Fuchs Posted: From a historical point of view, the "remote" possibility isn't so awfully remote.
'Remote' is relative concept. I doubt anyone thinks an invasion or threat thereof is impossible. But, remember, in the late 1990s and early part of this decade the only plausible threat was Russia, and even today, ten years on, Russia while certainly making a lot of noise is not an enemy. Ten years from now, who knows.

Fuchs posted: And then there's an ethical problem.
How dare we to accept new NATO members if we aren't willing to think seriously about how to protect them?
Instead, some are expecting them to provide expeditionary forces for some distant adventures that have no advantageous effect for their national security.
Isn't that unethical?
I agree that NATO, or rather most of NATO's member military orgs are not well suited to defending the Alliance's eastern borders unless they were to be forward deployed to these allies territories.

But NATO currently is not willing to forward deploy forces on the scale and scope needed to posture a real defense them, in part as there is no obvious major threat of invasion and in part (and possibly in larger part) as NATO does not want to aggravate relations with Russia, which would see major NATO forces forward deployed into East and Central Europe as threatening.

So, how is NATO to support them should some lesser contingency arise? - particularly if most NATO forces currently are not particularly deployable and employable at any reasonable distance in a reasonable time frame. In short, in the current environment developing expeditionary capable forces - deployable, sustainable, combat capable forces (or forces for lesser contingencies) - actually will provide NATOs member states with the means to support their eastern allies should the need ever arise (this applies particularly to ground forces, for air forces can be surged forward more readily).

If Russia should start to emerge down the road as a serious renewed threat, NATO can revisit its decision not to forward deploy member military forces to its new allies' territories.