Hope and Change - Secondary and Tertiary Effects

The growing fecklessness of the current Administration is having effects beyond the Middle East.  As detailed by George Friedman of STRATFOR reports, the European Union and NATO are losing their luster with former vassals of the Soviet Union (who know a thing or two about tyranny, socialism, and unaccountable bureaucrats).

Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have established the Visegrad Group.

The region is Europe — more precisely, the states that had been dominated by the Soviet Union. The Visegrad Group, or V4, consists of four countries — Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary — and is named after two 14th century meetings held in Visegrad Castle in present-day Hungary of leaders of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The group was reconstituted in 1991 in post-Cold War Europe as the Visegrad Three (at that time, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were one). The goal was to create a regional framework after the fall of Communism. This week the group took an interesting new turn.

On May 12, the Visegrad Group announced the formation of a “battle group” under the command of Poland. The battle group would be in place by 2016 as an independent force and would not be part of NATO command.    Yes, go back and read that again (in fact, go read the whole article).  Four European nations have decided that NATO (and, by extension, the United States) is no longer seen as a guarantor of freedom.  Of course, I'm sure that our treatment of Israel and response to Iran and the "Arab Spring" had nothing to do with this turn of events.  After all, the United States is no better ally and friend--just ask Hosni Mubarak.

Hope and change... still having magical effects around the world.