What Should America Do at the NATO Summit?
Peter S. Rieth
Peter S. Rieth is a political scientist educated at Hillsdale College. He cooperates with and supports the American Committee for East-West Accord. His writing has appeared in the Russian media outlet Sputnik PL and is archived in the Encyclopedia of Polish Theatre. He has also published for the Polish political science quarterly Right Option and the hub of Polish conservative thought, Konserwatyzm.pl. He is a subject of the Queen of Australia and a citizen of the American republic.http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/07/america-nato-summit.htmlMany of NATO’s anxious Eastern European members are hoping that the United States pledges permanent American boots on the ground during the Alliance’s upcoming summit in Warsaw, Poland. The Eastern European’ anxiety is understandable given not only the current crisis in Ukraine, but their long history of troubles with Russia. Yet this very history breeds paranoia and makes some in Eastern Europe prone to miscalculation and exaggeration of potential threats. It is up to the United States of America, as a mature democracy versed in the delicate diplomacy that has secured peace in Europe ever since 1945, to once again play a constructive role that will placate both Eastern European and Russian security concerns, thereby serving American interests and promoting American ideals.
Those of us concerned about the direction of US foreign policy in the region have been on the losing side of key political battles in recent years. When Poland established the Eastern Partnership to bring Ukraine and several other former Soviet Republics into the European Union, we warned that the Union required internal reform first, and that no progress could be made in its eastern expansion if this expansion were perceived as antagonistic to Moscow. We argued for internal reform and for an Eastern partnership which begins with good relations with the strongest of Eastern capitals: Moscow.
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