Is NATO as we know it dissolving?

[vector7]

The Obama Administration has isolated America from most of her allies, including Israel and set the ME on fire with their Arab Spring.

Obama has opened the door for the Axis to join NATO while he moves toward the next phase and replaces Gates with a known Communist to finish the job...

Europe may no longer be worth defending

Bob Gates allowed himself to be 'blunt' with the Europeans (Photo: SDA)
VALENTINA POP
10.06.2011 @ 19:01 CET

BRUSSELS / EUOBSERVER - Under pressure to cut its military spending, the US is losing patience with Europe's unwillingness to pay for its own defence, outgoing US defence minister Robert Gates said Friday (10 June) in an unusually 'blunt' speech in Brussels, casting doubt over the very survival of NATO.

On his last trip to Europe before retiring on 30 June, Gates - who has served as defence minister both in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations - allowed himself "to speak bluntly" during a conference organised by the Security and Defence Agenda, a Brussels-based think tank.

Looking first at Afghanistan, he noted that the operation got bogged down in national caveats which hampered the range of actions European soldiers were allowed to do - a hint at Germany's restrictions on its troops to use lethal force, which meant that they could not be deployed in combat against the Taliban.

As for troop withdrawal, with the Netherlands suddenly pulling out after a government was forced to resign last year over the Afghan war, Gates said: "We cannot afford to have some troop-contributing nations to pull out their forces on their own timeline in a way that undermines the mission and increases risks to other allies. The way ahead in Afghanistan is 'in together, out together'."

NATO's flagship mission in Afghanistan has also "exposed significant shortcomings" in the military alliance - both concerning capabilities and "political will."

"Despite more than 2 million troops in uniform – not counting the US military – NATO has struggled, at times desperately, to sustain a deployment of 25,000 to 40,000 troops, not just in boots on the ground, but in crucial support assets such as helicopters, transport aircraft, maintenance, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and much more," Gates said.

When it comes to the more recent mission in Libya, similar shortcomings made it "painfully clear" that they can undermine the success of a campaign that has broad political support, no troops on the ground and is "a mission in Europe's neighbourhood deemed to be in Europe's vital interest."

"While every alliance member voted for the Libya mission, less than half have participated at all, and fewer than a third have been willing to participate in the strike mission. Frankly, many of those allies sitting on the sidelines do so not because they do not want to participate, but simply because they can't. The military capabilities simply aren't there."

He cited lack of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, which make even the most advanced European fighter jets useless. Italy's ambition to run the air campaign from a Naples-based headquarters in fact meant that "mainly US targeting specialists" had to be deployed there "to do the job."

"The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country – yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the US, once more, to make up the difference."

With more security-consuming European allies than partners able to shoulder the burden in NATO, Gates questioned the very rationale of this alliance, born out of America's willingness to protect Western Europe against a potential Soviet invasion during the Cold War.

"Some two decades after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the US share of NATO defence spending has now risen to more than 75 percent – at a time when politically painful budget and benefit cuts are being considered at home," Gates said.

Frustrated by years of trying to convince European allies to step up their defence spending and upgrade their military capabilities, Gates projected a "dim, if not dismal future for the transatlantic alliance": that the US simply stops footing the bill.

"The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defence."

"Indeed, if current trends in the decline of European defense capabilities are not halted and reversed, future US political leaders – those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me – may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost," he warned.

Responding to this doomsday scenario, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said during a press briefing on Friday that this was in line with repeated calls from NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen to improve military spending and make "smart" defence cuts where necessary.

"There is clearly a long-standing concern about the transatlantic gap in defence spending, there is a risk that European allies may even fall behind in terms of technological development.

We all know there is an economic and financial crisis going on and when all parts of budgets are being cut, defence budgets cannot be exempt," she said.

[American Patriot]

I want to know and understand WHY the American main stream media IS NOT COVERING THIS STUFF!?

[Malsua]

But getting rid of these useless devices would be a very smart thing to do,

If they are useless, then why does it matter if they stay or go?

Whether or no an effete liberal do gooder sees no value in them and doesn't see them as a status symbol, a turd world strong man will. That same turd world strong man doesn't see a disarmed entity as something to model himself after, he see that entity as something he can prey upon.

[Ryan Ruck]

It's funny, usually when this:

One of the more pernicious obstacles to rational policy-making is the "ratchet effect": the tendency for policies, once adopted, to acquire a life of their own and to become resistant to change, even when they have ceased to be useful.

word is used, everything that follows is anything but.

You seem to forget (as usual) a couple simple fact.

America is not the only one to have nukes.

Europe went to conquer Russia, Russia never tryed to conquer Europe.

[Ryan Ruck]

Well

Originally it was Posted By Stephen M. Walt Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - 2:16 PM

I dont have a highly sophisticated English

You really didn't need to clarify that Peterle. Anyone following along in the thread would have seen it wasn't you that said that. That and we all know that's not your writing style.

Also, one can click the blue box next to your name in the quoted area and it will take them to the post the quote was made from. There they would see you obviously didn't write it.

No need to clutter up the thread with that stuff.

VARIOUS MASONIC SYMBOLS

(REDACTED)

And this is not on topic for this thread Peterle.

If you'd like to discuss that type of stuff, go ahead and start a thread in the Skeptics forum for it.

'Russia' is/was not the 'Soviet Union'. Russia was the first occupied Country in what the Communists hoped would eventually be a World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That day will never come, ended when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 to pre-empt an invasion of Europe ordered by Stalin (as documented by Victor Suvorov).

That's really getting down to splitting hairs and trying to put too fine a point on what I was getting at. The fact is Russia was arguably the foundation and head honcho of the Soviet Union. If Russia told East Germany or Poland or Czechoslovakia to jump, they asked how high.

The real point I was getting at was that saying that "Russia never tryed to conquer Europe" is more than a little disingenuous when the fact is that it was Russia that occupied East Berlin post WWII, nearly caused a shooting war with the US over that occupation, made the Berlin Airlift a necessity, and as a result of their occupation gave birth to their client state of East Germany.

I think that qualifies as at least trying to conquer Europe. They then settled into trying to conquer Europe with less overt, non-military subversion.

[Ryan Ruck]

Communism was an ideology that held countries hostage, and many people responded in these countries with varying degrees of anticommunism and collaboration. Russia was the first of these, and the Communists used a number of methods to maintain control.

Communism on it's own wasn't/isn't the sole problem. Communism was/is merely a convenient method for tyrannical people to exert power and control over people.

After all, you saw the same dictatorial control over Russia (and their sphere of influence) in Tsarist Russia and the Russian Empire long before the "birth" of Communism.

What you're saying is akin to saying that Charles Manson was not at fault for the murders he comitted, it was the belief of "Helter Skelter" that caused it. As I've mentioned before, someone has to put an idea into action to make it more than an idea.

My point was this; Russia would be an Enemy to some in the West for a few reasons having nothing to do with Communism, and this is never more apparent than these days.

I would be among those for the fact that Russia has, in their own words, given up Communism and yet they continue their attempt to control the world in a dictatorial manner.

Tell me 'missile defence' bases in Eastern Europe would not have the potential capacity to destroy all of Russia quite a few minutes faster than elsewhere if armed with nukes, rendering a second strike capacity useless...Tell me, am I wrong? What safegaurds would a patriotic Russian government have for their nation's survival to allay those fears?

No, they can't. Have you looked at what those missile defense sites entail?

They are literally a handful of short-range, lightweight, defensive missiles.

Any launch by Russia of nuclear weapons would instantaneously overwhelm that site. They may be able to get a couple missiles but that's it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-...Defense_System

Needless to say, due to the highly classified nature of the interceptors, you aren't going to find a lot of information on the actual missiles used (hence the reason that Obama's giving the technical specs of it to Russia are a big deal) but suffice it to say the missiles used are not on par with the ICBMs they are being used against.

If we want to destroy Russia in a couple minutes, we use these guys:

[Ryan Ruck]

Russia under the Czars and Russia in captivity under the Bolsheviks were light-years apart. To compare the two systems is almost obscene.

And Russia's belief in a special divine mission from God, as the 'Third Rome' and protector of Orthodoxy is quite comparable to the sense of spiritual mission and destiny America has of itself. During our civil war, these ideas were not always at loggerheads, and need not be either. Russia, the real Russia of Orthodoxy and the Czars, once was the salvation of America.

Why? Because one claimed to act in the name of God and one didn't? Regardless of what the motivation was authoritarian, expansionist government is authoritarian, expansionist government no matter in who's or what's name it is done.

Considering past history and the classified nature of the Missile System (who's to say it isn't 'ABM', to deny Russia first-strike capability?) and position in Eastern Europe, the continued existence of NATO after 1989, and our antipathy to Russia's rulers (Hillary Clinton lecturing Russia on representative government...), why don't we just come out and say the truth?

'Russia' is our enemy, with or without Communism, and the continued existence of NATO proves it?

You forgetting Reagan offered to share ABM tech with Russia? You also forgetting that Russia had been developing ABM tech during the whole time they claimed to be adhering to the 1972 ABM treaty we signed with them prohibiting as much?

They've had an ABM system throughout Russia since before Reagan began the big push for us to develop our own ABM system.

Again, an ABM system is in no way an offensive system. To claim so is to use the same argument the Russians do.



You know michael between this argument that Russia is somehow a victim of our ABM system, your arguing that the US should seek to ally with Russia, and your continual use of leftist sources (I called you on it once before if you recall) to try and push an agenda (and your rather weak rationalization behind it) I'm really starting to wonder if this website is really a good fit for you. Maybe you'd find discussion more agreeable to your point of view elsewhere because I don't think there is a very receptive audience to this thinking here.

I can tell you that your actions have been the topic of discussion among staff. Your, what in all honesty appears to be a very subtle undermining of this site with previously anti-Israel and now apparently pro-Russia sentiment, has not gone unnoticed. In fact one member specifically confided in us about that very thing independently and unknowing of our discussion about it and left because of it.

This isn't some blow up over this single topic/event but is rather the culmination of your actions over an extended period.

Please consider yourself being put on notice that this continued, what I'm going to call subversion, is not welcome. If you'd like to continue with it I'm going to ask you take it elsewhere. If you decide not to leave and continue, you'll join a very short list of folks who have been banned. The only reason that you haven't been banned before is because you've tread a fine line within the TOS but that is no longer going to be adequate enough.

[Ryan Ruck]

I haven't forgotten the Reagan years, the final stretch of the Cold War, but again you are refering to the Soviet Union, not Russia.

Many people (accurately) use the names interchangeably. Talk to any Cold Warrior and you'll find this to be the case. We've got a few on here and I'm sure they could chime in.

For some reason you are seemingly trying to place Russia in some sort of inferior role in the Soviet Union when the fact is if they had miraculously vanished from the face of the Earth, the Soviet Union would have ceased to be a threat overnight.

As for the rest of your comments, as i'm not party to these conversations, so i'm hardly in a position to respond to them.

There are many behind-the-scenes things that are discussed among the staff to ensure the site is run in an orderly manner.

And for the rest of us who aren't privy to these conversations, we can only wonder if mentioning them is a form of social engineering towards a certain goal of ideological conformity.

Indeed it is. It is me politely letting you know that your behavior has been an issue that has come up several times in several forms (ironically the least of which has been with me as other staff members can attest if they wish) and to knock it off.

I generally try to take a hands off approach to running my site to allow people to express their views but make no mistake, it is my site and one thing I will not allow is glad-handing of an enemy of this country regardless of the manner in which they are an enemy.

Until Russia undergoes their own reformation in the manner that Germany did post World War II, I (and I'm sure plenty of others) consider them an enemy and that is the way they are treated on this site.

You do understand though how pathetic and out of touch with geopolitical reality such an 'echo chamber' would be, don't you?

The fact is that, as mentioned above, this is my site and will be run in the manner I deem fit. If you don't like it, you are free to start your own forum/blog and run things the way you think they should be run.

That's what I did when I started this site after being a member for a number of years at Anomalies. I didn't like the way things were being run there and decided to start my own site and run things the way I wanted.

Clearly a fair number of people agreed with me and came here as well as a number of people that have joined up over the years. Granted this site is not as large as AN was at their largest but I suspect that is due largely to the fact that AN was affiliated with Richard Hoagland who was regularly featured on a national radio show with millions of listeners. Today we arguably have far more participation and run a tighter ship with a higher quality of membership than AN.

Size, however, is not my main concern with this site. This site was started by myself to satisfy a personal desire to consolidate information about a threat I perceived to America and I wanted to extend the courtesy of allowing others to participate if they wanted to but, not at the expense of me or my site.

Take all of this however you'd like. Just know that I'm making clear to you my position on what content is welcome on my site and what is not, namely content that seeks to minimize the threat(s) to America while demonizing others that are not. So stay and cease disrupting or leave, voluntarily or not. The ball is in your court.