RIGHT STRAND, WRONG MESSAGE:

Nato's dissolution is long overdue (Mary Dejevsky, 9/07/09, Independent)

There are three main strands to the argument as it has developed so far, though with many gradations in between. The defeatist one would be that the alliance has outlived its usefulness. The second strand, you could describe as the reformist one, would be that the alliance has a future, but must change in line with changing times. And the third you could describe as the nostalgic strand: Nato, so its adherents would maintain, has done an excellent job, is essential to future global stability and needs less change and more belief.

I make no apologies for belonging to the first, rather small, camp which is hardly admitted to the debate at all. My firm conviction is that Nato should have declared victory and dissolved itself at the end of the Cold War. There are many reasons why this did not happen, including the considerable confusion at the time, the preoccupation of Western leaders with other matters, not least the hugely controversial reunification of Germany, and the uncertainty about how Russia and the former Warsaw Pact countries would develop.

But the dissolution of Nato would have sent the message – still not really heard in Moscow or points east – that the Cold War is over.

It should have been dissolved, but because it's not worth defending a secular Europe and because what threatens it is internal not external.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2009 6:59 AM