Vice President Joe Biden visited eastern Europe on Tuesday to shore up diplomatic ties and reassure NATO members' leaders of the alliance's strength — but its strength has been exposed as lacking by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, some experts say. While Biden vowed to "stand shoulder to shoulder" with Poland, for instance, Russian President Vladimir Putin was giving a defiant speech in Moscow that put new pressure on the U.S. to act, as Russia moves to annex the Ukrainian region of Crimea. But Ukraine isn't a NATO member, a fact that severely curtails what NATO might do for it. That makes NATO, one expert told NBC News, essentially toothless. (Others describe the West's responses to Russia's occupation of Crimea in harsher terms, with one former British foreign minister calling sanctions on Moscow "pathetic.") But while NATO members like Germany rule out military action, NATO can still show off its military muscle. One expert predicted NATO training exercises right along its eastern edge.
