UK reiterates NATO commitment amid security transformation

If the argentines destroyed the british fleet in the falklands war the Uk could say that is extreme circumstances. The Royal navy did carry nukes to the falklands during the war.

How were they going to deliver them? Don’t recollect Harrier being cleared for nukes. Only possible by SSBN.

Imagine a different past where our allies all supported us and declared war on Argentina, including offering full miltiary support to regain British territory. The war would not have happened, as Argentina would realise they could not win and would have in all likelihood withdrawn. Instead we were left to go it alone and that caused many unnecessary deaths, on both sides. Even if the US had backed us in the UN we might have been able to avoid the war, as it would have made Argentina think twice about their actions.

Although, in fairness to our Allies, NATO and Article 5 is specifically written to cover the North Atlantic region, largely because Britain and France have territory literally all over the globe for which everyone else not least the US would ever want to go to war over.

So we weren’t left to go it alone, we chose to go – there was no obligation on the part of anyone else. The US couldn’t back us publicly; they had a much bigger fight in keeping communism out of South America…

When we have
Latvia – Baltic Sea
Bulgaria – Black Sea

Are you sure that NATO – new office in Japan, is confined to just the North Atlantic?

Article 5
“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”

The exact wording of the treaty. And the North Atlantic Region includes Europe. Also just to note David, did specifically talk about Article 5, not where NATO operates outside of that.

There we go with semantics.

Article 5 is held up as the Shield from Death, aka the three musketeers all for one..

In fact, it actually says that MS will consult and decide what to do next.

So an attack on Guam could be construed as an attack on NATO MS and the US would try to invoke MS’s into a war with China.

Now might be a tin foil hat moment.

Where Taiwan is going in the next five years is so unpredictable and Russia may just have nudged China off her preferred invasion plans.

On the other hand, perun on YouTube has been identifying how Chicom arty can now be called in over the Straights!?! from mainland China.

I’m glad I’m on my bucket list because this world is going to hell on a hand cart.

It’s article 6 that sets the boundary north of the Tropic of Cancer in the European or Atlantic area.

The US states that it considers Hawaii and Alaska to be covered but I don’t believe it’s ever been ratified.

I’ll bow to your knowledge- that quote came from the NATO website under Article V though. Interesting that they set it out more definitively

Well they were talking about 1982 not today.

Very much a US idea on the Euro Atlantic focus of NATO that may come back to bite them if China starts lobbing missiles at Guam, I can see several NATO countries questioning their commitment to defence of the US in the pacific in the event of a war with China.

Ironic how Rusian/Cuban & CCP are making major political inroads across S America recently. China is the one to watch.

There were 55(?) very unnecessary deaths on the landing ships – that wasn’t Argentina, it was Guards Braid who foxtrot uniformed.

Atlantic Conveyor, I’d posit was one of two reasons:
1. Sacrificial lamb or
2. Poor communication.

Atlantic Conveyor was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Argentinian super eternard strike jets were trying to hit one of the carriers. The missiles got deflected by chaff from the carriers screening frigate and locked onto the next large target their radar detected eg Atlantic Conveyor.
As a large decked conveyor ship acting as an auxiliary carrier you would hope that a modern day equivalent would have had CIWS protection. The lesson from her sinking is large merchantmen of high importance should have RN pods CIWS, SHORAD, defensive guns. The 40mm Bofors mounts for example could be bought in advance and held as an emergency national resources to go onto ships called up from trade.

Mr Bell

That’s not true. Simply, very untrue. She was in the right place and at the right time. She took the hit.

The war would not have happened had Thatchers government not cut & planned to cut so much of our fleet, That gave Galtieri the impression(correct at the time) that we weren’t serious about protecting Falklanders. Policy only changed when they invaded & Thatcher realised her mistake. John Nott resigned as the one responsable for championing & driving those cuts.

It’s not NATO that has supported Ukraine it’s the individual nations. That support would have still been there without NATO. It doesn’t require a miltiary threaty for nations to cooperate in their own interests.

If that was a miss type then it is a corker. You may just have have nailed a single word to describe the NATO treaty.
Seriously it is a “Threaty”, it is a Treaty that Threatens specific actions to deter someone who is Threatening you.

When you say it out loud it even sounds right.🤔

Yes I do, and it failed as not all nations reacted to it. Mainly because it wasn’t really an act of war as no state actor was involved and so act of war by whom.

Additionally it was almost triggered due to the posioning in Salisbury (an act of war on UK soil, what I have seen it meets the internationally accepted definition) and wasn’t, partially because Boris was too busy partying with his russian mate to actually turn up to the meeting and partially because NATO was realistically powerless to act and partially because it wasn’t in anyone else’s interest to do so.

I dispute that Article 5 failed. Within a few hours of 9/11 the North Atlantic Council met and the Sec Gen of NATO (Lord Robertson) confirmed that Article 5 applied (the killing of 3,000 people by an international terrorist group was considered to be an act of war even if you don’t think so). Article 5 text did not specifically say that the attack had to be by a state actor. All representatives consulted with their Governments.
Op Eagle Assist was swiftly launched which provided NATO AWACS to augment US assets over US airspace – 13 nations provided 830 personnel and 360 sorties were flown to 16/5/02.
Later NATO took over ISAF in Afghanistan from the UN – all 30 NATO nations contributed manpower and materiel. The mission including engaging AQ and their Taliban backers as well as deploying PRTs and their Force Protection. At its peak there were 130,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. By 2009 there were only 100 AQ fighters in AFG and they had little effect (sadly the Taliban remained effective).
Other NATO operations stemming from Article 5 included the escort of civilian ships in the Straits of Gibralter and elsewhere.
Additionally a huge amount of work was done by NATO in collaboration with Russia on Counter-Terrorist policies, procedures and technology triggered by Article 5.

13 out of 30 nations. My point is the whole attack on one is an attack on all clearly didn’t apply. Most of the ones like the UK would have helped out with or without NATO being involved.

Not sure you read all my reply Steve. All 30 agreed that Artile 5 applied. Article 5 does not mean all 30 nations immediately go to war. It means the 30 members Governments decide how to respond and what action as deemed necessary – it is not neccessarily armed force.
Text: “if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized 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…

13 Nations contributed to Op Eagle Assist – maybe not all of the 30 have fully qualified and current AWACS personnel?

All 30 deployed to Afghanistan to fight AQ.

So do we think there would have been a 20 year response for anyone else in NATO or maybe not?

Not sure I follow your point. You are talking about the 20 years that western forces were in Afghanistan? From 2001 – 2021?
All 30 NATO nations deployed with ISAF to Afghan plus 12 non-NATO, for varying periods of time in that 20 years.
So what is the point again?

Hi Graham, sorry didn’t make it clear, do you think we would get the same reaction for other members of nato? I’m all for NATO but sometimes feel reactions might be different for different countries, if Britain had gone article 5 with the poisoning of people in this country do you think NATO would have gone to war with Russia cheers.

I don’t think UK would have lobbied for calling of Article 5 ie to agitate for the whole of NATO to take on Russia due to the death of Dawn Sturgess, whereas c.3000 people were killed in 9/11 and half of New York City (the second city in the homeland of the most major NATO contributor) was wrecked.

I don’t mean to play down the Salisbury incident, as a WMD agent was used but it was not released so as to cause mass casualties, and Russian intent was to kill a single defector. 9/11 was several orders of magnitude more significant.

So I differentiate between ‘Salisbury’ and 9/11, due to scale and intent.

However if a 9/11 type incident had happened in a major British city or a NATO European city then Article 5 would of course have been called. However, I wonder what the US response would have been under President Trump who was famously anti-NATO and an isolationist. Contrary to populatr belief, Article 5 does not mandate members states to go to war but to take what actions they deem necessary, including the use of force. US may have just imposed sanctions on Russia perhaps?

Yeah totally agree with you they’re not comparable for article 5, I also agree about trump let’s hope he doesn’t get near the presidency again it is kinda worrying how anti nato he is, thanks for taking the time to answer.

Which NATO country did not help with ISAF?

No idea but the post above said 13 did, which means 17 didn’t.

Yes, my point is you cant name them and your post above is wrong:
Here is a list of NATO countries that contributed troops to ISAF:
Albania, Belgium Bulgaria Canada Croatia Czech Denamark Estonia France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland (Yes Iceland provided a small contigent) Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxemburg Montenegro Netherlands Norway Poland North Macedonia Portugal Romania Solvenia Slovakia Spain Turkey the UK and the US.

Now, please list the 17 NATO member’s that are not on that list, because I’d love to find out how NATO gained 17 members without me noticing.

Here you go here are the 30 NATO countries. A few joined since but most were there at the time. Well 31 as Finland joined this year.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_52044.htm

^Completely missed the point.

Also ISAF was under a UN mandate, so I don’t know how many of them 17 went under NATO and how many waited for the UN mandate. Would need to check each country individually. The US and UK went under NATO is all I know.

https://www.911memorial.org/learn/resources/digital-exhibitions/digital-exhibition-revealed-hunt-bin-laden/international-community-responds

The post said that 13 NATO nations contributed to Op Eagle Assist in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and all 30 NATO nations deployed forces to ISAF, Afghanistan.

They all did – all 30 NATO nations plus 12 non-NATO nations.
13 of the 30 nations contributed specifically to the AWACS mission (Op Eagle Assist) over the USA homeland.

Thanks Graham, I completely forgot Eagle Assist was a thing tbf.

Yep. It involved 7 NATO E-3 AWACS. I have only just heard of it.

Is Guam in the scope of NATO?

Also what has that got to do with the UK, it’s a US overseas territory not UK.

Plus if things go nuclear it’s the end of the world anyway so mute point.

Edit: it’s outside NATO

US Territory. Instant Article 5.

(Run for the hills, I’m from Cumbria 😉 )

I checked and it’s specifically excluded, as is Falklands and all our overseas territories.

So it would not trigger article 5 but clearly allies would act together as it’s the US.

Thank you Steve.

No it’s not, article 6 specifically mentions the areas article 5 covers and Guam is clearly excluded just as the Fakland Islands were, more of an argument for Hawaii being a state but it would be pretty easy for a number of NATO countries to wriggle out on a technicality.

Article 6

For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

It’s immensely important in that it binds the two most economically powerful units on the planet together. The sanctions that can be brought to bare by both Europe and North America operating together are immense. Probably even more off putting for an aggressor that it’s combined military might which is also immense.

Because the US famously became a declawed Tiger after Vietnam?

It kinda did for 30-40 years after it, they didn’t really get involved in any direct military action.

So you mean besides Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Bombing of Libya, the First Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, the Iraqi No Fly Zone, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (again), Somalia (again), Lybia (again) and Syria right?

(All those happened in the 40 years after Vietnam btw)

Mate stop pushing Russian propaganda. You know full well if the Baltic states were not in nato they be invaded like Ukraine was. To say otherwise is daft.

What? There are multiple Eastern European counties not in NATO that haven’t been invaded. The logic doesn’t add up. I never said it wasn’t value for the eastern European states, I questioned the value to the UK.

2 years ago and I would fully agree for these counties they needed NATO but things have changed and Russia is no longer a threat to anyone. It’s having its Vietnam moment and will take decades to recover from it.

We will never know but I suspect if afgan/Iraq mess hadnt happened the US would have deployed into Ukraine before the war started and stopped it.

For the US, NATO is pointless in a military scenario, 1 the US military is 80% of NATOs strength and 2 if the US was attacked do you think the UK wouldn’t get involved anyway article 5 or not so that’s 2 out of 3 strongest militaries in NATO.

Same with the UK, Article 5 or not if mainland UK was attacked, the US would be fighting with us and you’d think France would too, so again the 3 strongest militaries are acting together.

The actual gain is for the Easton European nations now, article 5 ensures their boarders

I don’t agree that NATO is pointless for the US – unless you have a Trumpian view!
The US received collosal support from NATO allies post 9/11, especially in regard to setting up the operation in Afghanistan and delivering it for 20 years.
The US can no longer run a war on two fronts alone – NATO enables that to be a possibility if Article 5 is invoked.

45,000 troops from the brits when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 is not to be sniffed at either.

Very true. The ‘glass half empty’ brigade said that the US did not ‘need’ our forces – well US forces would have taken objectives slower and with more casualties if we had not been alongside.
Perhaps more to the point, it was politically useful for the US President to have a strong ally, especially when there wasn’t a strong international concensus for military action.

…and we must not forget our contribution to the US-led earlier Gulf War too.

Nato is important for US hegomony but it is also important to stop a strong power from steam rolling across europe like the germans did in 1940. You say the UK is safe from attack without nato i beg to differ, history proves you wrong twic.

Like your add on, could you put some names to those countries please ? I’d guess Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Sweden. The thing is US, Greece, U.K, France and Germany already are above or nearly there and the rest will find it hard to argue against it due to Ukraine. Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Spain will hope no one notices them being very quiet.

IMHO if it happens this could be a massive game changer on a Global strategic scale not just in NATO.
If all of the NATO countries spend a minimum of 2.5% then given the size of their economies we should be able to comfortably deal with any Russian threat. That frees US to concentrate on the pivot East or is it West from USA ?
Unfortunately at present most US News getting over here is all about one topic. Just headlines about some unemployed Golf Playing bloke trying to explain why he kept secret documents in his bathroom. I just think he ran out of wallpaper and wanted something to read.

Not sure if your side of the pond has the same expressions as us Brits but “discomfiture” is what we call “squeaky bottom time”.

Believe Poland, the Baltic states and selected others (unrecalled) were listed as supporting the 2.5% threshold. The NATO summit is scheduled during July (in Villnius?); each member will reveal tt’s position during the course of the meeting. Wonder whether scheduling the summit in a frontline state was based random chance or a result of deliberate intent? 🤔

Have a read of this regarding NATO conferences.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_50115.htm#:~:text=Although%20they%20do%20not%20follow,at%20times%20applied%20exceptional%20measures.

Tpl?

Ah sorry, it’s a site called ‘Thin Pinstriped Line’.

Sorry! I’m stupid.

That’s ok, we are all allowed a ‘senior’ moment occasionally!😩

Of all the necessary components of a blue water navy the mere fact that we are talking about the RFA as the missing component speaks volumes. It is the least difficult gap to plug – necessary yes but resolvable. So far as the RN is concerned we are getting there the glass is 3/4 full not half empty

You would have thought that this is the least difficult gap to plug so to speak, but it appears not to be the case. The manpower issues seem to be a longstanding issue, with the RFA seeing a 30% reduction in manpower over the last few years.
Not sure that the Navy is getting there on a glass 3/4 full either! Going down to 4 oilers (2 Waves potentially being sold) doesnt seem the smartest of moves when we are looking at increasing our deployments. The DR paper due later this month should be interesting.

Yes if you have a problem with recruitment or retention selling the assets can’t seriously be the solution. The armed forces generally is in need of a one off re-assessment of remuneration although that seems unlikely in the current climate as virtually every public sector organisation needs the same. I am hoping that someone has a cunning plan let’s see.

Wiki says that RFA has 13 vessels of which the two Wave class are in extended readiness – but surely the Tide Class can do their job?
I take it the real situation is less good?

Hi Graham,
both the Waves and Tides are tankers, its more about numbers then anything else. If as alluded to, the Waves are sold, that will be a 30% reduction in the tanker fleet. Doesn’t leave much resilience with all the tasking they receive. One with a task group, one with NATO, one on HADR duties in the Caribbean, one in maintenance. You get the picture especially with Ft Vic our only Solid stores ship also suffering manpower issues.
It means that the RN is now reliant on allies for more help in keeping assets deployed from our shores, whereas before, we were the ones providing these capabilities and were able to keep our ships deployed for the required periods. The RNs version of the Army’s CS/CSS deficiencies.

Thanks Deep. Alarming, especially making do with only one solid stores ship – not an act of war as we used to say.

I think the Navy may have lost its claim to be a Level 2 bluewater navy in regard to long duration operations.

It’s a particularly annoying and frustrating issue that could/should be relatively easy to fix, at no real significant cost either.
We are due to get 3 new FSSS to replace Ft Vic over the next decade, so unless we show some improvements in both attracting manpower and their retention, no idea how they intend to man them!
It’s unbelievable really, as the fix is as cheap as chips in the grand scheme of things. It’s almost as if this is deliberate, an attempt to reduce the size of the RFA, thus indirectly reducing the size of the Navy because we can’t support anything larger long term, sounds fimiliar I know……

No, haven’t seen it, I do usually follow him though. I’ll take a look. 👍

915 tons of dry stores on a Wave. but not a replenishment ship, I was thinking more along the lines that they are younger ships and laid up. there does seem to be a bit of debate on Navy lookout that Fort Vic isnt is a bad a state as is being claimed. Crews seem to be a major issue

Oh, so they do have some dry stores, handy, I did not know that.
Yes, I’ve read conflicting reports on her.

Ideas to boost recruitment such as listed by MS further up thread seem so logical to me.