Robert Gates, appointed by his Nobel peace prize-winner US president to maintain continuity as well as secure change in US defence policy, makes an ungenerous farewell speech (Gates hits out at Europe over Nato, 11 June). Nato allies honourably joined the US after 9/11 in its costly Afghan war on the "all for one" principle, although no other state had then been attacked. Nato agreed with the current Libyan action following UN resolution 1973, despite the reservations several of its member states had in the security council. Europe already spends more than enough on "defence". The US maintains an absurdly large military budget, costing every American family over $5,000 a year, inherited from the cold war – to the "formative influence" of which Gates harks back nostalgically. A present-day Bourbon, he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The future must and should be with the humanitarian and peacekeeping missions for which he has such contempt.
Peter Nicholls
Colchester, Essex
• Robert Gates has warned of the possible death of Nato. It is about time it died, since its ostensible purpose as a defensive alliance vanished two decades ago when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. Since then it has gained new members from eastern Europe that have seen a political advantage in flattering the US's sense of importance as a world power but have far more urgent uses for their money than military hardware that they have no wish to use. There has been pressure to justify the continued existence of this apparently useless alliance by finding it wars to fight even if they are outside its official area of interest, as with Afghanistan or now Libya. But even Britain is having to temper its addiction to fighting wars because of economic necessity.
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