Quote Originally Posted by Beskar View Post
It is not that NATO is half free-riders, it is the fact NATO is more about defence than offence. In other words, if mother Russia steam rolls into a NATO country, the Jet Riders of the Wild West zoom across the shores and make them disappear.
I consider the defensive nature of the alliance to basically be a system of free riding- most of the nations in NATO benefit much, much more from protection afforded to them then they could themselves offer to a fellow NATO member in the event of an attack.