NATO and China, India, Russia

Re “Anti-NATO Axis Could Pose Threat,” Sept. 27: What astounds me is that your reporters were unable to find even one “expert” who thought a potential alliance among Russia, China and India might be a good thing. If 2.5 billion people, many of whom live with crushing poverty, can ally to improve their standard of living, isn’t that good? These nations have a desperate need for infrastructure and other productive investment. That strikes me as an opportunity. They have millions of children crying out to be educated. Isn’t it possible that some of those minds could contribute new ideas, inventions and discoveries to our world? And what if, by cooperating, these nations could progress without relying so much on debt and the International Monetary Fund?

Your article focuses on armaments. Yet only the stupidest of governments would fail to notice how investing in armaments instead of people ruined the Soviet Union. The “threats” your article mentions are these nations’ common desire for a “stable Central Asia,” their fear of militant Islam, their opposition to “theater missile-defense systems,” their support for the U.N. Security Council and their support of “the principle of nonintervention in the affairs of sovereign states.” That sounds pretty good to me. If America’s foreign policy experts think those ideas are scary, we’re living in Wonderland. Why is such a potentially positive development being portrayed as something to fear? That’s what I find scary.

STEPHEN MARK

Santa Monica

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This is another desperate attempt by our “foreign policy experts” to come up with a credible enemy to threaten us with. Three of the poorest countries per capita in the world, with no ability to move troops beyond their borders, with no guiding philosophy in common, are no threat to the U.S. in war or business.

The only thing they have in common is a fear of the unbridled power of our military and the unbridled greed of our capitalistic ruling class. I join them in fear of these huge and unrestrained forces.

DAVID BRUNK

Gardena