This is the Cornel West who wrote "Race Matters"?

As an Black American intellectual in 20th century USA, he certainly had some on-point things to say about racism. But being deeply qualified in one area doesn't automatically mean you know what you're talking about in a different area.

Similarly, Chomsky had some brilliant things to say about linguistics (although I'm becoming less convinced that humans have built in grammar). Neither is suddenly an expert in geopolitics.

That said, NATO post WWII was a reaction to Stalin's grab to control all of Europe, something that even a battered USSR could do - if it was allowed to do it one country at a time. Post USSR breakup, look at it from the viewpoint of the ex-Warsaw Pact nations. They'd been subjugated, NATO was their one chance to keep that from happening again. Of *course* they wanted to join.