Unfortunately, the article misses the point. The point is that NATO should have been abolished when the Cold War ended, which would, needless to say, have meant that it would not have absorbed those former Warsaw Pact countries and would not have moved U.S. bases, missiles, and troops inexorably closer to Russia's borders. 

The ostensible purpose of NATO was to protect Western Europe from an invasion by the Soviet Union, which, ironically, had been America's partner and ally in World War II. At the end of the Cold War, the threat of such an invasion was non-existent. Therefore, NATO's ostensible mission was over. NATO should have been disbanded immediately.

But like so many other Cold War programs and bureaucratic agencies, NATO bureaucrats were not about to let their bureaucratic agency go quietly into the night. Too many officials had become accustomed to and dependent on the taxpayer-funded largess that came with NATO. 

Moreover, the NATO bureaucrats and the Cold War officials within the U.S. national-security establishment were not ready to let go of their Cold War racket, which they had milked for some 45 years. They had to figure out a way to keep their racket going.

That's why NATO began absorbing Warsaw Pact countries instead of simply going out of business. They knew that as they brought U.S. bases, missiles, and troops closer to Russia's borders, Russia would have to finally respond. And when that would happen, U.S. and NATO officials and their Operation Mockingbird acolytes in the mainstream press could exclaim, "The Russians have committed aggression! They are the aggressors!"