PublicOrgTheory

This does not bode well for NATO and global relations with the Soviet Union Russia:

Nato today said it had received a note from Moscow saying that Russia would break off military cooperation with the west’s military alliance.

The move is the latest fallout from Russia’s short, sharp war with Georgia.

It appeared to be a tit-for-tat response to Nato’s announcement this week that there could be “no business as usual” as long as Russian forces remained in Georgia.

Foreign ministers meeting in Brussels had decided that the Nato-Russia council would no longer meet for the time being.

The council, set up in 2002, paved the way for cooperation on several projects.

Ummm…  a note?  Passed in class perhaps?  Or perhaps on some sort of embossed stationery?

Joking aside, NATO as an organization potentially changes in some fairly significant strategic ways if Russia is outside rather than inside.  There’s plenty of speculation about what this and the Poland agreement mean (see above for a graphical view of Russia’s anxiety), with the sum of all fears being a new arms race and cold war.  Aside from resolving this tension, it would be comforting to see a review of the mission of NATO in the current political, diplomatic, and military landscape.