What Is NATO Good For?

Instapundit Blog Archive ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS (1991 EDITION): What Is NATO Good For? 

"It isn’t that NATO is entirely useless, it’s that NATO expansion has fed Russian paranoia while increasing NATO’s responsibilities — but without increasing NATO’s military capabilities. 
That’s a recipe for failure, or at the very least for ongoing frustration and resentment.
My feeling about NATO when the Soviet Union dissolved was that the alliance should have thrown itself one hell of a victory party, and then dissolved itself, too. 
That’s not to say we’d have abandoned Europe. 
Almost certainly some sort of unwritten entente cordiale would have continued between us and our former allies, but the discontinuation of NATO may have forced leaders in Berlin et al. to take more seriously their own defense.
But that’s all water under the bridge now, and faced with renewed Russian aggression I suppose we have to wage peace with the alliance we have.--Posted by Stephen Green"