Are you generally in favor of the US being a member of NATO?

[Nye Bevan]

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO; /ˈneɪtoʊ/; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total.[4] Members' defense spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NATO

6 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, I am generally in favor of the US being a member of NATO.
	4 (67%)
	No, I am generally opposed to the US being a member of NATO.
	2 (33%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[dembotoz]

1. yes---duh

we sorta have to

[Nye Bevan]

3. I don't think we really "have to", but even if we did,

my question is more about whether you are happy, on balance, that this treaty exists. I am not sure that a majority of DUers would be in favor of the military support that NATO would require that we provide to Estonia, for example, in the event of that country being attacked.

[frazzled]

2. Did you get this question from the Rand Paul website?

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/march/17/disband-nato!.aspx

There's no end to the laughs we get here on DU, is there.

[Nye Bevan]

4. I was not aware of that website

until I clicked on the link that you provided.

Are you suggesting that those DUers who voted "No" are Ron Paul fans? I don't think they are.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. well it is always easier to tar and feather your opponents than to debate them.

[conservaphobe]

8. +1

Opposition to NATO is a libertarian position and has no place on the left.

[Xithras]

12. Oh fuck that.

NATO is an organization built for war. Lots of us on the left oppose NATO for the same reason we oppose ANY American military adventurism. It's a tool designed for the sole purpose of killing people (though, allegedly, NATO killing people is OK, so long as it's the OTHER GUY it's killing, and not us).

I oppose NATO for the exact same reasons that I oppose all military alliances, and most military spending. It represents an agreement to kill people, and is an investment in making sure we can do so efficiently.

That's about as "left" as you can get. To even suggest that the anti-war left isn't really "left" is nothing but centrist bullshit.

[Chan790]

5. Absolutely.

I am in favor of NATO. I believe while it may be a PitA sometimes and require commitments of us that are unappealing, it is a force for global security and peace.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. NATO is just a vehicle for US intervention. And a dangerous one.

Suppose Russia invades Lithuania, are you willing to go to nuclear war over that? Our obligation under NATO requires us to go to war in such a situation.

[thucythucy]

9. Which may be why Russia isn't invading Lithuania

much as Putin might like to.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Or not. But do you really want to go to war over Lithuania?

[thucythucy]

13. I don't want to go to war over anybody or anything.

But then the whole point of NATO, as I understand the history, was to deter aggression and thus minimize the chances of a wide scale European war--nuclear or otherwise, happening. It was called "collective security" and had it been tried in, say, 1938, Europe and the world might have been spared some misery.

NATO was organized in 1949, and since then not a single NATO nation, as far as I know, has been invaded by either the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation.

Nations not NATO members, or not NATO members at the time--Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the DDR, Georgia, Ukraine--not so much.

Which may be one reason why Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, were so eager to join.

You disagree?

[Maedhros]

10. No. NATO is a cold war relic. [n/t]

[Cali_Democrat]

14. I was always of the firm belief that the US should have always been a member of the Warsaw Pact