Two American B-52 bombers have conducted an extensive patrol over the Baltic Sea.
The U.S. bombers conducted a routine mission with Finland and Sweden.
Why are they in Europe?
“Bomber Task Force missions reinforce our ability to rapidly project combat power, demonstrating U.S. lethality and readiness in a dynamic security environment,” said Major General Joseph Campo, U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa Director of Operations, Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration.
“Training alongside our Allies and partners ensures seamless integration, enhancing our collective deterrence and warfighting capability across Europe and Africa” he added.
The bombers will continue to integrate with NATO Allies, conducting joint training missions to enhance interoperability and readiness. Photo courtesy of the Finnish Air Force
According to the U.S. Air Force, “BTF 25-2 will demonstrate Agility in a dynamic security environment and global strike capabilities in support of assurance and deterrence. The bomber aircraft will continue to integrate with NATO Allies and partners, conducting joint training missions designed to enhance interoperability and readiness across the theatre.
This integration highlights the importance of dynamic force employment, which ensures U.S. forces are strategically postured to deter aggression while adapting to the evolving security environment. The missions will also demonstrate the bombers’ ability to operate from multiple forward locations.”
Only the gullible will be reassured. The US are as reassuring as North Korea. In fact North Korea can do less damage to the world.
Unfortunately the US military and state just seems to be operating on autopilot, their political leadership just flipped sides and no one knows what to do yet so they just keep doing what they were doing before.
What’s a sad end to such an amazing orginzation as the US military that kept the peace for so long.
You’re right, it’s like one of those chickens that continues to walk around even after its head’s been chopped off…
I suspect their orders have not changed and probably will not be changed in the foreseeable future.
The US military’s political masters appointed by the people are in the process of chucking everything up in the air and seeing what happens.
It’s great in theory, we shall see what US citizens think to the result in due course.
In the meantime it might be an idea to pretend US forces could exit stage left at any point and decide to get our act together.
What are the priorities. F**k the %age of GDP just get building. Covid messed up Boris’s first term & I suspect a defence crisis will mess up Kier’s. When the s**t hits the fan it is always the person in charge who gets the blame.
I think kier messed up his own first term, the military crisis is saving him 😀
Trump says one thing. But the US military is carrying on as ops normal with its allies
Yes but that’s because they are following their normal procedures..in the end he is the commander in chief of their armed forces..when he say go home they will all go home.
Sadly, Trump has done an amazing job of undermining Article 5 and European trust in NATO and the US. We have to placate him while we build up our militaries and our military indistrial base.
The only thing that will reassure allies is The Tangerine King recalibrating his mouth to normal diplomacy settings.
Unfortunately that setting doesn’t appear to exist on the Trumpistan II model of the Tangerine King which appears to have been recalibrated to Moscow tangerine tint?
I hope we Germans cancel the F35s at once. What use are they when Putrump can switch off Himars like he just did in Ukraine, too?
At the .moment, it seems that for the US forces, it is business as usual with NATO allies. I’m just waiting for the Trump, double – think – speak fabrication that will signal the reduction, if not, the end of cooperation, to engineer the end of NATO as an effective alliance which I’ve mentioned before. Russia us now calling the USA, its partner again and broadcasts itself, China and the USA in the same breath this afternoon.
“May we live in interesting times”
Yes, it frightens me to say it out loud, but NATO’s gone. Alliances rely on trust more than anything else, and the spell has been broken. It would be like trying to trust a partner who’s cheated on you. The trust can never come back. We’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’…
Perhaps if he goes even further some officers will remember their oath to defend the constitution from enemies both foreign AND domestic!
One man and his dog have undone 80 years of hard fought co-operation and totally destroyed that loyalty and the deaths of so many who stood up for the common beliefs….. all in a little over a few weeks. America, the land of the free is fast becoming the land of the hated. It’s all happening again isn’t it… one man’s ego and his loyal acolytes.
What a mess he is making.
Not only Nato…. Can you imagine how nervous the South Koreans and others in the region must feel right now.
In really I think we now need accept that the world order has now shifted, this is not just Trump doing a few things to get Europe to pay its own ways..this is a fundamental shift and you have to really get down into geopolitical power balances and views as well as the profound shift in US world view with the MAGA paradigm in control to understand this you can really break the last 80 year modern world into four periods
Cold War 1945-1991
In this period we had a bipolar world communist and western liberal democracies, in this the US viewed the communist world as enemy and although other western liberal democracies were considered potentially as competitors to US hegemony they were also considered intrinsic allies in the U.S. fight against its communism enemies. The end of this period saw the victory of the hegemony of U.S. lead liberal democracies
The end of history 1991-2001
We see a uni polar world in which the US dominants, European nations being to develop as a single potential “economic only superpower “ Russia collapses in on itself and china and India as well as Brazil begin the climb to great powers..Europe begins integration of Eastern Europe states into the EU and NATO.
The war on terror and rise of a multi polar world 2001- 2024
The US is attacked by Islamists and attacks back, creating a need to the US to retain support from its traditional allies from European NATO. Wi hill the west is distracted, Russia reawakens and begins its Near Abroad policy and again becomes one of the great powers, china beings its 9 dash line policy and moves to a superpower state and massively re arms. China and Russia launch massive political warfare campaigns against the west and being preparing to war with democracies close to their areas of influence.
the U.S. begins to feel an economic swing away from itself and begins to see European Union as a threat to its position, blaming its traditional allies for its perceived loss of status. Essentially falling victim to Russian and Chinese political warfare and the rise of MAGA, but it still needs its allies to combat china.
Chinas view…well it’s going for hegemony in the western pacific and it will attack anyone in its way with any and all means..that this point in history that’s political warfare in all forms against the US and Its allies in Europe.
2025…… the collapse of western hegemony and the international order ( what I think may be happening)
Essentially MAGA America views the world as a Multi polar world with three key predatory powers, US, Russia and china. It sees all other powers and nations as essentially subservient to one of these three predatory powers. It develops the same world view as Russia and china in which the nations that make up its near abroad must be controlled, therefore it launches political warfare attacks on Canada and Mexico to ensure their control. MAGA US sees china as its great adversary, but Russia as the third predatory power as potentially useful and not a core threat. It sees the EU as a useful set of essentially puppet states as long as they are not a cohesive whole as that would be a threat.. essentially a core for MAGA US would be to keep European nations divided, still beholden to the U.S. and focused on their immediate security worries..Russia becomes useful for this. Essentially the MAGA world view is very bad for Europeans…. Uncle Sam may throw us a few bones if we are good clients and a good market place.but don’t get in the way of the US and don’t sell stuff back.
China…well china is still out to get hegemony in the western pacific..but its views on Europe will very much depend on if European nations essentially stay linked as allies to the U.S. or are considered an independent power..after all Europe as an independent set of powers is a massive market and trade partner..as long as it has no interest in the western pacific beyond trade. It’s communist..but and for European it’s a big but..China has no interest in the international communist movement.it’s essentially a county run by national communists, who are driven by national interest..they only want communism for china..as far as they are concerned the rest of the world can smoke it’s own political pipe as long as it stays out of chinas way and does not stick its nose in Chinese business.
Russia..we know the Russian world view it’s essentially a fascist expansionist state that will do all it can to rebuild the Russian empire at its high water mark and control all the boarding states..its economy means that it’s probably now fixed in a war economy and needs wars to survive…after the US conspire with Russia to force a peace on Ukraine it will build up and invade either Ukraine again or another nation….it’s essentially the modern equivalent of the third Reich in the 1930.. it has to invade, its economics are now the economics of war….all Europe can really hope for is that it goes for Asian countries such as Georgia..but after Ukraine it’s essentially going to eat all the old USSR Asian countries and then come for Eastern Europe… it’s MAGA America giving Russia eastern Ukrainian will give Russia…many trillions of dollars ( around 7 trillion ) in minerals to extract and power it’s war machine…
Europe is now at a crossroads…it either spilts and accepts US dominance and hopes that the US is willing and even able to keep Russia from going to war with it..while it has to spend massively on its own defence that will never be adequate because it will be split and essentially still under the control of the U.S…while the U.S. Makes America great again at the expense of European nations…or it joins together becomes a cohesive world power…stares Russia in the face and scares the shit out of Putin…tells the US we are now nothing more that friendly trading partners..develops a friendly trade with china, india and Brazil, makes great friendships with the Middle East and chases Russia out of Africa and lets everyone know that supporting Africa to grow is a European Job and everyone else in the nicest way can back off to their own regions and play.
Let’s look at the MAGA views as these are now the US