Germany has almost certainly benefited more from the NATO alliance than any other country. But the Germans seem already to have forgotten what it was like to be always vulnerable to Russian aggression.The current NATO exercises in Georgia, scheduled in January of 2008, began last week and will run through the month of May. The alliance’s decision to move forward with the exercises was met with belligerent rhetoric from Moscow and a coup attempt that was almost certainly inspired, if not directed, by the Kremlin. Still, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister and SPD candidate for Chancellor in elections later this year, has apparently thrown his lot in with the Russians, criticizing the exercises as unhelpful to the maintenance of regional stability:
Imagine if the United States had taken such a view of NATO exercises in Germany during the Cold War. Would anyone seriously suggest that those exercises did not contribute to regional calm? Or maybe Steinmeier thinks that West Germany would have been better off without the thousands of U.S. troops and tanks and aircraft that were constantly training alongside West German soldiers in preparation for a Soviet attack much like the one Moscow launched against Georgia last summer?
