Talk:NATO

"Resistance to NATO" section

I removed a section titled "Resistance to NATO" today because it read like a criticism section and a summary of its source reference "natoprotest.org". Here's the text:

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Clarifying the Introduction: Member State spending

The last sentence in the first paragraph says "Members' defense spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP." This is misleading, as a reader unfamiliar with NATO is likely to proceed under the assumption that many, if not all, NATO member states meet this supposed amount. I propose the following change: the sentence should be amended, and ought to say "Members' defense spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP, a figure only met by the United States, United Kingdom, France, Turkey, and Greece." The 'only' could be omitted if it is too much of a weasel word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bstouttt (talk • contribs) 18:53, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

1990 Two Plus Four negotiations and alleged promise

The second paragraph in the "Post-Cold War" subsection is dominated by discussion of "a promise" given by unnamed "Western" negotiators regarding future NATO enlargement. I fear that repeated emphasis of this may not be neutral, that the phrasing seems to be aimed at putting a 2014 anti-NATO spin on 1990 events, and that we might be giving it undue weight in this section, considering that the same information is also included in the Expansion section, in the article on the Two Plus Four Treaty, and in the Enlargement of NATO article, often verbatim. As such, I condensed the text used here and added a phrase to preface the discussion stating "there are diverging view on whether negotiators gave commitments regarding further NATO expansion east." My edits were immediately undone by User:AntiqueReader, and not wanting anyone to feel offended, suggest we use the Talk page here to agree on how to deal with this little topic. Regarding the potential for copyright violations, my suggestion was not that the Speigel Online sentences were necessarily a violation, but that it is always better to rephrase a source and work it into the text when we don't need a word-for-word quote. Non-free content is only to be used when there is no possible equivalent.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 20:46, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

On the topic of using Gorbachev's memoir as a source for his opinions on the "promise," as far as I understand, primary sources are allowed when secondary or tertiary are unavailable. Since we have The Telegraph already as a source for his quote in the sentence, I don't exactly understand what Gorbachev's memoir is sourcing, if anything. And even if other articles might use memoirs, it doesn't mean its appropriate in this situation. As for the Foreign Policy article, it doesn't add new specifics here, but seemed like a good overview of the controversy, so a good way to cite the sentence that just says "there are diverging views." Again, I don't want to step on anyone's toes here, I'm just trying to keep the article up to spec.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 17:31, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

French departure from NATO

Attributing the French departure from NATO as based on "doubts" about NATO's ability to defend against the Warsaw Pact nations (as was done in the second paragraph of the introductory section) is simplistic, and just plain wrong. France still maintained a military alliance with other western states, for the purpose of opposing a Soviet invasion. And, as noted elsewhere in this page, there were agreements between the US and France for France's forces to be put under NATO control in the event of a Soviet Attack. Rather, the move by de Gualle was an ideological action, mostly based on Charles de Gualle's vision of France as a power, his perception of French identity, and his perception of her envisioned role in continental Europe. His policies were (are?) known as "Gaullism," and are (outside of France) dismissed as his totally unrealistic belief that France should be a world power.174.52.250.90 (talk) 16:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Grammatical typo in French withdrawal paragraph

In February 1959, France withdrew its Mediterranean Fleet from NATO command. He later banned [...]

I guess "He" is supposed to refer to de Gaulle, but since he isn't mentioned in the sentence before, he can't be referred to by pronoun. So change it either to "It" (referring to France) or "De Gaulle".

Done Combined with the previous sentence so that "France" is the pronoun.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 14:43, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Typo and small error

The last part of the introduction has a typo and should be updated from 4 to 5.