[QUOTE]Western Europe would not be able to defend itself against Russian intervention because of the progressive dismantling of military capability, one of Britain's most senior generals has warned.
General Sir Richard Shirreff, who stepped down from his post as Nato deputy supreme commander earlier this year, also insisted nothing should be ruled out in the fight against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria.
In a wide-ranging interview with BBC's Newsnight, he called on Nato to rearm if it was serious about defending itself in the future.
Asked about the crisis in Ukraine, he said: "The reality is that Nato would be very hard pressed and they would find it very difficult to put into the field, at sea or into the air the means required, particularly on land I would assess, to counter any form of Russian adventurism.
"Certainly western Europe would not be able to defend in my view against Russia without significant support from the Americans.
"Nato would find it really difficult to get a division (20,000 people) out of the door in quick time.
"Because certainly in western Europe what we have seen progressively is a dismantling of military capability."
He accepted that advocating rearmament would be unpopular, but added: "I t is a message our political leadership need to take home and listen to and act on if they are serious about ensuring that Nato has the means to defend itself in the future.
"If Nato is serious about this, it is going to have to rearm, it is going to have to rebuild capability. European nations are going to have to put their hands in their pockets to spend more money on defence."
Currently just four out of the 28 members spend more than the minimum target of 2% of GDP on defence.
Asked about the situation in Iraq, Sir Richard stressed the threat posed by IS, formerly known as ISIS or ISIL, had to be eradicated.
He told the programme: "The first priority is to protect but ultimately the priority must be to eradicate IS as an external threat because of the potential impact on the Middle East ... but also its potential impact if its incubus is allowed to survive ... on our external security. There is (also) a very clear issue as far as internal security is concerned."
When questioned about whether this meant siding with President Bashar Assad in Syria, he replied: " There can be no eradication of IS as a threat without a regional approach.
"IS is operating and has spread into Syria and therefore there is likely to be or inevitably going to be a need to sit down and talk to difficult bed fellows, bad people.
"It is one thing to say that we are going to deal with it, but you have to back up your words with actions and therefore in my view we should rule out nothing.
[/QUOTE]
[url]https://uk.news.yahoo.com/downsized-nato-cant-fight-russia-001146408.html#d64gTz6[/url]
Interesting...
Since the article doesn't explicitly state it, would NATO lack the ability to defend itself because mobilization would take too long, or because it simply has a smaller force? I'm sorry, I haven't been following NATO's disarmament. Didn't know it was a thing until now.
Just give all of your armies to Germany.
If NATO can't do it, the Euroreich sure can!
Meh. Glorifying our glourious motherland army to scare people and get more funding.
[QUOTE=Mbbird;45812902]Interesting...
Since the article doesn't explicitly state it, would NATO lack the ability to defend itself because mobilization would take too long, or because it simply has a smaller force? I'm sorry, I haven't been following NATO's disarmament. Didn't know it was a thing until now.[/QUOTE]
A lot of the member nations of NATO have been downgrading their military for several years now, saying that the unlikelihood of war is the cause. Only nations I can think of who does not downgrade their military (in Europe) are Germany, France and the UK. Even then I believe both France and the UK has plans to downscale their military within the next few years.
America will defend euroland
What do people expect to happen?
We have nukes. Russia won't touch an actual NATO member. They are aggressive but not suicidal.
Ukraine happened because, lets face it, [I]nobody[/I] gives the tiniest shit about Ukraine. All the sanctions and such are from fear of growth of Russian influence, nobody in the west gives a smallest fuck about what will happen to Ukrainians. We know it, Ukraine knows it, and most importantly, Putin knows it. Ukraine was there free for taking, from the beginning. Once it turned out they won't be Putin's buddies anymore, he decided to cut his losses and take a bite of the Ukraine that was about to get out of his reach.
[editline]27th August 2014[/editline]
Of course army rubber brains will go and use it as a justification for getting new tech and more meat into the mincer, but they are always happy for an excuse.
NATO has 4x more active personnel than Russia, and nukes.
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;45813036]NATO has 4x more active personnel than Russia, and nukes.[/QUOTE]
He's talking about western Europe though, not all NATO. But even EU has twice as many soldiers as Russia. And yeah, MAD is still a thing.
Russia knows what it is doing, and although they fuck around with NATO members with bomber flights, etc, They won't risk a conflict with NATO. A conflict between NATO and Russia would be bad for everyone involved, so it pretty much won't go beyond numerous proxy conflicts(Ukraine, Yugoslavia, etc). Although, anyone read up on Russian nuclear doctrine? It's very interesting. [url]http://thebulletin.org/why-russia-calls-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation[/url]
[QUOTE=Pilot1215;45813675]Russia knows what it is doing, and although they fuck around with NATO members with bomber flights, etc, They won't risk a conflict with NATO. A conflict between NATO and Russia would be bad for everyone involved, so it pretty much won't go beyond numerous proxy conflicts(Ukraine, Yugoslavia, etc). Although, anyone read up on Russian nuclear doctrine? It's very interesting. [url]http://thebulletin.org/why-russia-calls-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation[/url][/QUOTE]
Yugoslavia a proxy war? Source?
It was unaligned during the cold war then went nuts when it broke down after its leader died.
edit: interesting article, take it with a pinch of salt though. It is just a guy expressing his opinions on something with no evidence or source and escpecially since for several years there has been an air of fear mongering around the Russia military intentions.
If what he says is true and valid about Russia being more confident with its militiaries capability it will be interesting to see how they deploy it, I wonder if they will have a go invading various middle eastern countries like the US do.
[QUOTE=Bradyns;45812919]Just give all of your armies to Germany.
If NATO can't do it, the Euroreich sure can![/QUOTE]
Well I mean that insignia [I]would[/I] in fact be pretty sweet.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/bYfyUV1.png[/t]
by yours truly
[QUOTE=proch;45813747]Well I mean that insignia [I]would[/I] in fact be pretty sweet.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/bYfyUV1.png[/t]
by yours truly[/QUOTE]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlruUqgjghE[/media]
[QUOTE=proch;45813747]Well I mean that insignia [I]would[/I] in fact be pretty sweet.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/bYfyUV1.png[/t]
by yours truly[/QUOTE]
Would styling an "Army of the European Union" after the Wehrmacht actually be able to instill fear into the opponents, though? :v:
A unified European army would actually be a neat idea, though I think it'd take years to get anything running smoothly, considering each country runs their military in slightly different, yet noticeable ways. Not to mention language barriers.
[QUOTE=Spetsnaz95;45813900]A unified European army would actually be a neat idea, though I think it'd take years to get anything running smoothly, considering each country runs their military in slightly different, yet noticeable ways. Not to mention language barriers.[/QUOTE]
Unified army would require a unified foreign policy.
[QUOTE=Spetsnaz95;45813900]A unified European army would actually be a neat idea, though I think it'd take years to get anything running smoothly, considering each country runs their military in slightly different, yet noticeable ways. Not to mention language barriers.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;45813918]Unified army would require a unified foreign policy.[/QUOTE]
Technically it'd be easiest that the European countries all gave away a piece of their armed forces to the joint program which would deploy the European Army as necessary, but never in such amounts that it should be able to overpower the independent armies of Europe combined.
Remember, when we're talking Europe, we're talking unity by necessity. You don't want the central body to dominate the smaller ones, but you do want it to be able to put up a fight against any other major fighting force in the world.
[QUOTE=Bradyns;45812919]Just give all of your armies to Germany.
If NATO can't do it, the Euroreich sure can![/QUOTE]
Alot of countries are already 'giving' parts of the army to be under german command.
Including my own nation(cause we are shit and keep cutting budget on defense).
snip, cant read
[QUOTE=Valiantttt;45814190]Alot of countries are already 'giving' parts of the army to be under german command.
Including my own nation(cause we are shit and keep cutting budget on defense).[/QUOTE]
That's bullshit, I assume you're talking about the shared German/Dutch Corps which has existed since 1995. No-one gave shit to germany, it's a shared corps that has had both dutch and german commanders and has garrisons in both the netherlands and germany.
Surprisingly relative.
[img]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17gmti19dab0xjpg/original.jpg[/img]
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Image macro" - Craptasket))[/highlight]
[QUOTE=Bradyns;45812919]Just give all of your armies to Germany.
If NATO can't do it, the Euroreich sure can![/QUOTE]
I know this post is probably a joke but I think it sort goes to the point that most peoples impressions of foreign policy are colored by old stereotypes. Germany is not the militant power it used to be, in fact it's military is a joke. Underfunded, caught up in short-sighted German politics and utterly impotent. 10 years ago they began to cut away at their armed forces in an attempt remodel them as a smaller, faster, rapid response force. Unfortunately 10 years on they did a lot of cutting but didn't buy any of the airplanes they needed to actually move their tiny, underfunded force. Now all Germany does is play up being neutral in everything, too scared to be involved in anything overseas, too miserly to be an effective leader.
[QUOTE]Currently just four out of the 28 members spend more than the minimum target of 2% of GDP on defence. [/QUOTE]
Robert Gates the former Secretary of Defense, railed against NATO shortly before he left his position for this reason among many others. If Russia knocking on the door of Eastern Europe hasn't rattled Europe's cage then nothing will and it's utterly pointless for the US to risk it's assets, money and personnel on a continent that clearly isn't willing to defend itself. One day US military largess wont provide free defense for Europe and I don't know how a union with a weak economy, and limited growth could possibly afford to protect themselves.
That being said the idea of some Red Dawn scenario playing out over the cities of Europe is a farce. Russia, the country with an economy slightly larger than Italy and a population 1/5 of the EU, would fall apart if they tried to fight a war for longer then a week against an equally matched force, even if it is US-less, NATO.
[QUOTE=CubeManv2;45812970]America will defend euroland[/QUOTE]
Well, I mean, if we're not busy or hungover when it happens.
[QUOTE=Teddybeer;45815113]Just run in at the last minute to save our ass, like you normally do.[/QUOTE]
Then spend a few decades collecting debt and interest for that ass saving.
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;45813036]NATO has 4x more active personnel than Russia, and nukes.[/QUOTE]
Ahem, Russia has probably even more nukes than U.S..
[editline]27th August 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Pilot1215;45813675]Russia knows what it is doing, and although they fuck around with NATO members with bomber flights, etc, They won't risk a conflict with NATO. A conflict between NATO and Russia would be bad for everyone involved, so it pretty much won't go beyond numerous proxy conflicts(Ukraine, Yugoslavia, etc). Although, anyone read up on Russian nuclear doctrine? It's very interesting. [url]http://thebulletin.org/why-russia-calls-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation[/url][/QUOTE]
They even have what appears to be a history of cheating on weapons treaties.. [url]http://online.wsj.com/articles/keith-b-payne-and-mark-b-schneider-russia-always-cheats-on-arms-treaties-1408404501[/url] (which I thought was an interesting read)
[QUOTE=Pilot1215;45813675]Russia knows what it is doing, and although they fuck around with NATO members with bomber flights, etc, They won't risk a conflict with NATO. A conflict between NATO and Russia would be bad for everyone involved, so it pretty much won't go beyond numerous proxy conflicts(Ukraine, Yugoslavia, etc). Although, anyone read up on Russian nuclear doctrine? It's very interesting. [url]http://thebulletin.org/why-russia-calls-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation[/url][/QUOTE]
Ehhhh, I am very skeptical of that article. It is either outdated, or it unnecessarily subscribes to the stereotype that a Russia has no precision weapon capability, which isn't true and hasn't been true for a while. While the "de-escalation" bit is interesting, I don't believe the reasons for which Russia would enact it are as the article says.
Does Europe have enough of a technological edge and experienced soldiers to make up for their lack of numbers?
[QUOTE=Dr.C;45817182]Does Europe have enough of a technological edge and experienced soldiers to make up for their lack of numbers?[/QUOTE]
Well, considering most our equipment is literally top of the line, like the Leopards and Challengers, and Typhoons too.
[editline]27th August 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Dr.C;45817182]Does Europe have enough of a technological edge and experienced soldiers to make up for their lack of numbers?[/QUOTE]
Plus most NATO nations have been involved in all the recent shit in the Middle East in some way.
[QUOTE=Mbbird;45817059]Ehhhh, I am very skeptical of that article. It is either outdated, or it unnecessarily subscribes to the stereotype that a Russia has no precision weapon capability, which isn't true and hasn't been true for a while. While the "de-escalation" bit is interesting, I don't believe the reasons for which Russia would enact it are as the article says.[/QUOTE]
I need to find something newer, I just found the bit about de-escalation with nuclear weapons pretty interesting. I'll search around for some more stuff. bat-Shit, that isn't surprising, but honestly a few countries do that. mdeceiver79 I was wrong when I mentioned that about Yugoslavia. Also, here is the posted Military Doctrine of Russia, you'll need to translate it. It's on a Russian government page. [url]http://www.scrf.gov.ru/documents/33.html[/url]
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