Our NATO commitments are very muddled since it now contains a large number of countries who it was originally designed to defend against.
We can pretend otherwise but a lot of those countries still come under Russia’s sphere of influence even now they are in NATO, do you really think we would or even should go to war with Russia over Lithuania or Latvia?
Russia is not a real threat to us or anyone to the West of Poland, ISIS and the like however are a very real threat, they might not have succeeded here yet, but it is only a matter of time.
I might not like Putin or Assad but if I have a choice between Assad in charge in Syria or ISIS it’s not much of a choice. It’s a lesson we should have learned by now from the fall of Gaddafi, or Saddam Hussein or even the death of Tito.
Do you really think that we should just stand by and watch as fellow European democracies get overrun by Russia simply because they used to occupy them, despite the fact that we’ve agreed to protect them?
NATO needs a complete rethink as to role, purpose and who does what, especially in light of the on going reductions and budgetary constraints on the armed forces since 1989. Something which we in the cadet forces are well aware. America is reducing its European footprint and you get a sense that not many other European countries want to or can fill the void. We can’t, but you get a sense that the Armed Forces like it as it gives promotion chances / posts for personnel, other than that.
NATO served a purpose, although it didn’t have to flex, during the Cold War as we knew where the lines were drawn, but since 1989 what exactly has been its purpose, where exactly is the threat, where are/is the line(s)?
As said when you look at the membership now it’s like the EU absorbing the lost and dispossessed across the continent and beyond and the bigger it gets the looser its focus becomes, and like the EU it becomes a talking to get agreement rather than a doing organisation.
Do you really think we should risk our own total destruvtion defending them? I think we have made commitments for the sake of appearances that we will never actually keep.
It’s the old Yes Prime Minister conversation on the nuclear deterrent, what’s the big red line, Berlin, Germany, Watford Gap Services?
Put in could walk into Lithuania tommorow, do you think we would go to war?
I would suggest that the possibility that we might is what’s stopping him (and the probability that we wouldn’t is what emboldened him to invade Ukraine).
A dozen cadets getting soaked to the skin on a dreary Saturday whilst selling poppies, every single one of them finishing the day with a smile and a sense of achievement.
