NATO has reached a watershed and needs to evaluate both its geographic scope and the spectrum of threats it is willing to address. The Alliance needs to view its capabilities with clarityand sobriety and to approach future missions with realism, bothmilitary and economic. With the survival of our civilization atstake, failure is not an option.
The bloody ethnic clashes occurring in southern Kyrgyzstan are the worst violence in the Fergana Valley, the heart of Central Asia, since 1990, when hundreds died in another outpouring of mutual hatred. The tragedy is that the current conflict, which risks turning the country into a failed state and tipping the entire region into chaos, could have been avoided.