of most of the members. Re-think NATO. It may be time to say happy birthday and goodbye. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. 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