NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the Bal

Time for NATO to move a much stronger trip wire forwards to the Baltics

NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the Baltic state is next on Kremlin’s list | National Post
Russian and NATO troops took part in rival exercises either side of the Estonian border Wednesday, highlighting fears that the Baltic state could be the next target of the Kremlin’s territorial ambitions.

NATO forces put on a show of strength within yards of Estonia’s Russian border, with armoured personnel carriers, tanks and 1,300 Estonian soldiers forming a military parade. The parade, which also included 100 troops from Britain and other European nations, followed warnings from David Cameron on Tuesday that the Baltics could be next in Russia’s sights for a Crimea-style annexation.

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

JANFU said:

Time for NATO to move a much stronger trip wire forwards to the Baltics

NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the Baltic state is next on Kremlin’s list | National Post
Russian and NATO troops took part in rival exercises either side of the Estonian border Wednesday, highlighting fears that the Baltic state could be the next target of the Kremlin’s territorial ambitions.

NATO forces put on a show of strength within yards of Estonia’s Russian border, with armoured personnel carriers, tanks and 1,300 Estonian soldiers forming a military parade. The parade, which also included 100 troops from Britain and other European nations, followed warnings from David Cameron on Tuesday that the Baltics could be next in Russia’s sights for a Crimea-style annexation.

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Yes but looking at the wider picture NATO's current response to Russian transgressions has been woeful with further cuts in defence spending just announced

Despite the Ukraine crisis and increasing tensions with Russia, most Nato members are doing little to reverse the decline in their defence spending.

The promises and rhetoric that they will meet the threat is not matched by reality.

New research by Ian Kearns and Denitsa Raynova of the European Leadership Network (ELN) found that six countries, including two of the biggest defence spenders in Europe, the UK and Germany, will cut defence expenditure in 2015.

BBC News - Nato defence spending falls despite promises to reverse cuts

Given this is the sort of message we are sending out its little wonder Putin feels able to gamble given the massive increases in Russian defence spending. We keep this up and the whole alliance could end up in a world of hurt

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

flogger said:

Yes but looking at the wider picture NATO's current response to Russian transgressions has been woeful with further cuts in defence spending just announced

Despite the Ukraine crisis and increasing tensions with Russia, most Nato members are doing little to reverse the decline in their defence spending.

The promises and rhetoric that they will meet the threat is not matched by reality.

New research by Ian Kearns and Denitsa Raynova of the European Leadership Network (ELN) found that six countries, including two of the biggest defence spenders in Europe, the UK and Germany, will cut defence expenditure in 2015.

BBC News - Nato defence spending falls despite promises to reverse cuts

Given this is the sort of message we are sending out its little wonder Putin feels able to gamble given the massive increases in Russian defence spending. We keep this up and the whole alliance could end up in a world of hurt

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He is arming and we are rusting out.

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

JANFU said:

He is arming and we are rusting out.

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Thats why we are having this conflict in Ukraine. I hope he doesn't test the alliances resolve in the Baltics because given the parlous state of our conventional forces we might have to go to mushrooms sooner rather than later. Putin might choose gamble that we won't over these small nations. This will be a double win for him in that he will get those states back and forever shatter the confidence of the alliance with its membership in doing so. Then we really will be in trouble

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

flogger said:

Thats why we are having this conflict in Ukraine. I hope he doesn't test the alliances resolve in the Baltics because given the parlous state of our conventional forces we might have to go to mushrooms sooner rather than later. Putin might choose gamble that we won't over these small nations. This will be a double win for him in that he will get those states back and forever shatter the confidence of the alliance with its membership in doing so. Then we really will be in trouble

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Putin is preparing for a short war.
Note Article 5 does not call for a country to use force if another NATO country is attacked.

http://www.nato.int/terrorism/five.htm
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

flogger said:

Yes but looking at the wider picture NATO's current response to Russian transgressions has been woeful with further cuts in defence spending just announced

Despite the Ukraine crisis and increasing tensions with Russia, most Nato members are doing little to reverse the decline in their defence spending.

The promises and rhetoric that they will meet the threat is not matched by reality.

New research by Ian Kearns and Denitsa Raynova of the European Leadership Network (ELN) found that six countries, including two of the biggest defence spenders in Europe, the UK and Germany, will cut defence expenditure in 2015.

BBC News - Nato defence spending falls despite promises to reverse cuts

Given this is the sort of message we are sending out its little wonder Putin feels able to gamble given the massive increases in Russian defence spending. We keep this up and the whole alliance could end up in a world of hurt

Click to expand...

The UK can still put 35.000 in the field and spend well over 2 percent of gdp on military. Germany cannot manage 10.000 and has been spending way, way less than 2 percent for decades.

You cannot compare the two in any way.

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

Maybe history will repeat itself.

In the end, the Americans will save Europe like they've done countless times before

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

JANFU said:

Putin is preparing for a short war.
Note Article 5 does not call for a country to use force if another NATO country is attacked.

http://www.nato.int/terrorism/five.htm
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

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Destabilizing the NATO alliance is clearly a major goal for him. Given that proportionately the Baltics have a far larger Russian ethnic minority than the Ukraine does, he can use the same subversion tactics he used with such success there. There have been some limited protests there already but this is just the beginning.

Watch this space

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

joG said:

The UK can still put 35.000 in the field and spend well over 2 percent of gdp on military. Germany cannot manage 10.000 and has been spending way, way less than 2 percent for decades.

You cannot compare the two in any way.

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European defence outlays have declined significantly since the end of the Cold War. According to NATO data, real defence expenditure per capita in NATO Europe has fallen to just over half the levels seen in 1990, and is down by more than a fifth since 2000. These long-term reductions were accelerated by the 2008 transatlantic financial crisis, as Western states slashed defence outlays further as governments prioritised fiscal consolidation.

Europe (including non-NATO states) collectively now spends only about 1.4% of GDP on defence. This is one of the lowest proportions of GDP spent on defence of any region of the world – the only region that spends appreciably less on defence (as a proportion of GDP) is Latin America. Within NATO, only four out of 28 member states currently meet the Alliance’s 2% spending target: the US, UK, Greece and Estonia. Even Germany – the economic powerhouse of Europe – only allocates 1.3% of GDP to defence, a figure that is lower than the NATO European average of around 1.6% of GDP. This average budgetary allocation in NATO Europe is itself down from around 2.5% of GDP in the early 1990s.

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

flogger said:

Destabilizing the NATO alliance is clearly a major goal for him. Given that proportionately the Baltics have a far larger Russian ethnic minority than the Ukraine does, he can use the same subversion tactics he used with such success there. There have been some limited protests there already but this is just the beginning.

Watch this space

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Read up on how all the Stans, former Republics got nervous with that reasoning.

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

JANFU said:

Read up on how all the Stans, former Republics got nervous with that reasoning.

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Indeed. Their situation is if anything even more precarious as they are militarily non aligned nations . For example Putin could just as easily make a case for invading Kazakhstan and 'liberating' the Baikonur Space complex as he did with Crimea and the port of Sevastopol. He could again claim this was a vital interest for Russia in his ongoing empire rebuilding programme. Developments there will be interesting to watch. All this has certain ominous analogies with the 1930s situation for Nazi Germany and her neighbours

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

flogger said:

European defence outlays have declined significantly since the end of the Cold War. According to NATO data, real defence expenditure per capita in NATO Europe has fallen to just over half the levels seen in 1990, and is down by more than a fifth since 2000. These long-term reductions were accelerated by the 2008 transatlantic financial crisis, as Western states slashed defence outlays further as governments prioritised fiscal consolidation.

Europe (including non-NATO states) collectively now spends only about 1.4% of GDP on defence. This is one of the lowest proportions of GDP spent on defence of any region of the world – the only region that spends appreciably less on defence (as a proportion of GDP) is Latin America. Within NATO, only four out of 28 member states currently meet the Alliance’s 2% spending target: the US, UK, Greece and Estonia. Even Germany – the economic powerhouse of Europe – only allocates 1.3% of GDP to defence, a figure that is lower than the NATO European average of around 1.6% of GDP. This average budgetary allocation in NATO Europe is itself down from around 2.5% of GDP in the early 1990s.

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I know. I have been following it for a good while.Most of the Europeans have been free riding America defence spending and security, while competing with the saved resources head on with the United States. This is not totally applicable to the behavior of all EU nations equally. Holland, Poland and a number of others hat helped. This was especially true of England and France has been much better since realizing the size of its mistake in helping Putin support Saddam into war. But Germany has been disgraceful and a loose cannon from Yugoslavia through Iraq till this very day.

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

joG said:

I know. I have been following it for a good while.Most of the Europeans have been free riding America defence spending and security, while competing with the saved resources head on with the United States. This is not totally applicable to the behavior of all EU nations equally. Holland, Poland and a number of others hat helped. This was especially true of England and France has been much better since realizing the size of its mistake in helping Putin support Saddam into war. But Germany has been disgraceful and a loose cannon from Yugoslavia through Iraq till this very day.

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I think with the Germans its the fact that they got such a hiding in WW2 and also the national guilt in the aftermath of it that has made them shun militarism in general. Now I'm not saying thats right but I rather think its ingrained in the national psyche there. Japans defence spending is even lower at 1.0% and I suspect similar reasons apply there too

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

flogger said:

I think with the Germans its the fact that they got such a hiding in WW2 and also the national guilt in the aftermath of it that has made them shun militarism in general. Now I'm not saying thats right but I rather think its ingrained in the national psyche there. Japans defence spending is even lower at 1.0% and I suspect similar reasons apply there too

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It is certainly a nice excuse to save your own treasure and lives.

Re: NATO, Russia conducting military exercises around Estonia, stoking fears that the

joG said:

It is certainly a nice excuse to save your own treasure and lives.

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Or maybe they don't want to frighten their neighbours into arming against them instead (they have both got some serious form here after all) so I don't think the blood and treasure argument is their primary consideration for such parsimonious spending