..out of the dark

On missile defense, Ash wrote: "[T]he idea that you best defend yourself against a potentially nuclear-armed rogue state by doing a modernised version of what Ronald Reagan 20 years ago imagined you might do against the old nuclear-armed Soviet Union is about as intelligent as holding a large umbrella over your head while the floodwaters lap around your thighs and piranhas gnaw at your heels. Different times require different answers."

Anatole Kaletsky offers reason to look upon NATO and its plans with skepticism in his opinion column for the Times of London: "[W]hy shouldn't the Russians worry about Western armies and missiles moving ever closer to their borders? This contributes to a territorial encirclement very similar to what Napoleon and Hitler failed to achieve by cruder means. . . .

"Given that Russia is the only country in Europe (or in central Asia) that has been explicitly barred from Nato - and that will remain barred as long as Poland and the Baltic states are members - the only possible enemy implied by the alliance's 'defensive' posture must be Russia itself. Every defence policy statement from Central Europe makes perfectly clear that defence against Russia is the main raison d'être of Nato."