What Is NATO Worth?

Never mind Georgia or Ukraine. Would NATO defend Poland or the Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- against a Russian military attack?

There is good reason to wonder.

The only real protection against Russian military aggression may be to live in the U.S.A. -- or in another country with its own "nuclear shield" -- or in a country such as Afghanistan. (China, for many reasons, is almost surely immune to Russian military aggression.)

Irredentism, it seems, is an ever-recurring human disease.

Is the life expectancy of a Russian male at birth still approximately 57 years? Ah, Russian imperial glory. Well, at least Russia still leads Zimbabwe in this respect. Or so one hopes.

But there is a bright lining to every dark cloud: the reconquest of Georgia would provide more real estate for dachas for Russian apparatchiks -- and, who knows?, it might lead to the birth of a new (Georgian? non-Georgian?) Stalin.

Peter Tillers' dynamic evidence page