Hum… I realize I’m late to the discussion. However, add in 62 casualties in the accident of flight UKM 4230 May 26, 2003. Might not be combat deaths, but don’t take them out of the equation so easily.

Dominic, totally understand sleep deprivation – not at service levels anymore, but my commute is a bitch… :-)

Ref: “The arguement I was going for was the other powers would tell Greece, its a local issue, deal with it yourself, because it wouldnt directly threaten them.” – well I disagree, but I would, wouldn’t I !

Mind you, the role of the rest of NATO in a Greece versus Turkey shooting war would have been (could be ?) interesting !!

I had been rather sleep deprived and over worked, but no, it was illustrative, rather than factual.
I need a bogey man that was big enough to pick a fight with Greece and win, but not be a sustainable threat to any other members.

The arguement I was going for was the other powers would tell Greece, its a local issue, deal with it yourself, because it wouldnt directly threaten them.

Dominic – have you already been to the pub when you wrote : “If Yugoslavia invades Greece” – erm’ did I miss the news about Tito rising from the dead ???

:-)

NATO is (was) a defensive alliance with a clearly defined geographic area. The governments of NATO have perverted its purpose. It shouldn’t be involved in Afghanistan. The discussions on this forum would be entirely different if the national interest was restricted to the defence of the UK and the maintenance of NATO.

Firstly, I agree with you, therte was no reason for a huge invasion of afghanistan, special forces, CIA special forces, massive air power and local allies crushed the Taliban in 6 weeks.
Job done.
The allies should have been left to do what ever the hell they liked, break up Afgfhanistan mostly and special forces should have carried on hunting Taliban leadership.
No argument.

“we could argue that since the IRA bombed the UK NATO should then invade Ireland.”
Yeah, pretty much, had the UK decided to destroy the Republic of Ireland for the actions of Irish republican army, NATO should have backed us.

NATO made sense whilst everyone in it agreed we should take any opportunity to smack Russia silly, even thats no longer the case, its far from clear Germany would back Poland if Russian separatists started demanding a Konigsberg Corridor.
Theres no longer a single overiding defence aim throughout NATO, so there cant be a single overiding Defence Policy. Saying it exists doesnt make it so.
So yeah, lets salvage what can remain, a defence standards body to oversee coalition capability, and accept the rest just isnt relevent anymore.
If Russia kicks off again, we’ll still have the capable to join together and slap it silly.

“Off topic comment: A Joint Anglo/Chilean task force? now that would be an idea that I would like to see happen something like the UK/NL landing force. IF Argentina attempts Falkland’s 2.0 we could then ask Chile how much of Southern Argentina they would like in return for their help.”
I still dont get why we didnt sink the entire Argentine Navy, or anything at sea anyway, as a thank you to the Chileans, it just seems reasonable.

Anyway, I’m off to the pub because I just got home from work

Hmmm! this post is creating discussion alright.

Dominic, I think there should have been no invasion of Afghanistan to begin with it should have been a Special Forces war removing training camps and people of interest. I favour the plan put forward in the US recently to withdraw and conduct the war via persistent UAV’s striking targets within Afghanistan and Pakistan. Special Forces could be used in country to gather intelligence and do everything they do best without it being all over every TV station and newspaper. UAV technology has advanced enough that you could monitor and gather information on anyone, anything anywhere within the country and then remove it. (Personally I think there are still too many unanswered question about the events of 9/11. Ooo! Controversial)

I agree with Jed here you can’t link the future of NATO with Afghanistan as Afghanistan has skewed NATO and has influenced it when it should not have influenced it. Along the same lines of what happened with 9/11 we could argue that since the IRA bombed the UK NATO should then invade Ireland. The main role NATO actually serves is deterrence and if Russian did attack a NATO member it would get a good slap but it would most likely not attack a NATO member as it knows what could happen. I think I see what you are suggesting; Defence cooperation in operations should be dealt with on an Ad hoc basis whereas equipment standards etc should still be dealt with by an organisation. This is sensible as you cannot expect every NATO member to jump into bed every time something happens although it does not have the deterrent effect of NATO which I see as a huge problem. Everything depends on the scenario in both situations although even now NATO members are still involved to keep face and uphold the treaty they signed. The NATO treaty does not deal in specifics so technically NATO members are contributing.

Off topic comment: A Joint Anglo/Chilean task force? now that would be an idea that I would like to see happen something like the UK/NL landing force. IF Argentina attempts Falkland’s 2.0 we could then ask Chile how much of Southern Argentina they would like in return for their help.

I agree with your points on Afghanistan, I read Defence of the Realm too, we cant end that civil war, however an occupation of sufficient strength 1:20 could keep a lid on it as long as the ratio was maintained.
Obviously, once they left, the various ethnic, tribal and cultural groups will start murdering each other again.

However, utterly irrelevent to NATO.
If you know one thing about NATO, it should be “An attack on one is an attack on all”.
NATO has no, “I dont like this war because it involves travelling so I’m sitting it out clause”

Lets just say, Egypt invades the Sovereign Base areas of Cyprus, under NATO rules, EVERY MEMBER is required to treat that as an invasion and occupation of its own nation.
If Norway says, well, its far away, and we dont really like colonialism, they are useless as partners in a mutual defence pact.

“But, your right on one thing – as small number of nations, UK, Canada, Denmark and Netherlands have shouldered the majority of the burden so far – was that right, NO. Is pulling out of NATO going to change that?”
Yes
We’d still be shouldering the burden in Afghanistan, but we wouldnt have an obligation shoulder it if Yugoslavia invades Greece.
Whereas at the moment, our fair weather allies feel they can tell us to get bent when we request their aid, but feel we are obligated to snap to their every request.

Now, there might be reasons to accept that, weak and powerless as Russia currently is, under no circumstances could we let it occupy Iceland, it would be a strategic disaster for us, an unsinkable aircraft carrier and logistics ship with access to the atlantic, and we have to prevent it without Iceland promising to support us in a war with Russia.
Sucks, but thats life.

By all means, clarify NATO’s mission, I’d be interested to see if you can come up with a situation in which Spain would deploy 500,000 men to force the Caucasus Mountains.

Dominic ref:

“At the end of the day, we’re managing, the US is managing, the Canadians are managing.
If the main European NATO Powers (France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey) all stumped up qa full Brigade the province would be as calm as Wigan on Friday night at 2am.
Still rough as anything, but liveable” – complete bollocks I am afraid.

The history of Afghanistan, and it is a long and complex history of internecine “civil war” is not going to be sorted out with an extra battalion from every NATO nation. Troop numbers mean very little in this country. Arguements about “population centric counter-insurgency” versus “anti-terrorism” strategies are also mostly crap.

You can not link the future of NATO to this badly planned and ill advised POLITICAL adventure. If Bush and his cronies had not been diverted by by the bogus Neo-Con charade that was Iraq, then Afghanistan might have seen the political and monetary capital invested in the early days and might be a bit better now, but the politicians screwed that up.

Defence of the Realm have an excellent series of articles on the history of Afghan conflict which starts here: http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/2009/11/fighting-talk.html

Because of the unit I was with in the TA, I have spoken to Afghan exiles, and know one TA squaddie who might be considered a ‘cultural expert’ on the area in civvy life – because of this I truly believe that adding more Greek and Turkish soldiers, maybe some Poles, Germans and additional French etc, would make no difference what-so-ever.

But, your right on one thing – as small number of nations, UK, Canada, Denmark and Netherlands have shouldered the majority of the burden so far – was that right, NO. Is pulling out of NATO going to change that ?

Euan, although I agree the Afghan Campaign should have ended in late 2001 with “aid” payments given to a few dozen local strong men, thats not really the point.
An attack on one is an attack on all, the one attacked was the US, and it says the war isnt over.
If the other members can say, actualy it is, then the treaty is, just some words on some paper.

A NATO mission that every member is willing to swith to a war economy for is unlikely to be a realistic scenario even half the members can agree on.
Its quite likely Georgia and Ukraine will be members by 2020, Is Spain going to conscript 3 million men and throw them against the Russian Lines sieging Tblisi?
Is it balls
But thats what they said when they joined NATO.
Christ, the EU told Georgia it was a very bad nation and deserved to be bombed flat. Right or Wrong, hardly actions that point to a successful defence agreement.

That said.
A slimmed down Defence Standards Organistion, to allow NATO members to fight alongside each other if they so choose, but not place them under any obligation to do so is a good idea.
But again, should we be training/equiping to fight a war in the South Atlantic in a Joint Chilean/Anglo task force, or in the Baltic in a Polish/Anglo task force?

I’m pretty the sure the South East Asian Five Powers Defence Agreement is just that no power will remove forces from the area without informing the others, however I’ve never read the treaty.

What NATO is “set up” for is irrelevent.
Greece doesnt need a treaty to deploy an Infantry Brigade to secure Dishu District, it need the political will to send the men.
Even if it was an incredibly complicated task, its been 9 years, who’s writing this plan, has anyone checked he isnt dead?

At the end of the day, we’re managing, the US is managing, the Canadians are managing.
If the main European NATO Powers (France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey) all stumped up qa full Brigade the province would be as calm as Wigan on Friday night at 2am.
Still rough as anything, but liveable.

They simply are not willing to fight a war outside of the European Theatre, fair enough, their choice, but since theres no war in the European Theatre we have any particular interest in joining, a mutual defence agreement is irrelevent to us.

Mock all you want but the Taliban are doing pretty much what the East India Company did, arming and training the local destitute to overthrow the government that abandoned them.

NATO worked because all of NATO’s members had the same goal, preventing the Soviets from invading and conquering Western Europe.
The same no longer applies, not even a little bit.

Well in response to the wider idea that some nations are not pulling their weight I think that is utter rubbish. The nations that are not doing as much or others are the nations with their heads screwed on while the nations that are busy fighting in the thick of it are those who need and want a strong relationship with the United States. Afghanistan is about politics nothing more the real hard reasons for being there are gone and frankly were extremely distorted in the beginning.

On the Subject of NATO I fully support it and agree with Jed that it needs some political re-engineering to clarify its boundaries whereas the military side of things works well enough. Personally I think the role of NATO should be security in the North Atlantic area extending into the Mediterranean but not the Middle East which should be dealt with outside of NATO. This means sticking to the original role of NATO which still has relevance even since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In future I feel NATO will once again be about deterring Russia and ensuring security within the North Atlantic region especially in the Arctic region. NATO’s role should be expanded into other areas of security such as Cyber Security which steps have already been taken to do as well as Energy Security.

Dominic your being disingenuous and over simplistic.

We actually already have ‘anglophile’ defence pacts with ex-Empire nations, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Those including the southern states also include other, non-ex-colony nations.

NATO was setup as a ‘defensive’ pact based around the border integrity of its members. It was not setup to respond to a Sept 11th type “attack on one state” – Afghanistan is not a ‘defensive’ campaign, don’t fall for all that crap about fighting the battle there instead of on the streets of Bradford ! Afghanistan is expeditionary warfare with the goal of regime change and nation building – NOT what NATO was setup for.

So, the world turns, things change, threats develop and wane, blah blah ….. you get the picture. Yes NATO needs some ‘re-engineering’ but more on the political than military levels.

ref: “Hell, we conquered a quarter of the world by turning up with a ship full of red uniforms, muskets and gold and recruiting an army from the local poor.” – fine then, instead of getting involved in any conflict ourselves, we can hand over at least the armies part of our defence budget straight to the UN, who can raise its own battalions of Gurkha’s – they would have no problems with recruiting ! Lets see how the bad guys would stand up to a divisions worth of Kukri wielding devils running amok in the valliey’s of Helmand – ooooh, yeah, right, that’s just not realistic eh ? But leaving NATO and standing alone in the world is, so lets abolish parliament and send representatives to Washington to join the Congress and Senate while we are at it…. (oh yeah, we’ve pretty much done that already)

:-)

Firstly, NATO is a joke, as your work proves.
Its members were never going to treat an attack on one as an attack on all.
All it did was give the US a legal excuse to intervene If Russia tried to expand further.
Italy was never going to invade Hungary because Russia invaded Canada.

But that was fine, because that was all NATO was supposed to do.
Now the Soviets are finished however, NATO doesnt even have that reason to exist.

Dump it.
If we decide we cant stand on our own, look at an Anglosphere defence pact, but again, the US/Australia and New Zealand have a strategic requirement to hold Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philipines to contain China, we dont, signing a bit of paper doesnt change that.

One more thing
“It is simply too easy a cop out, either NATO is a collective where all nations pull their weight in both blood and treasure or not.”
Every Army that marched against Napolean did so in uniforms paid for with British gold, wielding weapons bought with British gold, consuming supplies bought with British gold.
Hell, we conquered a quarter of the world by turning up with a ship full of red uniforms, muskets and gold and recruiting an army from the local poor.

If someones signing big cheques, I’ll see if I can recruit a few battalions of homeless ex soldiers.
Obviously, it would need to be more than a few Euros

Nicely done, sir.