AND THEY WONDER WHY NO ONE TAKES THEM SERIOUSLY?...:

NATO Rapid Reaction Force to Be Eliminated (Der Spiegel, 9/19/07)

It was supposed to be the cornerstone of NATO's conversion from a Cold War necessity to a rapid-reaction, anti-terror force. The alliance even declared the NATO Response Force (NRF) -- 25,000 fully equipped troops ready for deployment at a moment's notice -- to be fully ready to go in November of last year.

But now, the NRF may be facing a premature end. It turns out that, despite General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's repeated expressions of confidence (as early as April 2005 he said, "the primary challenge at this point is no longer in setting up the NRF. The challenge is to figure out when and where to use it."), it proved difficult to get NATO member countries to contribute the troop numbers and materiel they had pledged.

...other than Atlanticists, who no one takes seriously either?

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 20, 2007 7:33 AM