NATO Allies at Odds Over How to Respond to Russia’s Threats

Incidentally, the indecisiveness is a great illustration of why command structures matter. When a centralized system like Russia's encounters a problem, the government makes a plan, and everyone down the chain of command executes it. Militaries always have hierarchical organization for the same reason. Imagine if a platoon in a firefight had to take a vote on what to do next. The chain of command exists to turn a big-picture strategy into immediate, coordinated action, even when things are chaotic.

That's exactly where NATO's weakness starts to become apparent. It's a giant alliance where 32 different peers are trying to agree on what to do. Everyone has to agree, or at least not veto the plan. Getting consensus is slow, messy, and often leads to watered-down decisions that try to make everyone happy but aren't actually the best move. The whole thing has been held together by the US acting as the de facto decision maker, but now the US is starting to pull back and chaos reigns.

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Incidentally, the indecisiveness is a great illustration of why command structures matter. When a centralized system like Russia's encounters a problem, the government makes a plan, and everyone down the chain of command executes it. Militaries always have hierarchical organization for the same reason. Imagine if a platoon in a firefight had to take a vote on what to do next. The chain of command exists to turn a big-picture strategy into immediate, coordinated action, even when things are chaotic.
That's exactly where NATO's weakness starts to become apparent. It's a giant alliance where 32 different peers are trying to agree on what to do. Everyone has to agree, or at least not veto the plan. Getting consensus is slow, messy, and often leads to watered-down decisions that try to make everyone happy but aren't actually the best move. The whole thing has been held together by the US acting as the de facto decision maker, but now the US is starting to pull back and chaos reigns.