George Will: Putin ‘Watching with Those Cold Eyes’ Whether France Invokes Article 5

WILL: "It’s possible, I think that looking back a few weeks from now this particular demonstration that what happens in Syria doesn’t say in Syria. We are going to conclude that in a grim sense worse is better. In the sense for years now, the war on terror has been enveloped in the strategic, tactical, legal and moral ambiguities of dealing with what are called non-state actors. Well, here we are dealing with something that has state in its title, that increasingly by demonstrating its reach far from its territory in Libya, and then France, and knocking down the airlines, acts like a state and it should be treated like a state. If I heard Ben Rhodes correctly, he said that it is up to France whether or not to call this an article V event. In NATO 66 years, only once has the territory of a NATO member been invaded. That was the Falkland Islands, a long way from the North Atlantic, but Mr. Putin clearly is watching this. If you believe as I do that Putin’s aim ultimately is to destroy NATO, by having a kind of semi-article V infraction into Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, he’s watching us with those cold eyes of his saying, what are they going to do if France does this? It will be interesting to know if there’s pressure on France not to invoke that article."