It is now apparent to any candid observer that Ukraine needs NATO. But it is also true that NATO needs Ukraine.
According to some accounts, at the Tehran conference of Allied leaders in 1943, Winston Churchill told Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that the pope wanted a voice in any post-war arrangements regarding Poland. To this, Stalin reportedly replied, “Oh really? How many divisions does he have?”
Vladimir Putin is probably asking the same question about NATO right now. The answer is: not many.
As a result of a series of decisions made during the Clinton, Bush, and, especially, Obama administrations, NATO has virtually disarmed itself. At the end of the Cold War in 1989, the United States had some 500,000 troops stationed in Western Europe. Now, we have 30,000, with practically no tanks. The British have removed virtually all their forces from the continent. Germany — which is showing itself increasingly unreliable in any case — has cut its army from twelve divisions down to four. The cold fact of the matter is that the only serious NATO ground force east of the Rhine is the Polish Army, which has 180,000 active-duty servicemen. It’s not enough.
