NATO and Russia

John  Vinocur has written an interesting piece on the "historic" Lisbon NATO summit:

Anyone out there feel safer, surer, better protected against the world’s nasties as a result of the “historic breakthroughs” announced between NATO and Russia at that summit meeting in Lisbon 10 days ago?

Alexander Golts, a Russian security and military affairs analyst with a reputation for considerable integrity and cheek, said he heard at least 10 references coming from the conference hall to the event’s “historic” character — including two (my count) from the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev.
Mr. Golts also said “this celebration of mutual understanding is completely worthless.”

Vinocur also reminds us of something that was not talked about in Lisbon:

A coda: the high-pressure gush at Lisbon was successfully slip-streamed by France so that in the midst of all the self-congratulatory talk no one uttered a word about French efforts to sell the Russian Navy two helicopter-carrying assault ships, a NATO first. The French could certainly cheer, Long live Mr. Obama’s reset!

Read the whole article here.