justin

Yesterday in what may prove a truly momentous day in history France, Belgium and Germany blocked a Turkish request that NATO beef up defences on the Turkey-Iraq border, the veto was justified by stating that such actions would make war inevitable. Now without wanting to go into the pro's and con's of what happened yesterday, I wonder if NATO will survive as a viable military alliance? The thing that kept NATO together was the threat of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR, Europe needed American military power and the USA needed a ring of steel around the USSR and it's satellites to contain Communism, so both Europe and the USA gained from NATO, now however the threat has gone and there is no longer any unifying force in NATO. Some countries such as the UK, Spain, Italy still want to keep a strong trans-Atlantic alliance and tend to be pretty pro-USA, whilst others such as France obviously want to have a seperate European agenda and don't want US involvement in Europe, it seems to me that the two positions cannot be reconciled unless we turn NATO into an empty talking shop. I think it would be very sad if the alliance that guaranteed Western European independence and security for the duration of the cold war dies as a result of political points scoring.

Justin

Stanman

Nato has been an alliance searching for a mission. It's sad that when a member of the alliance requests assistance, Germany, France, and Belgium have chosen to veto it even when the threat of attacks on Turkey is very real and the veto was against making contingency plans not actual deployment of equipment and personnel. Makes one wonder if France and Germany are such pacifists, why even have a military? Then again the state of their military is declining in budget.

One must remember though that although three countries vetoes, sixteen countries were in agreement so the alliance is hardly one of a broken family. Also, although SHAPE is in Belgium, and France and Germany are large economic members, they really haven't done all that much in terms of deployment of military troops in the past two decades. Germany sent one small deployment which was amazing for a country so reticent on sending anything and France has sent the Legion to help evacuate French citizens from various locales but not much else.

Finally NATO which guaranteed Western Europe Independence seems to be one that has evolved into guaranteeing European independence and now that Germany is no longer a buffer state, it seems to no longer want or need the alliance. Sad times indeed.

Tracon Doug

I think that NATO has probably outlived its' usefulness. If countries such as France, Belgium, and Germany want to swing in the breeze and jeopardize Turkey in the process? Well, I'm not sure I'd want to be in any of those 3 countries if something requiring NATO's assistance were to rear its' head........

__________________
Piss On Noise Abatement!

Doug Kenaga

Portland TRACON
Dallas/Fort Worth TRACON
SoCal TRACON
Los Angeles TRACON

justin

I fear NATO may very well have outlived it's usefulness, most alliances work under one or both of;
-there is a terrifying external threat that can only be fought collectivley
-there is a unifying convergence of interest between disparate members
In the cold war NATO met both criteria but in recent years the external threat has been removed and the foreign interests of member states have been diverging. I think it is worth remembering that only three members have caused this problem, but this trouble has been building for several years and it was only a matter of time before it came to a head, throughout the Balkans conflict the European members proved incapable of agreeing to any cohesive plan of action until the USA took a serious interest as different countries followed their own national priorities. France in particular wants the EU to take over NATO's role as the central military command structure in Europe, whilst some countries, especially the UK are determined to retain NATO and see the EU option as a threat. Personally I think that NATO or a EU defence organisation without the USA and dominated by committees and horse trading would be so impotent as to be a joke which would be sad, but I fear it is a real possibility I only hope the UK and the other pro-USA members of Europe turn their backs on moves to develop an EU defence structure and preserve a Trans-Atlantic Alliance even if it is reduced in size by the absence of certain current NATO members.

Justin

Sentinel Chicken

For those Europeans considering an EU military alliance without the US, I have one word:

A400M.

Historically the British have always been wary of pan-European alliances, preferring the philosophy of "Splendid Isolation" for a good long time until the turn of the last century when the growing influence of the Kaiser and a united Germany under Bismarck altered the geopolitical spectrum of continental Europe.

__________________
Piss on noise abatement!

R. Minor

I look at it this way. If Germany wants to veto any defense of Turkey. Who I think is a MUCH more imprtant ally than Germany, but that is just MHO. I say we say fine by me Germany...

Oh, Germany BTW... All those US troops in your country for YOUR defense... They will on there way home now or to Turkey. Screw you, your on your own now.

Who was it? Was it Washington who said beware of alliances? I forget my history on this matter.

__________________
Ron ~ MCO

Fly Airbus Jets...

justin

I think all alliances are like a marriage of convenience where all parties see more benefit from being a member than being outside, sadly it may appear some countries are deciding this is no longer the case with NATO. This goes much deeper than NATO and is indicative of changes in the relationship between the USA and EU in many areas. Defence procurement is a good example, many European countries have tended to look to the USA for military equipment, but now the political pressure to be good Europeans is very intense, and countries are being strong armed into paying more for equipment that isn't as good just for political reasons. Now it's always been true that countries favour the home player and there is nothing wrong with that IMO, so France will always buy from Dassault and EADS, BAe get an easy ride in the UK etc., but in recent years this tendency has gone from a very reasonable desire to support home industry and retain expertise into political and economic posturing in pan-European politics. The A400M is interesting though, until a couple of years ago I thought it was a complete waste of time and money, but since the C130J is such an abysmal aircraft and most air forces can't afford a lot of C17's then the A400M may be the best game in town, we'll see.

Justin

Sentinel Chicken

Perhaps the Europeans would better be served by a joint procurement and pooling of C-17s, in a manner similar to the NATO E-3 force. It would be like fractional ownership, only the jet's a helluva lot bigger.

The sad fact of the matter is that European defense firms will steadily find themselves eclipsed by US products. Just look at the nations signing on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. There seems to be a widening gap between the US and Europe in the technology and political will to procure such weapons.

__________________
Piss on noise abatement!

justin

The problem in Europe isn't political will to produce weapons, it's political will to have any defence capability at all. Most European countries have decided Europe is safe and secure and that they just need the minimum defence forces required for limited home security tasks. I can understand this, but the EU still wants to play the role of a world power, well either Europe decides it has no interest in power projection or it has to pay the price of capable armed forces, it has to decide which is more important. France, Germany and the UK are the main military powers in the EU and all three have made huge defence reductions in recent years yet all three powers want to be taken seriously in world affairs. Sweden is an interesting country though, they've avoided military alliances and kept neautrality, yet they've armed themselves with some pretty formidable hardware over the years, the Grippen is an excellent lightweight multi-role fighter for instance.
About the C17, fractional ownership would be hard, in the case of the E3's it worked as they have a very narrow role, but transports do get used widely by European air forces, there'd be constant arguments about who got what etc. Also, the C17 doesn't seem to be performing as well as hoped for either, it's still a fine aircraft but has had serviceability problems and can't fulfil some of the tactical roles carried out by C130 classics. My own opinion is that the best way out would be for Lockheed to re-open the C130 classic line, but they don't want to do it.

Justin