Posted on 11/15/2014 2:06:11 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Outside Nato’s headquarters in Brussels, the national flags of 28 member states fly in a proud circle. Even after decades of defence cuts, these countries still account for 58 per cent of global military spending, giving Nato more firepower than any other alliance on Earth.
Yet if Nato is a giant, it has often seemed a sleeping one - at least since the Cold War ended in a bloodless victory over two decades ago. With Russian troops on the march in Ukraine, however, the task of reawakening the Nato giant to face a new crisis has fallen to Jens Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway who became the alliance’s secretary general only six weeks ago.
In a sparse office decorated only by a map of the world – with Nato’s members shaded in blue – Mr Stoltenberg seems grimly aware that he is taking over at a perilous moment. The latest intelligence on Russian troop movements in Ukraine is particularly worrying.
During the last 10 days, President Vladimir Putin has sent columns of Russian soldiers and tanks across the border to reinforce the area of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Moscow rebels. A ceasefire agreed in Minsk on Sept 5 has unravelled and both sides are preparing for renewed fighting.
“We have seen movements of equipment, artillery, tanks, trucks and soldiers into Ukraine and towards the frontline,” says Mr Stoltenberg. “The border between Ukraine and Russia is completely open, so there are movements back and forth, but there is a significant military build-up taking place.”
Mr Stoltenberg declines to put a figure on the scale of the Russian deployment, but he is struck by the presence of sophisticated air defences inside the rebel-held enclave in Ukraine.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
That buys a lot of horses and lances for the Polish cavalry.
NATO has done nothing to help Ukraine stop Russia from launching a renewed offensive
European members average about 1.2% of GDP on Defense. The US a little over 3%.
Combine that with a decided lack of will and complete risk aversion and you have an alliance on the precipice of destruction.
How many Americans would support an Existential War with Russia to protect Bulgaria, Latvia or Romania from the Russians?
Especially when Germany, France, Britain and Italy would not fire a single shot over the near-certain knowledge they would be destroyed?
Ukraine is a NATO nation? Even the coup government in Kiev isn’t a nato country. So what nato be doing in your opinion?
NATO has taken a Bridge Too Far.
NATO has not helped enough but we have been helping Ukraine with “rehabilitation for injured troops, cyber defence, logistics, and command and control and communications.”
Now that the terrorist Putin has escalated his invasion of Ukraine NATO must step up our support to Ukraine including arms sales.
The Neo-Soviet war criminal and mass murderer Putin has taken a bridge too far with his unprovoked revanchist invasion of Ukraine.
Who is going to eclipse NATO as the world’s greatest military power? When is this going to happen?
Even beyond the budget numbers, can anyone imagine modern Germany mobilizing for war? The Netherlands? Belgium? Denmark? The leaders own Norway?
Please
All that capability and zero will.
The European members wander about and piss themselves upon the first sniff of danger.
The exceptions being Britain and Poland.
ALL members of NATO are downsizing while Russia and China are building.
Absent leadership in DC, we have a decade before we're outgunned and outnumbered.
It's likely Europe and NATO are lost though. They would not even fight for their own nations.
You have no reason to think that NATO won’t remain dominant, especially against Russia.
I don’t know where all this nonsense comes from.
Where is that?
I think that view is naive. NATO has in fact used its power repeatedly and has destroyed regimes all over the world, in continent after continent after continent, in Serbia, Afghanistan, and Libya. In fact NATO’s taste for intervention seems to only grow, while the whole time voices such as yours continue to proclaim their impending demise. That's wishful thinking on your part.
On the other hand whom has China projected military power against? Has Russia successfully intervened anywhere in the world? Putin's intervention in Ukraine has failed to topple the Poroshenko regime despite all of Ukraine's glaring problems.
NATO is so powerful that we can topple regimes all around the world without even exerting ourselves. Russia and China continues to pour money into their armed forces, but what do they have to show for it? They seem to be unable to achieve any military goals at all.
The HELL it is.
NATO has been THE bulwark of Liberty for over 60 years.
That they have been willing to fight against the weak is not a good indicator they would fight when the casualties are 25%...or greater.
They are not your daddy's NATO.
The US should leave NATO to the Europeans and let them defend themselves.
Lets see how well socialist Europe does without Uncle Sugar paying the bills.
Nonsense, the United States and Great Britain and France and Germany and Poland and the other 23 nations of NATO are not ready to surrender to your backwards little Russian country with no effective Navy, little Air Force and still depending largely on old equipment and poorly trained and motivated 1 year draftees to fill their Army ranks, that may number as few as 240,000.
Quit spewing nonsense.
We’ve never sent military aid and material to a non-NATO country before?
That's the nonsense, right there.
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