Quote Originally Posted by redgunamo View Post
That photograph is just for the cameras, so to speak. Clearly such a large gathering is unwieldly and awkward making discretion, for example, impossible to assure. Therefore the three or four key, principle players have long since taken to meeting privately, independently of all the others. They pass little notes to each other; "Lunch tomorrow, my club. We'll sort it all out then."

So that conclave, assembly, and its table, can continue to grow as large as it wants as it will make no difference to anything. But it does, however, look better on television.
Well, yes. I'm not quite so naive as to think that ordinary NATO members get any say in NATO policy.