NATO Says it is a Wreck

Since the end of June, a report marked "NATO SECRET" has been circulating in headquarters in Brussels that unsparingly lists the alliance's weaknesses. Under the innocuous title "Progress Report on the Alliance's Strengthened Deterrence and Defense Posture," the authors arrive at the shocking conclusion that "NATO's ability to logistically support rapid reinforcement in the much-expanded territory covering SACEUR's (Supreme Allied Commander Europe) area of operation has been atrophied since the end of the Cold War."
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There are shortages of almost everything: things like low-loaders for tanks, train cars for heavy equipment and modern bridges that can bear the weight of a 64-ton giant like the Leopard 2 battle tank. What good are the most expensive weapons systems when they can't be transported to where they are needed most? "The overall risk to rapid reinforcement is substantial," the report reads.

A Vexing Situation

Not even the alliance's rapid-response unit can be relied upon. "The current status of enablement of SACEUR's AOR does not give sufficient confidence that even the NATO Response Force is able to respond rapidly and be sustained, as required."

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NATO Faces Serious Shortcomings in Command Revamp - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Comes as no surprise to me natch but I do like that someone is suggesting that we at least try to do better.

The recent events in Niger is a perfect example of the problems within NATO.

A complete breakdown in command, intel, communication, and support.

And, why didn't our guys have our planes being the "eye in the sky" for them? Oh yeah...I forgot........ the ambassador to Niger didn't want to project the image of a overwhelming American military presence.

Bush, Obama, and now Trump. Same ****, different stink within the ranks of the generals.

Hawkeye10 said:

NATO Faces Serious Shortcomings in Command Revamp - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Comes as no surprise to me natch but I do like that someone is suggesting that we at least try to do better.

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The only force that can be relied on are British and US. There are a couple of smaller countries that are relatively up to contractual spending obligations but the bulk are way below the too low pledged numbers. The largest country‘s decision making is so complicated that they cannot often manage necessary stationing in quiet times let alone, when the going looks dangerous. Also, Germany’s infrastructure is worse than the excerpt. Government spending is a complex web for infrastructure and the main interest of politicians is in social spending for votes. Investments have thus been miserably low and most larger bridges are have smooth surfaces for quick cars but cannot take even normal trucking. A number have had to be closed.

Tim the plumber said:

Fortunate that there are no actual threats out there.

Oh, hang on....

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Don’t give me that. The EU guarantees peace. That is one of two fundamental beliefs by which politicians have justified the organization. And now the EU is making noises about building its own military outside of NATO, because Trump, they say, proves that they cannot rely on the USA. After all, he is demanding that they stop breaking their treaty commitments. It would be pathetic, if times were not becoming reall dangerous.

NATO is an organization that is no longer needed, just as Trump said early on. It is an organization looking to justify its bureaucratic existence, like SEATO and so many other treaty organizations that no longer have a valid purpose.

RetiredUSN said:

The recent events in Niger is a perfect example of the problems within NATO.

A complete breakdown in command, intel, communication, and support.

And, why didn't our guys have our planes being the "eye in the sky" for them? Oh yeah...I forgot........ the ambassador to Niger didn't want to project the image of a overwhelming American military presence.

Bush, Obama, and now Trump. Same ****, different stink within the ranks of the generals.

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A breakdown of caring for sure, I mean come on.....never bothered to be set up so that the Response Force could be used if needed??!! And of course no one says anything till Trump comes along and forces the issue, because our elite class sucks.

Tim the plumber said:

Fortunate that there are no actual threats out there.

Oh, hang on....

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Then shut it down, but saying that we are doing something that we are not actually doing and not actually trying to do lowers morale.

Thoreau72 said:

NATO is an organization that is no longer needed, just as Trump said early on. It is an organization looking to justify its bureaucratic existence, like SEATO and so many other treaty organizations that no longer have a valid purpose.

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Well it has at least one purpose: Antagonizing Russia, though the purpose of that action has never been very well explained.

Hawkeye10 said:

A breakdown of caring for sure, I mean come on.....never bothered to be set up so that the Response Force could be used if needed??!! And of course no one says anything till Trump comes along and forces the issue, because our elite class sucks.

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I don't blame any failed operation on any president. Some time **** happens.

But, the generals? Yep! They screwed this up as bad as the US ambassador to Niger for not supporting the ground forces.

joG said:

The only force that can be relied on are British and US. There are a couple of smaller countries that are relatively up to contractual spending obligations but the bulk are way below the too low pledged numbers. The largest country‘s decision making is so complicated that they cannot often manage necessary stationing in quiet times let alone, when the going looks dangerous. Also, Germany’s infrastructure is worse than the excerpt. Government spending is a complex web for infrastructure and the main interest of politicians is in social spending for votes. Investments have thus been miserably low and most larger bridges are have smooth surfaces for quick cars but cannot take even normal trucking. A number have had to be closed.

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Ya about that....Doesn't Germany increasingly look like Japan, a reputation for doing things well that may have been warranted at one time but certainly no longer is? They dont even pretend to be trying to run a competent military anymore though....I dont see them getting excited about anything other than the political views of their soldiers when they are suspected of thinking "wrong".

RetiredUSN said:

I don't blame any failed operation on any president. Some time **** happens.

But, the generals? Yep! They screwed this up as bad as the US ambassador to Niger for not supporting the ground forces.

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You know that I have been saying that Obama wrecked the officer corps that was trying to make a comeback after Clinton did the same, as we found out in Iraq. We are in huge trouble the next time we need to use the military for real.

Hawkeye10 said:

A breakdown of caring for sure, I mean come on.....never bothered to be set up so that the Response Force could be used if needed??!! And of course no one says anything till Trump comes along and forces the issue, because our elite class sucks.

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Trump got Chad to withdraw is anti-terrorist forces from Niger which emboldened the ISIS factions there. Then Trump watched on satellite while those 5 green berets were murdered with zero backup and then didn't even mention the incident for 10 days. I guess he doesn't like soldiers who die either.

Hawkeye10 said:

You know that I have been saying that Obama wrecked the officer corps that was trying to make a comeback after Clinton did the same, as we found out in Iraq. We are in huge trouble the next time we need to use the military for real.

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There are plenty of war time experienced officers to last for the next 20-30 years with the action they have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let's pray that they are not institutionalized by the White House like the crop of generals in the past 25-30 years.

iguanaman said:

Trump got Chad to withdraw is anti-terrorist forces from Niger which emboldened the ISIS factions there. Then Trump watched on satellite while those 5 green berets were murdered with zero backup and then didn't even mention the incident for 10 days. I guess he doesn't like soldiers who die either.

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I have not been following this event however my understanding is that it was not a NATO operation.

Hawkeye10 said:

I have not been following this event however my understanding is that it was not a NATO operation.

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Who said it was? Those deaths were a direct consequence of Trump's ridiculous "Muslim ban", the latest of which included Chad. The caused Chad to withdraw it's forces from Niger leaving those 5 Americans open for ambush.

iguanaman said:

Who said it was? Those deaths were a direct consequence of Trump's ridiculous "Muslim ban", the latest of which included Chad. The caused Chad to withdraw it's forces from Niger leaving those 5 Americans open for ambush.

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This is not a Trump thread, this is a "NATO and steep decline of America's military over many years" thread.

Hawkeye10 said:

Then shut it down, but saying that we are doing something that we are not actually doing and not actually trying to do lowers morale.

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Just because we have a NATO that is not 100% at working order does not mean that it is utterly useless.

Very often armed forces are hanging around being a skeleton of structure that is expanded and equiped in a quick fashion during times of tension or war.

How long would it take for such a vast alliance structure to be formed from scratch. that we have this half on the shelf and half working is a lot better than not having it. Moral will be fine when we, if we have to, equip, fund and expand it.

Tim the plumber said:

Just because we have a NATO that is not 100% at working order does not mean that it is utterly useless.

Very often armed forces are hanging around being a skeleton of structure that is expanded and equiped in a quick fashion during times of tension or war.

How long would it take for such a vast alliance structure to be formed from scratch. that we have this half on the shelf and half working is a lot better than not having it. Moral will be fine when we, if we have to, equip, fund and expand it.

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I appreciate your vast optimism, I do not however share it.

NATO is merely acknowledging that it is a wreck. NATO's almost complete reliance on the U.S. for the heavy lifting has been a decades long issue and one that was unimportant until 9/11. Little to nothing has been done to correct this. This is old news. NATO just can't hide it anymore. It's one of the very few things that Trump actually did have right.

Another theme on this thread appears to be about U.S. military "decline." This is (1) nonsense in one sense and (2) shallow in another.

(1) One indication of "decline" is morale, but this too is largely exaggerated and put forward out of context. Historically, low morale has been attributed to pay concerns and gripes. Big deal. A McDonald's employee has low morale. However, since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, people like to include the high rate of deployment as a part of the morale polls. What these people do not consider is that this morale belongs to people who enlisted during war time. The morale that is attributed to the deployments have much to do with ignorance and a lack of understanding of the wars. Not seeing immediate gains and "victories" does take it toll on some soldiers. Yet, they still enlisted to go to them.

Another indicator is equipment. However, this too is presented often without context. Branch and unit inventories continue to be rebuilt, which is the natural course after the conduct of war has exhausted inventory and material. But how quickly people forget that prior to the invasion into Iraq in 2003, one of the big issues in the Army was a lack of body armor. It's hard to parade around the exaggeration of decline today, when just fourteen years ago, troops were buying armor off of the Internet. Body Armor brings us to my second assertion...


(2) There is a very big difference between the military's needs and the Defense Industry and American citizens' needs. The first thing politicians and Americans say when it comes to gross spending is "defense." They are, of course, right. But they are also absolutely wrongheaded about it. Throughout the 1990s, the actual military had to deal with great backlogs and a great percentage of equipment that sat "awaiting parts" for years. In the mean time, Clinton was doing wonders redirecting money towards the national budget. This would help lead to a lack of body armor in 2003, by the way.

But what nobody seemed to have cared about was the unscathed and obese Defense contracts that offered Americans jobs in states across the nation (and supported by the absurd RMA). The fact is that in regards to ground troop ratios, the military has too few aircrafts to move them around and to offer air support. In the mean time, billions and billions of dollars have been shoved at Lockheed Martin to continue tinkering with an F/A-22 that didn't see any action over Afghanistan or Iraq. With such aircrafts costing so much, it has become routine to ask whether or not risking it is even worth it! The sad truth is that the military has proven not to even need this F/A-22, yet Senators across the nation insist that "nothing is too good for our troops" as they win elections because Lockheed Martin factory workers have jobs in their states. In the mean time, troops were buying bad body armor on the Internet. There are many examples:

- There was the Comanche attack helicopter contract in which the Army itself jumped in on the one-yard line and cancelled for its ridiculous price tag.
- There was the civilian official (Darlene Druyun) on the Air Force staff that got caught inflating a contract for Boeing's new aircraft tanker. Despite the Secretary of the Air Force (James Roche) insisting that the contract was imperative to operational readiness, it was discovered that Boeing simply needed to keep an assembly line open for future contracts. (I know its not fashionable for even conservatives anymore, but thank McCain for discovering the scandal).

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So when the argument is made that the "military is in decline" and polls and numbers get produced as "proof," what always appears to be lacking is the context and the reality of the difference between the Defense Industry and the actual military. The next time some dickhead politician states that we spend too much on defense, recognize that he will take it out of the hide of the actual troop...not the obese contracts that fed his state jobs.