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NATO has already completed its mission so why do we need it

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. I do so because further expansion of NATO, an outdated alliance, is not in our national interest and may well constitute a threat to our national security in the future.

More than 50 years ago the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed to defend Western Europe and the United States against attack from the communist nations of Eastern Europe. It was an alliance of sovereign nations bound together in common purpose – for mutual defense. The deterrence value of NATO helped kept the peace throughout the Cold War. In short, NATO achieved its stated mission. With the fall of the Soviet system and the accompanying disappearance of the threat of attack, in 1989–1991, NATO’s reason to exist ceased.

NATO is unequipped to be a miltary allience

NATO’s capacity to support the next step in Afghanistan’s reconstruction is limited, however. NATO is the world’s strongest military alliance, but it is just that, a military alliance. Unlike the United Nations or the European Union, which also do peacekeeping, NATO is not equipped to undertake the myriad of civil functions, from police training to voter registration to economic development, that ultimately determine the worth of any military intervention.It is, after all, quite possible to imagine an EU-led military operation brought to a successful conclusion without any NATO involvement. It is impossible to imagine the reverse. No nation-building endeavor can succeed without the application of civil as well as military resources.

NATO has already completed its mission so why do we need it

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. I do so because further expansion of NATO, an outdated alliance, is not in our national interest and may well constitute a threat to our national security in the future.

More than 50 years ago the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed to defend Western Europe and the United States against attack from the communist nations of Eastern Europe. It was an alliance of sovereign nations bound together in common purpose – for mutual defense. The deterrence value of NATO helped kept the peace throughout the Cold War. In short, NATO achieved its stated mission. With the fall of the Soviet system and the accompanying disappearance of the threat of attack, in 1989–1991, NATO’s reason to exist ceased.

NATO is unequipped to be a miltary allience

NATO’s capacity to support the next step in Afghanistan’s reconstruction is limited, however. NATO is the world’s strongest military alliance, but it is just that, a military alliance. Unlike the United Nations or the European Union, which also do peacekeeping, NATO is not equipped to undertake the myriad of civil functions, from police training to voter registration to economic development, that ultimately determine the worth of any military intervention.It is, after all, quite possible to imagine an EU-led military operation brought to a successful conclusion without any NATO involvement. It is impossible to imagine the reverse. No nation-building endeavor can succeed without the application of civil as well as military resources.

Classes, courses, and groups may be used in many different ways to organize, manage, and track your training depending upon the internal organization and design of your Learning Management System (LMS). In some systems, creating an online class may be separate from a course. It all really depends on how the Learning Management System treats each of these distinctions. For example, a course may contain the content of an online-learning module that could include one or more lessons and possibly (but not necessarily) a test, to gauge knowledge gained and show mastery of the course material. Classes can be used to deliver the content to specific students at specific times according to the Learning Management System’s internal organization and constraints.

In some systems, classes may be used to group individuals for many other business purposes, like enrollment. For example, a company may enroll all of its new hires in a New Hire class for the month of August. Groups may then be assigned to the class, to allow its members to communicate with each other, and with the assigned “instructor” who will manage their new-hire orientation. New hires may have various types of course material that are used in their training. Some of those elements may be:

- Workplace safety and security.

- The company time clock or timesheet.

- The company purpose and goals.

- Company products.

- Personnel policies.

- Intellectual-property and non-disclosure agreements.

- Emergency-response procedures.

- Benefit documents.

Two special enrollment methods deserve mention: e-Commerce and self-registration. E-Commerce functionality is normally used when you want class members (who are approved to take a course) to pay for its content. Self-registration functionality allows class members to sign up for course material at their discretion, and may or may not be used in concert with e-Commerce.

These enrollment methods are normally used to admit students to traditional online classes (or to physical instructor-led classes), and to collect payments for taking them. However, e-Commerce and self-registration functionality also may be used in other creative ways, such as, to automatically run and administer an online Company Store that sells useful materials and training to:

Company employees – for example, to collect payments for in-house materials and training, in organizations where all divisions and groups operate as cost/profit centers

Customers – often, to sell them additional copies of a company’s product documentation

Association members – to help raise a company’s visibility in its field

Professional practitioners in the company’s industry—which can also raise a company’s visibility in its field

I have only briefly described a few ways that you can use classes, courses, and groups to further your company’s business objectives. Hopefully, these ideas will inspire you to find other creative applications of the Learning Management System you use in your own organization!