Over a two-week period in August 2021, the world witnessed the single largest military airlift since events in Berlin in the late-1940s when an alliance of 39 countries evacuated more than 122,000 people from Kabul Airport in Afghanistan.
Despite this astonishing achievement that the UK Ministry of Defence is to now recognise with a clasp ‘Op PITTING’ for the Operational Service Medal (OSM) Afghanistan, the necessity for the 2021 Kabul Airlift signified a turning point for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines.
For almost 20 years, NATO had led the international community in the War in Afghanistan, with member states contributing the vast majority of troops and air assets allocated to the conflict. The coalition suffered over 3,500 troops killed and nearly 23,000 wounded, but the relative stability that the coalition’s presence in the country achieved allowed some 5.7 million refugees from the country to return. The nation witnessed major improvements in healthcare, education and women’s rights, with a life expectancy increase from 56 to 64 years and the maternal mortality rate halved. Some 43% of the nation’s citizens can now read, compared with just 8% back in 2001.
Despite the casualties, especially among Afghanistan’s own troops, the changes that occurred in 20 years of a NATO-backed government (in place of the previous Taliban government), things were looking up for the people of Afghanistan and the wider region. Unfortunately, political leadership across NATO ended up with cold feet over their continued involvement in Afghanistan, leading to the Doha Agreement in early-2021 where the US reached an agreement with the Taliban for the withdrawal of foreign troops and return to power of a Taliban government.
The Taliban almost immediately began breaching the agreement, but despite this President Biden pushed ahead with plans to withdraw troops by September 11th 2021. In the end, the withdrawal was completed by the end of August 2021 after the Taliban and other militias began a massive push across the country, leading to the aforementioned events in Kabul and the deaths of well over 200 people.
NATO lost face for the mess that was the last-minute evacuation. The troops and aircrew who flew the missions (known in the UK as Operation PITTING) are heroes – make no mistake, but the political decision making behind it all led to a panicky operation and a loss of respect for the alliance’s international standing.
Now, in January 2022 NATO is struggling to prove itself again. US, British and OSINT community intelligence reports indicate that we could see an all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine within weeks, and while NATO’s Secretary-General has been vocal in support of Ukraine’s right to self-defence, there is a growing rift in the alliance between nations willing to support Ukraine and those who want to avoid angering Russia. Prime examples of the two sides are the United Kingdom (who have supplied some 2,000 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine in the last few days) as opposed to Germany (who are so concerned that Russia will cut off their supply of natural gas, they’ve actively refused requests for support from the Ukrainian government).
The problem is that if NATO is split on this matter, Ukraine cannot reasonably rely on the alliance to stand up to Russia (which is a large part of why NATO was formed). If the world’s largest military alliance is no longer willing to intervene to prevent issues on its own doorstep, it’s reasonable to assume they won’t be prepared to intervene elsewhere, for example in Afghanistan if in a few years the humanitarian crisis under a Taliban government worsens to a point where the nation is in as dire a situation as pre-2001. The world is watching the crisis in eastern Europe. Will Russia invade Ukraine? Will NATO react to that? Will Russia stop at just Ukraine?
Ukraine faces the dilemma of not being a NATO member at the present time, despite trying to join for years. As such, it does not enjoy the benefit of NATO Article 5 (summarised as “an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all”), so the question becomes not one of NATO’s written duties, but one of a moral duty to defend those who ask for help. With Germany seemingly unwilling to assist, the US desperately still trying to find a diplomatic solution, and the UK seemingly the only nation actively ready to support Ukraine with military equipment, it’s not just Ukraine that is worried right now. Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia all find themselves very close to Russia, and just north of Ukraine. In the event of Russia successfully capturing Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, these nations will find not only a pro-Russia government in Belarus to the south of them but no doubt a large chunk of the 110,000 Russian troops poised to enter Ukraine suddenly looking northwards towards them.
Now let me be clear. I am not saying Russia intends to invade NATO nations (there is no indication that Putin’s aspirations go that far). Such a move would be shocking and costly for the Russian nation, but Russian President Putin’s ambition to rebuild a Soviet Union-type region will look to find buffer states between NATO and itself, something which doesn’t presently exist as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia all directly border Russia. These nations are among the smaller and weaker militaries in the NATO alliance, and regularly see troops from other larger nations (e.g., UK, Spain, Italy, USA) deployed there as part of NATO Air Policing missions and multi-national exercises, the latter having been a sticking point for Russia for some time. Ultimately for Russia to continue and invade these countries would not be a difficult fight for the hundreds of thousands of Russian and Belarusian troops.
NATO has made little effort to reinforce its borders near Russia in this latest crisis, and this is largely down to efforts to maintain diplomatic lines and avoid giving Russia further propaganda of ‘NATO aggression’. For over a month now Russian media has sold a story to the Russian people that NATO is threatening its borders, and that there is a humanitarian crisis ongoing in Ukraine that requires Russian intervention – all of this to justify any military action that occurs in the coming weeks and months.
Ultimately, the world is watching NATO. Following the Afghanistan withdrawal and with the continually growing tensions around Ukraine, NATO faces a choice. If Russia invades, NATO will have to act – words will not be enough this time. If NATO acts decisively and comes to Ukraine’s aid, it will go some way to repairing the damage caused to NATO’s image last year, and likely bolster the morale throughout the alliance after a troubling year.
If NATO fails to act, those members closest to Russia’s border will rightly feel nervous and will bear the brunt of the humanitarian crisis that an invasion of Ukraine will cause. Just a few short years ago, former US President Trump remarked that NATO has lost its purpose and those who agreed with him will see a lack of NATO action on Ukraine as further proof of this.
NATO risks becoming outdated and incapable, in much the same way that the League of Nations ultimately failed to keep its influence on global affairs. The UN, which ultimately replaced the League of Nations is already struggling to maintain the respect it once held, for a myriad of reasons that I’ll leave for another article, and NATO would do well to learn from one of the UN’s repeated mistakes. Statements mean little when not backed by action – you can condemn wrongdoing and issue sanctions, but sometimes it is not enough.
As President Roosevelt once said: “Speak softly, and carry a big stick, you will go far.” – NATO will only continue to be effective in its mission of mutual defence if it is prepared to not only carry that big stick but use it too. Ukraine and the world are watching NATO – and only time will tell if NATO can maintain its influence.
Certainky a hot topic. Just want to point out tts not just UK that is responding. Baltic states are shipping munitions. Poland is gearing up. Strongest language so far has came from the Spanish defence minister last night…..NATO will defend itself and those looking to join NATO. They are despatching a frigate to the Black Sea and contemplating sending fighters to Bulgaria.
https://www.reuters.com/world/spain-sends-warships-black-sea-considers-sending-warplanes-2022-01-20/
The Dutch and Danes too.
But ultimately we need Germany to be such cowards and France to stop having a tantrum.
Europe and Nato will go down in history as the cowards of this generation, as they sit and watch ukraine burn. I’m ashamed to be British.
They’ve even dropped the ‘O’ from their acronym by the looks of it
A good artical, I just hope that the powers that be take notice, we cannot keep living under the skirts of the USA, Love him or hate him Trump said “why should we (the USA) keep propping up Nato with American tax payers money when the Europeans are cutting their contributions year after year” The leadership in Nato should insist that all members have to commit to 2.5% to 3% of GDP. As it stands now we the UK who was previously one on the leading lights in Nato but we can no longer feild an army fit for porpoise, we have a RN with very little offensive capability and an RAF that struggles to keep what few aircraft they have in the air. But we are not alone as most of our Nato allies are in the same boat.
You could say this is a result of the peace dividend and the short sightedness of our political/military leaders or is it more sinister than that, we know the Chinese and the Russians openly finance our political parties, openly finance research in our university’s with new inventions being duplicated both in Russia and China long before they come into production in the West giving the the Chinese and Russians the technical advantage that the West ones had.
I might well be looking at this with blinkers but I do believe this is all part of Mr Putin’s and Mr Xi’s long term plan to undermine the West’s ability to fight back/stand up to them.
uk, greece, poland, estonia are the only ones meeting contribution requirements
Hello Chris, On paper yes but in reality the UK is on the same level as Germany 1.5 to 2% as the government have now tried to befuddle on lookers by lumping several departments expenditure into the defence budget. Yes we have increased our defence budget but no were hear it needs to be.
Most of the ex WP countries are trying to keep up with the expenditure on their defence as they know what is coming under Mr Putin.
If we need something fit for porpoise we are correct to prioritise the Navy over the Army 😎.
I agree, but it is a case of, too few, too little, too late, it is going to be at least the mid 2030’s provided the government sticks to its plan before the RN has a fleet fit for propose and the same is true for the RAF but alas the poor old British Army I cannot see them recovering from the decades of mis-management and poor investment any time soon. If I was a betting man I would bet on people in the interior of government/CS working for the opposition that has brought down the once grate British armed forces to the present state of calamity, probably part of Mr Putin’s master plan!!!
Its not lack of investment, Its lack of clear Procurement and what they actually wont to deliver, changes every 3 years or so
I personally believe it is a lack of leadership from people who are either swimming out of the depth or people who are swimming with the sharks.
Porpoises may be useful against sharks.
NATO nations either need to go back to near Cold War levels of defense spending or cease offering support to countries that cannot adequately defend themselves that are on Russia’s border. It’s very destabilizing to do both.
On the level of “avoiding major conventional or nuclear war” which is ultimately more destabilizing? Ukraine in an underfunded NATO or Ukraine outside of NATO?
I do not understand you first comment as they normally end up eating each other.
Nato and especially the UK fell into the trap of the peace dividend and along with the short-sightedness of our leaders have left a massive gap if our defences, so yes technically you are right we do not have to go back to cold war levels of expenditure but we have to maintain credible force levels.
And to reply to you last comment, the best way to avoid a war with Russia, conventional or otherwise is for Russia to get rid of Mr Putin as it is him who is taking Europe into the next major war.
Depends if you want to fight and win a naval battle or a land battle.
The MoD must change it’s tuna.
Did you do that on porpoise?
I have to admit, I giggled good at this one. Thanks.
One of the few things Trump said that made any sense.
As far as conventional forces are concerned, Europe should be more than capable of completely over matching Russia without US support. Comprehensively!
The fact we, and I include the UK and its fitted for but not with military in this, can’t is because we are all too happy to not pay for capabilities believing someone will step in and and look after us. Its lazy, weak and frankly insulting to other countries who are being used.
I could not agree more, but it will be the former WP countries leading the charge as they have seen at first hand what is coming, we in the West have become soft.
The average age of a German soldier is 38 and Belgium has more hairdressers than special forces . Britain cut its military to a level smaller than many African states . This is all funny where are those who supported offshore patrol vessels or who thought their unarmed type 31 could face off powers like Russia and China ? Supporting a toothless military ?
Only 3 percent GDP budget with 250k army and 30 escort vessels and 20 submarines , each carrier with 40 jets and 300 fighter jets would bring back some dignity
But you have to be realistic and ultimately 300 fighter jets, 250k army and 20 submarines will never happen. However with the 30 escorts and 40 jets per carrier I agree with you and I think there is a very real chance we can reach these numbers with new frigates and perhaps maybe 8 type 83 can be bought and drones on carriers.
This kind of thing probably pushes the decisional knobs and levels a bit.
So yes the easy decisions are to equip what we have and what we have on order better and oder a few more of the same.
These are all things that can be done quite quickly except the F35B buy rate. The reality is that USMC will boost our numbers when needs be or maybe even loan us some jets.
I would argue that 8 x T31’s would be the best way to go to boost fleet size fast if they have Mk41 and sonar either onboard or drone based.
Longer terms stuff
The last one is the biggest issue as there are physical issues at the site.
I can’t see No point in having a 250k army, because we are not continental, but an island nation.
Yes a better and bigger Airforce and Navy.
Typical of Trump to lump all (NATO) European nations together – and accuse one and all of paying too little for Defence.
Hello Graham, the guy is a tool, but I believe he was focusing his comments on countries like Germany, UK, Belgium and Holland all of which have gone overboard with the peace dividend and are hiding under the skirts of the US Forces, We (the UK) have started to wake up but it is going to take about 10 years to put the capacity back into our Forces starting with the RN (if the government keeps to its word) but the British army is going to take a long time to rebuild. The Germans must now start to take there position as the powerhouse of Europe and start investing in there armed forces. It should be the leadership of Nato insisting that to be a member of Nato you need to be spending 2.5%-3% of GDP as the bench march to be in the club.
Hello Stephen, good comments. I recall that 2017 was ‘the Year of the Navy’ and perhaps a few years have been since. As an ex-army man I am envious of what the Navy has been able to achieve despite the savage defence cuts going back years. Two state-of-the art carriers with 5th Gen F-35s; quick fixes to the T45 engine problems to increase availability and reliability of the best air defence destroyer in the world; new T26 frigates in build, T31 frigate project well advanced and funded; the very real prospect of increased frigate numbers; final fielding of the incredible Astute SSNs; work underway to renew the SSBNs; work underway and funded to replace Harpoon. Wow! I could not write a similar list for the army, quite the opposite.
The Germans, Poles and French (and Italy?) should really shoulder the bulk of the burden of air/land deterrence and warfighting in central and eastern europe. I believe the British Army’s role should be flank protection, provision of a reasonable strong armoured/mechanised reserve based in the west of Germany and Special Forces. The US role should be to reinforce the European air/land effort using in-continent forces and additional forces along the lines of REFORGER.
Germany is useless – declining to aid Ukraine with weaponry and having failed to meet the 2% GDP spend target, year after year. they have forces with low numbers of platforms and are at low readiness. Little political will.
I fully agree that European conditions requires that 2% target to be raised as you suggest – should have been done when Putin first started meddling in Ukraine/Crimea, if not before.
Hello Graham, it is only my opinion but I believe that Nato should have permanent control of assets like A10’s after all the Americans are looking to off load them but they remain the number 1 tank buster in the world. They also need more airframes for Int’ gathering to augment the Awax they have already.
I also believe that the UK needs an armed forces equally capable of supporting main land Europe as well as our own commitments at the moment with most of the investment going into the RN it has created an imbalance, We still need more of everything but the army seems to be on the messy end of the stick.
I will grip you on one point however, the T45 fiasco is not a quick fix and should have been sorted before they hit the water.
The A10 is still an impressive tankbuster but it is ancient and the USAF has been trying to get rid of it for years. The availability must be down and maintenance costs high, plus how much airframe life is left?
NATO is at the cornerstone of most of what our forces do. In army terms that means Europe is centric. The security of Europe is not a nice add-on for the British Army – it is central.
Some say that the army did well for UOR kit during Op Herrick (Afghanistan). True but the core equipment upgrade and replacement programmes took a back seat. I heard that £5bn of FRES money went to the CV(F) project. Lucky Navy!
My reference to the T45 engine problem. The problem was surely not evident in early sea trials. The upgrade will be implemented in a few short years – in contrast, the Warrior upgrade programme ran for 10 years and was never implemented.
Hello Graham, the B52’s are 70 years old but are kept in service because they do exactly what it says on the tin, Take bombs half way around the world and drop them on a luckless opponent. The same as the A10, if you have massed armour in front of you then the best sight for the grunt on the ground will be a flight of Warthogs ripping into that armour. It dose not need to be up the the latest speck as long as it dose its job. I believe that if Nato had direct control of these assets (A10s) they could be based near to the problem areas giving a would be aggressor more food for thought.
As far as the T45’s go this has been on going since 2006 when the 1st of the class was launched and these “fixes” will not be fixing the rout cause so the engines are still liable to cut out when over heated but the back-up generators “should” now have enough power to keep essential systems going rather than cutting out due to the shock on the demand put on them when the main engines cut out.
To coin an Americanism what is needed is a “surge” in Procurement for the army with off the shelf equipment to bring them up to date and up to capacity.
Hi Stephen, the poolof A10s under NATO control is surely only going to be of use when a massed tank threat hoves into view and how often does that happen! Once every 30 years?
I had not realised that the T45 G.T. intercooler problem stemmed from 2006 – that then is a shocking story of a very slow fix.
You are totally right about a surge of core equipment for the army from MOTS sources being necessary. Will the politicians and the Treasury agree?
Hello Graham, The A10’s are a cure-all if you see one over head you tend to wind you neck in but the aircraft was originally designed to brake up the Soviet Tank superiority, the world saw them doing just that in the 1st golf war against Iraqi armour. Fast track to today after years of cutbacks I believe the A10 is more reinvent today as a force multiplayer and you are right about the last 30 years but look at what is waiting just over the Ukraine border approximatly 100,000 bods with at least 1000 tanks and other heavily armoured vehicles.
I believe that the UK’s is just about to have a big wake-up call ref its armed forces (or lack of) and the treasury will be forced to find extra money to bring the army up to speed ASAP along with the RAF and RN.
The T45’s fiasco is a national disgrace, on paper they are a 1st class Anti Aircraft vessel but has been hamstrung by lack of armament and a dysfunctional power pack which was known about long before the ships ever entered the water.
The builders should have put this right but were aloud to launch all 6 vessels with the same problem.
The MoD was taken to court for not supplying the correct body armour in Iraq I just wonder what would happen if a T45 got into a real fight and had a loss of power incident and as a result could not protect the fleet. It always seems to come down to learning by our mistakes but those mistakes always lead to people getting killed, maimed or injured before the powers that be will sit up and take notice.
Hello Steven, I agree the A10 is still an impressive tankbuster. We have army Apaches to do our aerial tank-killing at close range and RAF fast jets for the second echelon enemy armour. But better they were kept somehow rather than scrapped but the USAF wants them scrapped and they are a powerful lobby.
Any new Treasury money could not upgrade the army in time to deal with the current Russo-Ukraine crisis – but it would be welcome so as to deal with the medium and long term threats. One of the first things that money (if it appears) could be spent on in is reinstating the WCSP programme – surely much cheaper than buying hundreds of extra Boxers and as the R&D has been done reasonably quick to implement.
If Boris had followed Dominic Cummings advice all the Britis armour would have been scrapped by now in favour of more drones and cyber gadgets.
What do those who advocate a focus on light army forces say to the Ukraine situation?
T45 – I had lacked knowledge of the length of time they have had engine faults – I now read that it was a political decision to select the Rolls Royce engine rather than the US proven Westinghouse option. This whole problem is down to politicians, as is often the case. Perhaps don’t blame the builder so much.
I agree, even if the money was available today it will take about 5 to 10 years to put back the capacity that has been lost over the last 20 years.
The one thing that should be implemented is that the procurement should be in the hands of the military so that they get what they ask for not what the politicians think they need or can get any with.
The Apache is a good bit of kit and with its Titanium underbelly it can take a fair bit of incoming and fast jets are protected by there speed but do not like being in a aaa environment. The A10 was designed from the get-go to live in that type of environment, I remember one in the 1st Golf war which hit a telegraph pole and knocked the end of the wing off but kept on target and killed 2 T62’s went back to Saudi had a new wing fitted then was back at-um the next day and also in Afgan they have been hit with RPGs and have lost an engine but still made it back home to be up and about the next day, you will just not get that from any thing else flying today.
The Mr Cumming’s affect we are living through yes but fingers crossed we should start to pull through it soon after all the Americans went through the Tricky Dicky times as he was made Secretary for the State of Defence instead of promoting Colin Powell after he left the US army and they are now shacking off that era so hopefully we should start to as well.
Putin is doing this because of huge domestic discontent due to his incompetent handling of the pandemic with hundreds of thousands of dead. And Russian economic dificulties… Dictators are notorious for inventing mythical “threats” that demand military intervention as a distraction. We should remember the famous Roman saying
“Si vis pacem, para bellum” Which translates as “If you want peace, prepare for war”.
Time to activate the Territorial Army perhaps? We have already enraged Putin with our ongoing deliveries of ordnance.
TA? It has been called the Army Reserve since 2014. It always used to be that the reservists were mobilised en masse for war by the signing of ‘Queen’s Order 2’ but I don’t think that is a thing anymore. However, you only call out the Reserves en masse if a very major war is imminent. Is it? We are not going to fight for Ukraine if it is invaded as it is not a NATO country.
I rather doubt Putin would invade anyway – he would gain little advantage and could lose a lot, possibly everything he holds dear. This is maskirovka – he will wait until NATO has really shown itself to be raising the temperature and will then withdraw his forces in stages, claiming to be a peacemaker and a realist. He’ll probably get a minion to nominate his for the Nobel prize for peace.
NATO has been dying a slow death for years, Russia and China know this, look how many members fail to keep to the spend, even we do not meet it, on paper it may seem like we do but we don’t, spending 2% of GDP on our membership sounds nice but in that 2% is war pensions injury claims other MOD expenses all those are included in our annual defence spending, which a lot of people do not realise, the real figure for our NATO spend is more like 1.2 to 1.4% and has been for a very long time, but governments are good at hiding figures and truths from people
It’s political will and bad bad short term assumptions that have weakened NATO. Even Blair admitted short commings in the Iraq war. It damaged political will and public confidence especially after the defeat of Saddams forces, the so called peace never happened as there was no planning or thought.
Afghanistan need I go on. Now we have another potential conflict on our doorstep, people in the west are tired of war and mistrust our politicians, this has harmed NATOs effectiveness.
It is not just war pensions that come out of our defence pot but ordinary military pensions (like mine) too. Some non-Defence intelligence spending comes out of the pot. The independent nuclear deterrent alays used to come directly from the Tresury but that too is now covered by Defence funding. I doubt it is quite a s low as 1.2 to 1.4 but it is certainy really well under 2%.
I don’t accept that NATO is dying a slow death – look at the list of NATO operations and missions since the official end of the Cold War in 1991. With a resurgent Russia, NATO’s role has been enhanced. However all NATO nations now need to spend over 2% to deal with the new realites.
I don’t think NATO’s situation is as bad as some people might believe. Sure… Afghanistan was a disaster created by lazy political thinking, and a system that can’t ask itself some simple questions. We stayed there well beyond the purpose of the original mission, and became an occupying force.
Closer to home, Putin is angry because he blames NATO for the end of the USSR. The truth is that the USSR was destroyed from within, by the then presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, who wanted independence from the USSR. They usurped Gorbachev’s power as the General Secretary of the Soviet Union. NATO wisely considered the Russian Federation a separate entity to the USSR, and so verbal agreements made to Gorbachev about extending NATO were considered void. Yes, there’s a lot of bickering in NATO and the usual BS on social media, but NATO’s real problem is probably that it doesn’t face an existential threat in the same way that it once did.
I have a lot of sympathy for Ukraine, but they aren’t a full member of NATO. Putin won’t be around forever and he will leave a political vacuum. Also, I’m guessing that the Russians will eventually face a huge dilemma with China’s increasing domination over them. It’s already been alleged that Chinese troops on exercise with the Russian were verbally abusing and ‘bullying’ Russian solders… hence Russia’s approach to China: ‘hug your friends close and your enemies even closer’.
I’m of the opinion that the UK and other English speaking nations should withdraw from NATO and the UN and establish a new order, membership of which requires that you be a genuine democracy with acceptable values.
I’m no fan of Russia but I would question why we maintain a token presence in defence of Eastern European nations that we owe very little to and have little shared history with bar Poland. The whole sorry mess becomes apparent with the shameful behaviour of Germany who are busy flogging weapons to everybody they can but won’t stand up to an oppressor on their doorstep. The EU seem to have had a big hand in the reasons the Ukraine conflict began in the first place and they should be taking the lead in sorting the whole sorry mess out.
Rebuilding the UK armed forces should be a priority but god knows where the money is to come from. The RAF is woefully short of fighters and the Army more or less needs all new equipment the whole way through. The navy is too small but at least headed in the right direction.
The token presence of the British Army in Estonia (part of EFP) is a political statement and the force is a tripwire. So it has its utility.
Those eastern European nations are NATO members, so they are our allies.
The likes of Germany and France are only interested when they are the ones needing support. Any other time they don’t want to know.
Who needs enemies when you have allies like these?
Maybe time for some replacement alliance to be formed in place of nato.
This is not a criticism, but the irony of the sentiment expressed in your second paragraph is objective two of Putin’s European calculations.
On Ukraine, looks as if he intends going the whole hog. A pro-Russian coup in Kyiv.
France and Germany have been weak allies from before Putins time. He’s doing a very good job of highlighting this, he might be mad but he ain’t stupid.
As soon as the Russian threat retreated from Germanys own border they lost all interest in being a useful part of nato.
France have always only ever been part time allies, when it suits them.
Unfortunately, Putin is not mad either. That makes him all the more dangerous, I’d say (I rate him astutely above Xi, in fact).
Let us still hope that behind the scenes there are more subtle political manoeuvres in play amonst the allies than are evident in the vague and unconvincing statements we’re receiving. Though Ben Wallace seems to be doing the best he can under the circumstances, who else comes to light?
The juxtaposition between Germany’s business-orientated endeavours in the weapons market and their playing the ‘conscientious objector’ at times like these are regrettable.
America cannot afford to take on the demands of China and Russia in this century. Europe, which included ourselves, has to shoulder more of the responsibility in GDP terms where local risks predominate.
Europe is more than capable of comprehensively posing a force Russia can’t hope to challenge, at least in conventional forces not nuclear. The fact they, and that includes the UK, don’t is purely because of weak and lazy politicians cost cutting and frankly taking advantage of the US.
The one sensible thing Trump ever did was call out Europe on this and he was 100% right.
“…their playing the ‘conscientious objector’ at times…”
Don’t forget, the new German Chancellor has a hard-left fraction that is pro-Putin in his party.
Putin will attempt to achieve a pro-Russian coup without invading en masse.
I see the German navy chief has had to resigned because of pro Russian comments. Could be a possible sleeper agent?
You mean like when Germany was the 3rd biggest contributor to Afghan after the UK and US?
Remind me when since 1989 Germany has needed NATO support?
You can blame the end of history for all this
Time to face It NATO is a dead Duck, as Members states wont act to. and all this does is If Russia walks into Germany along that nice big Truckway they installed next to that pipeline.
Who is going to stand up for them, same with France and the way its been shoving toys out its pram at the UK in the past 12 months.
If France was invaded i would join the other side, as i am dam sure i wouldn’t fight to save the French.
so just face it USA and there Runaway from conflict as soon as there is no money in it. killed Nato.
Nato Killed Nato let the European Army defend itself
Ukraine Russia won’t need to invade it even it already got what it wanted to get the US the leader of the so called free world on the negotiating table and got their concessions! Plus they influenced Germany so much the Germans won’t allow weapons to Ukraine flights over their sky . The next test of Putin will be the Baltic States ! He will try get the large russian minority to protest and pressure the EU and NATO
NATO has often had problems and people always say it’s deoomed; look at the time when the French walked back in 1966 or when Italy seemed to be drifting into communism at one point and Red Brigade Marxists were kidnapping NATO generals in the 80s. Probably the main problem with NATO now is that it was too overconfident and expanding into areas that it can’t adequately defend as well as having NATO nations (if not NATO itself) engaging in “out of region” activities like Libya or Afghanistan to little good effect on overall readiness. Having Poland in NATO is one thing; much as one may sympathize with the Baltic States, however, having them in NATO is very much a mixed blessign for the alliance as a whole, even though one can certainly see why their people would want to be in it, for the sake of world security I’d rather they followed Finland’s lead and stayed out.
Imagine 2022.
Macron not being the french president for a second time BUT being quote as a prophet because of its declaration about NATO being “braindead”.
Just to not let the french being the prophet, NATO must do something.
You are right, it is only my opinion but I believe that it is Nato’s time to stand front and centre, this is the weakest Nato has been since it’s inception and it is always when you are at your weakest that your enemies hit the hardest, but I believe that if we all stand together and hit Mr Putin in his wallet with sanctions and start moving our assets into place before it is too late like redeploying the A10s back to Europe to counter the Russian tanks in the Ukraine, and bringing all of Natos assets onto a war footing this then would call his bluff. Anything less would be seen as a green light to Mr Putin to do as he pleases.
Very good article. I do believe NATO has been a bit of a joke for quite some years now. Love Trump or loathe him, he was spot on when he commented on the lack of support from European countries.
On paper, Europe should not need to rely so heavily on the US, but unfortunately it does. Germany should leave NATO, and declare itself neutral. It serves little other purpose. France needs to commit more to NATO, or again quit, and call themselves neutral.
Maybe thats it… European countries quit NATO, and declare themselves neutral. Would provide a nice ‘buffer zone’ for the UK.
Since all the bright people decided on Brexit, maybe our best course is to quit NATO as well, buy more warships, and have little to do with Europe any more.
“…Germany should leave NATO, and declare itself neutral…”
Wrong again as usual!
Most of Europe is happy being in NATO. Without NATO those countries to East of Germany will be swallowed up by Mr Putin’s new Russian Empire.
But Germany is becoming the exception, maybe it should leave, but
If another nation attacks it’s trade routes, it will only have itself to blame.
Of course the hard-left fraction in the government will just bite the hand that feeds it!
So nice try Ivan!
Countries like Germany certainly aren’t doing other NATO nations any favors. They can’t even speak to a consensus with the group, let alone put forward useful assets.
While the UK spend seems low, you guys often appear to be the only country in Europe speaking the narrative and carrying the torch. It’s sad to see Germany/Spain/Italy fall so far, but keep up the good work Brits.
Germany, France and Italy all have upwards of 50% more combat aircraft than the UK. Even Spain,, with a population one-third less than the UK, has more combat aircraft.
Italy and Spain can both field more than twice the number of combat Brigades the UK can and the French army is considerably larger than ours.
The RN has not played anything other than a bit part in any conflict in the last 40 years, since its brief heyday in the Falklands. There is not any significant threat to NATO from the Russian surface fleet, only from its (limited) submarine force. The RN would play little part in a conflict over Ukraine.
With the USA switching its strategic focus to the Pacific, there is a leadership vacuum in NATO, with the three leading nations each pursuing very different paths.
Germany’s dependence on Russian gas, now that the Greens have triumphed in closing its nuclear power stations, puts it in a very vulnerable domestic position. It is also much restricted by its constitution.
France deploys a large chunk of its army and navy in its overseas territories, at the expense of its NATO capabilities. It still wishes to play the part of a great power, but with not a lot to back it up militarily.
The UK is a bit of a basket case in NATO, pretending to spend 2%+ of GDP on defence, when the real figure excluding the Osborne extras is about 1.8%, running the army and RAF down to their lowest level ever and switching military focus to this Global Britain chimera, which no serious military observer takes seriously.
All three are playing domestic political games and paying lip service to defence and NATO. In the same way that the Western democracies slithered, dithered ducked and dived – anything but re- arm – when Hitler embarked on German expansionism
There is a marked similarity between Hitlers annexation of Sudetenland, Austria and Czechoslovakia and Putin’s annexation of Abkhazia ,South Ossetia, the Crimea, the Donbas and (de facto,) Transdniestr. The same 5th column activity, propaganda, invented causus belli, ethnic uniting of the mother country all serving as the scene-setting for occupation by force.
Stanley Baldwin failed to rise to the moment in the UK, putting domestic and election issues to the fore. 80 years on, Johnson, Macron and Merkel/her successor are no better.
NATO Europe could easily match the Russian forces camped on the Ukrainian border and easily deploy them from southern Poland to Romania on similar ‘training exercises’. It could also state that should Russia invade Ukraine, it would immediately be invited to join NATO.
The rationale and legal basis is crystal clear – under international law, it is illegal to seize or annex territory by force. Like Hitler, Putin will have to be stopped by force of arms sooner rather than later and Ukraine is a big prize.
Cripes, Good analysis of Realities since concluded events in a Railway Carriage following Armistice in November 1918, It would seem.
Having been reading the Comments Threads on another journal published in UK throughout Sunday 30th January 2022, It would seem, Without Seeking to be Unfair to fellow populace of the UK generally, that Historically In Times of General Lack of Sensible Employment for the Masses, Governments Would Seem to find Financial Resources for War and Munitions and Equipment with which to Inflict Damage and Human Resources for Armed Conflict with Aggressors.
It would seem Little Has Changed By End of January 2022.
Quite the opposite now that Germany has got rid of the pro Putin leader Ms Marcel it is time for them to step up to the plate as Europe’s top economical powerbase, they have more to loss if Russia gets out of control so should be one of the front runners against Mr Putin’s madness.
It will however take some time to undo the damage that Ms Marcel has inflicted on not just Germany but mainland Europe with her insistence on getting Germany/Europe hooked on Russian Gas.
I’m afraid it will take a long long time to change the ‘German mindset’ on military matters, maybe even a generation.
Oh I don’t know about a generation, the German people are waking up to the fact that they must start to pull there weight, it will however take about 5 to 10 years before the rest of Nato can operate with German forces with out having to look over there shoulder.
I guess the problem is, what will happen with NATO, in the years it takes for Germany to take the lead roll.
The rest of the members have to take up the slack until Germany is ready to take on its rightful responsibility.
That’s a big ask though, considering other NATO members could be deemed as slacking too.
You are right, but it is time now step up to the plate, Nato has never been as week as it is now despite it adding several new members , the so called peace dividend and the shot sightedness of our leaders all hoping to cash in on the fact they did not have to invest in $billion programs to update there respective armed forces have now come back to kick us up the back side, so we have to start to redress the problem.
Your dead right!
Biden pulling the rug out from under Afghanistan was a huge blunder.
As was allowing all our pampered, bloated investors to move most of our manufacturing to China for their benefit rather than any rel good reason. It has funded the PLA’s rise whuich is becoming an existentail threat to world freedom.
We all like low prices but few really wanted whole home industries to be destroyed & mass unemployment. We’ve strategically blundered there, putting our necks in the noose.
Nato still has relevence even if some states dither. It is up to the core nations to step up & be vigilent for freedom. The UK must restore strength & sanity to our forces with enough numbers to withstand operations. The margins we’ve allowed ourselves nake us far too brittle & a joke. Otherwise the world will turn into perpetual warlord states at each others throats until we get one dystopian brutal world government, probably via the PRC or along similar lines.
Misused modern IT makes controlling popuations far easier.
If good people don’t “police” the world, then every kind of evil can proliferate.
(Not that I think western society is ideal, there’s plenty to take to task & we tend to get terrible people in charge).
Exactly… decisions made by… numpties, that will effect Britain for years to come.
NATO’s main problem has always been Germany. They spend the absolute minimum on their own defense and expect mostly America and Britain to keep them safe while funding the Russian military by buying their natural gas. Unfortunately that hasn’t changed at all since Merkel left. ugh
The West gave too much encouragement of the idea that the Ukraine could join Nato or EU. Whist absolutely Russia has NO right to cross or redraw borders. If there is war this is on Putin he has taken advantage and manufactured this. If civilians and cities get bombed we will get drawn in.
Putting Ukraine in NATO is like guaranteeing a Russian invasion, and then perhaps WW3. That being said, I think the only country that takes issue with article 5 is Russia too. Even if the French are practically everywhere, it doesn’t look like the countries surrounding them take note of that, including the Chinese.
In third world countries particularly in Asia, I can say that NATO is more equivalent to foreign interventions than a force of peace and stability. While the situation in Afghanistan is more seen as an American debacle rather than NATO’s, so I can’t say it affects their image much.
UN peace keepers are probably viewed more positively than NATO. But NATO is more widely known than others like the African Union’s troops or that strange coalition the Saudis mustered up.
The problems as I see it is not so much a lack of will on the part of NATO as lack of support logistically (atrophied, Industries, cuts in force sizes, procurement problems) coupled with a caustic press/media which always seem to take the side of our adversaries. It all adds up to a much less confident posture.
Trump was such a baddie for wanting Germany to stump up its dues. Joey, the Cornpop beater shut down his own pipelines and allowed Nordstream 2. The foreign policy and military think tank crowd as as dumb as rocks. Bye bye Ukraine.
What is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to do with Afghanistan or the Ukraine? Imagine if an independent Scotland invited a battalion of S400 based in the central belt and a regiment of SU34s Lossie and SU35 at Leuchars how would we feel. Putin won’t invade but he will keep this up until the Ukraine ceases to be a coherent state. We have to live with him for better or worse and so do the people of the Ukraine. There has to be a way forward with the Ukraine as a buffer state. We nearly went to Nuclear war with Russia over Cuba in 1962 and Kennedy negotiated away the Thor Missiles based in the UK and Jupiter missiles in Turkey.
“If NATO acts decisively and comes to Ukraine’s aid, it will go some way to repairing the damage caused to NATO’s image last year, and likely bolster the morale throughout the alliance after a troubling year.”
So we start a war with Russia to repair NATO’s bruised PR?
This is the problem with the OSINT community, half of them seem to be looking for a war, semi-hoping one will break out, in order to fuel their hobby.
NATO’s steps to reinforce NATO members and article 5 signatories in the region are reasonable steps to make clear to Russia that there are consequences and that any attacks on NATO countries or forces would result in collective action. If countries like France and Germany could sing from the same hymn-sheet a bit, that would be even better.
However, reacting to a Russian incursion into Ukraine with a NATO attack would be utterly stupid. The reason there are so many mixed messages coming from NATO members is that the alliance has strayed a long way from it’s founding principle of collective defence. The Afghan operation was initially excusable as a well-intentioned but ill-thought out reaction to 9/11, but even before it ended in disaster it was clear for all to see that the NATO mission was very much a garden-party invite of “come when you like, do what you like, leave when you like”, as seen by the wildly varying levels of commitments from different nations. Now the writer proposes to stretch these weakened ties even further by some sort of “make or break” operation to defend Ukraine, not a NATO member, from Russia, which is the most significant military and economic power on Europe’s doorstep. And what would NATO states gain from this? A semi-free, war-torn, even more bankrupt Ukraine, now entirely reliant on NATO and the EU much like the failed states of Bosnia and Kosovo. Huge economic disruption caused by a reduction or even cessation of Russian gas and raw materials deliveries, and a broken, angry Russia, forced into the welcome arms of China, eager to lap up their embargoed oil, gas, and minerals.
Good article, but with a few sticking points that I have to disagree with. Now, please allow me to put up the caveats. I am not pro-Putin and pro-Russian expansionism. I am also in my late 40s and lived before the general view of the United States was being a nation that could do no wrong. I am also, not pro-US on many points, but due to being one of the only fully capable countries to keep China and Russia somewhat contained, I do appreciate the fact that we have not gone nuclear yet. (Though depending on your views, it could have been closer under another Clinton administration.) I will now go into my views of the situation in point form below.
1: Russia has a right to be worried about Ukraine. This has been constantly reinforced each time NATO adds another former pact country to NATO or the EU after it explicitly having promised not to do so at the end of the cold war. I seem to recall from history books, and recent news, that America was rather upset that Russia was bringing nuclear missiles to Cuba. I mean, of course they were, you can’t upset the Monroe Plan, but it is perfectly okay for NATO and let’s be honest, the US to bring Moscow into intermediate range cruise missiles. Have a look at this lecture by IR theorist John Mearsheimer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4)
2: Funding Liberal Democratic revolutions in former Pact countries. Again, this is another US and Western desire to spread Liberal Democratic ideals to non-Western nations, not just Eastern Europe. These destabilisation efforts to install pro-American governments have caused untold damage and death in several countries, especially during the Obama administration. Democracy does not work everywhere. Some countries, as much as we look in and disagree with what we see, seem to work better under more centralized or autocratic governments. One question that some US foreign policy workers still have a hard time answering was the one of, was our removal of Saddam Hussein beneficial to US Geopolitical and Foreign Policy long-term goals? I answer heavily in the no camp.
3: Russia (Putin) not wanting to invade NATO countries. That bit I agree with, but Mearsheimer made a most interesting point when it comes to the Ukraine, that it isn’t necessarily actually wanting to invade the Ukraine, more of the point of acting like a tenant of a rental house, not being happy with the fact that the landlord didn’t contemplate proposals from the tenant to make better rental agreements, and have decided to trash the house before a new tenant comes in, costing the landlord more money than had they listened to the tenant. I honestly think, that is one point that a lot of those talking heads inside of that funny screen thingy couldn’t even contemplate, hell I didn’t even think of that, and my Uncle trashed a former rental house pretty heavily!
4: Final disagreement point. One thing that the US has used NATO for, other than the defence of Europe from the vast amount of Russian armour on the Pact’s borders (not being sarcastic either), is using it to get financial benefits purely for that of the US and showing no regards to the needs of European members of the EU. Germany and several other EU and former EU countries rely heavily on Russian Natural Gas as they are generally not located within those countries who have coastal access. The UK is one of the few who does. The US abuse of NATO as a tool to gain US corporate interests is not a new phenomenon as it has done it with other military treaties like ANZUS for example.
I hope that some of the above points may give you at least a few moments to see that all countries in the rules based international community do have the right to feeling threatened when there is a former adversary snapping up real estate closer and closer to your sovereign borders, especially after saying they wouldn’t. The Security Dilemma is quite unforgiving in this regard, especially when some of those countries have no economic benefits to NATO or the EU and is just being done out of the fact that there is an imbalance in the strategic landscape of Europe now than during the Cold War. Now, for some agreements.
1: I thoroughly agree with your point that NATO may be rapidly becoming outdated. This is especially correct when you mentioned how the UK can’t even keep a military that is actually capable of defending the UK itself. I dub this the London Only Army, because let’s all be honest here (this bit is going to be a tad sarcastic, so close your eyes if you trigger easily) London is the UK! The rest is just a large amount of land where London lets its serfs work happily for an unliveable wage and heavy taxes and housing prices. I was actually stunned when the UK was almost going to scrap its armoured divisions because it was thought to be irrelevant.
2: Afghanistan. What on earth was THAT!?!! Seriously. Hey, let’s give the Taliban better equipment than we give even some of our own militaries. Those photos of Taliban thugs wearing state of the art communications equipment was not a good sales point for the current US administration, and more so, its initial refusal to bring home their own nationals who were working on bettering the country for those formerly, well now again, repressed sections of the population. It is things like this that make those of us allied with the US, especially in SE Asia, have rather grave doubts on the ability of the US to defend their treaty obligations, when they can’t even bring their own people out of a hot zone without intense public pressure back home.
Again, I do thank you for the interesting article. The one point I would like to make, just for those of us in the UK is this. How happy would the UK be, if Ireland allowed Russia to put a few rocket artillery units with short range nuclear weapons. Not that it will happen, but one thing that the last few generations have shown me, is that it is all fine to call those they are told are bad, to readily give them a good whipping over their perceptions of what is right or wrong, yet are quite unable/unwilling/incapable to see those same actions if it were to be reversed. I don’t claim to come from a moral high ground, or some magical part of the 1980s where music was awesome, had good movies almost every couple of months, and you didn’t get traumatized by 300 channels of crap on your television. I had a hard enough time navigating 5 channels in 1980s and 1990s Australian TV, I may have gone into shock when I moved to Canada and seeing that much stuff! The one thing I will say I do have though, is the ability to put myself in someone else’s shoes, and just see what the possible ramifications that my actions will or could cause.
May there be no war and that ALL sides learn to grow the … up and talk like the responsible adults our parents always told us they were when we were kids.
Edit. My goodness, I have to change that old picture!