[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Bring our militaries into better shape with what money?

Exactly!

The dilemma is that we want to play a bigger role and claim to be a bigger geostrategic actor, than we can afford.

When you ask - ther correct, needed and essential - question "With what money", one should not only ask that regarding military, but also regarding the ongoing project of the EU to grow, to expand, to become bigger, to include more. There, nobody asks "with what money". Which is strange. There are already more Eu members that cost more money than they give in return. Many members are no strengthening of the union, but a weakening of the union. But still, the EU wants more. Some even want it to include North Africa, and the Middle East. Some very daring minds even claim the Russia one day should become EU member. Then Europe will share borders with China and Japan. They want Turkey in, if only there would not be Erdoghan. Then we share borders with some real warzones. "With what money"? I would add: "with what determination to confront these challenges"?

Let'S face it, the EUcrats want more - for their personal glory - than what European states can afford. And much of the anger about Russia is owed to the fact that the EU wanted to claim Ukraine for itself, a plot now spoiled by the Russians.

Do we co-operate as part of a EU based military force (if America is heading towards a more isolationist approach then surely a non-NATO based European defence force is needed) or each develop a military with our own limited funds? If the latter is to take place and the EU disbanded then what is to stop an inter-European conflict?

NATO must understand to be a defence aliance of a certain specified geographical region. Europe must regain the ability to make any Russian attack so costly that it is not worth it. this ability we should seek without needing america, which is reorienting to the Pacific. We cannot only meet the Russians in a believable fashion if we meet them from a popsition of strtength, and not this pathetic weakness we currently show. We also need to understand that military operations outside the alliance'S territories, should have no place on the agenda. America tried to turn NATO into a global intervention force. Which was a huge and very costly mistake. A lot has been said in past years on that NATO has lost its identity, has no purpose, lost its reaosn to exist. If anyone needed a reminder, Yugoslavia could have been it - our reasons to attack Yugoslavia were misled, the pit is that we needed the Americans again to deal with this issue on our own continent. . If anyone missed that lesson, the Crimea today should serve as a sufficient reminder now for why we need NATO. And it miust be a believable threat if it is to intimidate any aggressor so that he will not attack a NAOT member. But we also must prevent overstretching, and we should not want to raise unneeded trohbels and conflciuts with Russia by violating their natural, vital interests - by creeping onto their borders again, for example. What the Russians do in yria, is Realpoltik in poure form. I have no illusions about thgeir sympoatyh for Assad and the terror he spills out, thery do not like it. But they want that naval base, and want to maintain this thorn in NATO's flank. For that strategic interest, they take the horror into account. It's not nice, but it is how the world runs. States have no morals. States have interests.

Unfortunately, if we are going to face Russia, and consider it a threat to Eastern Europe then I think that it is inevitable that a combined European Defence Force will have to be created using the funds and resources from every EU nation. At the moment the heavy-hitters of the EU, financially, are Germany and the UK, and neither of our nations have particularly large military forces at the moment, nor are there plans for future development of them beyond the current scope.

Again, we need to become more modest in our demands, both the EU and NATO. Focussing on the core business of NATO, stopping all these global missions that especially the Germans run to ease their moral conscience. As in the past the goal must n ot be to destroy Russia, but just to make any military action extremely costly for them. This is not becasue I assume the Russians are planning to militarily engage the Baltic states or Poland. I am quiote certain they don'T. But we need to add sufficient substance to our claims in order to be believable. Currently, we are only ridiculous, a bad joke that is laughed about.

So regarding the funding, parts of those funds at least must be brought up by limiting the scope of our focus. Afghanistan for example has no place there, nor any missions to Africa or elsewhere. That is not NATO's business.

We also must prove to the Russians to become more reliable partners, that do not break promises opportunistically, and cheat them. Then, in a not so near future I fear, maybe closer cooperation with the Russian military can become possible again, but only if we do not constantly try to hack away at issues that are of vital interest to them. They have had enough of us - that message we really should have gotten by now.

I know this goes against everything that the Euro-sceptics believe in, but I don't think that this is something that can be conducted in a manner that the economics in the EU have been conducted until now, and if America is going to stay out of European matters in the future and we're back to a 1930s Charles Lindbergh, America First Committee style sentiment amongst the US populace then we've got to get our act together or just hand over spherical control of Europe to Russia.

I'm split over the prospect you outlione, althogih I see the logic and reason in your argument - and by ölogioc and reason, I even agree. It's just that I know that the EU elites will try all they can to make a united defence just another tool to tighten their cedntrlaistic power and control even further. I'm trapped between hammer and anvil there.

Maybe the Swiss model can serve as an precedence. Somehow they always managed to maintain sufficient deterrances that nobody dares to really take on them, not even Hitler'S Wehrmacht. The mountains certainly helped in that, something that is true for huge parts of Norway, too. I mean a different model of an army, a militia style army, with modern stings to deliver blows to any aggressor. We have seen how inferiorly armed gangs of armed men and militias have frustrated and finally driven out "superior" armies in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for long time to come I doubt that anyone dares to try invading them again. In the end, shoulderpads are cheaper than fighters, ATGMS are cheaper than tanks - we are talking about a different military paradigm, however.

And there is the cyberwarfare component.

A difficult situation we are in. But again, we waste much moeny in poltical overstretching, why not relaocate those funds, as a provisory measure, to modernising the miliutary, while shrinking ourselves to more healthy and efendable dimensions? The EU is hopelessly overstretched, so is the American military. As Sun Tsu should have said: He who tries to defend all, will loose all.