There's not much point in talking about letting Europeans take responsibility for their own security at a time when U.S. nuclear weapons are still deployed in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy. In addition, the United States makes no secret of its plans to deploy its missile defense systems in Southeastern Europe. As residents of Odessa say to such proposals, "Don't make my slippers laugh!"

 

Bacevich also suggests that a NATO free of U.S. influence could take responsibility for "guarantee[ing] the territorial integrity of Poland and Lithuania." As a linguist by training, allow me to translate. In the Western press, "the territorial integrity of Poland and Lithuania" tends to mean "defense from Russian aggression." This idea is simply ridiculous: Democratic Russia has never given cause for Baltic or Eastern European states to tremble over their sovereignty or security, despite NATO's attempts to portray Russia as an enemy threatening to attack in the dead of night (the way "NATO ally" Mikheil Saakashvili launched an attack on South Ossetia in 2008).