Is NATO still an effective military alliance?

"... at a time of austerity, the British public's enduring attachment to its men and women in uniform still isn't enough to save the country's £34 billion ($52 billion) defense budget from bearing its share of severe government spending cuts. The latest plan, issued in June, targeted the reduction of full-time personnel from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2018. "The reality is that we're spending less on defense because the public or political appetite to do otherwise is absent," says Timothy Edmunds, a professor at the University of Bristol who studies defense and security institutions in processes of political and organizational change. "  CS Monitor

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  "... reduction of full-time personnel from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2018."   The force reduction goal will produce something that is not a serious armed force on the world scene.   This force will be so small that it is difficult to understand how the Brits will be able to maintain, "post, camp, and station" garrisons for necessary infrastructure.  Such facilities will require a lot of those personnel remaining..  Service schools for artillery, the engineers, the armored corps, etc. will be prohibitively expensive in manpower for such a small organization.  If the Scots leave the UK, this force will be even smaller.  The RAF and the navy will suffer similarly.

Canada long ago got rid of actual soldiers for ceremonies at the Houses of Parliament in Ottawa and at Fort Henry at Kingston, Ontario.  As replacements they have red coated actors who perform for the tourists in the summertime.  The picture above is of actors "changing the guard" in Ottawa.  They do a good job, but I do wish that their band would stop playing "Marching Through Georgia."

The Household Cavalry and the Brigade of Foot Guards are a big expense in the UK.

Casting call?  pl  

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0702/As-Britain-s-military-shrinks-US-concerns-grow

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Matthew]

Col: the sun has finally set on the British Empire.

I recently enjoyed a wonderful visit to Quebec City where my family watched another acting troupe/marching military band. A beautiful location. A great parade. But I was relieved to find out the band were not real soldiers because they seemed so puny.

[Anonymous]

The show at Ft. Henry was pretty impressive with the firing of the artillery in that courtyard.

[William R. Cumming]

To answer PL's question in the POST--NO!

Personally I would have the USA fund the British military to the extent soldiering and flying and sailing require men and women of skill, daring, and competence.

Who knows perhaps military integration will lead to abdication of the KING or QUEEN and political unification of the English speaking peoples.

[turcopolier]

WRC

The Brits dislike us almost as much as the Canadians. pl

[William R. Cumming]

It will all look very different when Scotland is free!

Cumming Clan wiped out in early 14th Century siding with William Wallace.

[b]

"an effective military alliance" what for?

To help U.S. imperial/hegemonic wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere? Or to defend NATO members homeland against potential military attacks?

Who would and could today militarily attack any NATO member? Why then spend the money? Since 2000 the eastern Europeans have reduced their military budgets by 14%
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2013/07/31/defense-spending-in-new-europe-is-collapsing/

They do not see a realistic threat and act accordingly.

The U.S. could do the same.

[Anonymous]

Integration would have better odds if we forgot that revolution business and accept the Queen as the head of state and join the Commonwealth.

[Fred]

Have us fund the British military? We're going to draw down 100,000+, why should we pay for their army? No thank you. They can pay their own taxes for their own military.

[turcopolier]

b

I agree and have been in favor of abolishing NATO since the end of the USSR. At the same time the US should withdraw from any obligation to help Europe with anything. We can then concentrate on developing Russia as a partner. I would be quite willing to tacitly acknowledge a sphere of influence for them that would attract people like Putin. pl

[Ramojus]

Ask a national from any of the Baltic States if they see a realistic threat.

They see Putin.... just like the Czar and Stalin before him.

That's why they joined NATO.

[turcopolier]

ramojus

Really? b thinks this is a brave new world. pl

[kao_hsien-chih]

But the challenge facing countries further west is same as it always has been, for at least a couple of centuries now. Is Vilnius or Talinn worth the bones of the proverbial British, German, or American grenadier? Even with the full complement of budget and personnel, UK would not have been so eager to risk having to fight for its very existence for points so far east. Current reduction of budget and personnel is springing out of their desire, I think, to not get involved in little wars around the world, not so much the (presently) unstated purpose of NATO as an anti-Russian alliance--that has been in a much more complicated limbo for decades, I think.

[Matthew]

Ramojus: Sorry to be blunt, but why are the Baltic states our concern? The reckless expansion of NATO has increased America's commitments and defense costs.

[Edward Amame]

The Brits are just following the advice that Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon gave to Herbert Hoover in the wake of the Great Depression:"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate...It will purge the rottenness out of the system." Except that the Brits have decided to liquidate the military, too.

That's an interesting decision considering what the Great Depression eventually wrought in Europe.

[William R. Cumming]

Ah! The dreamers wishing wars have ended! Great Britain is not Europe IMO!

[turcopolier]

WRC

No? How is Britain different? All the old NATO countries (with the exception of the French) are getting a very cheap ride at our expense. pl

[b]

But they cut their budgets and do no longer have even the basic capabilities they would need.

The Baltics have been losing some 20% of their manpower in recent years. If people born there no longer want to defend those countries why should we?

[b]

As a German I agree with that.

It would be good for Europe as it would finally have to get its act together.

Russia should have their sphere of influence at least over all the Russian speaking people. That includes of course Belorussia and most of the Ukraine as well as parts of the Baltic.

[William R. Cumming]

PL are you referring to the nuclear shield/deterrent?

[David Habakkuk]

“They see Putin.... just like the Czar and Stalin before him.”

They do not see Putin, they imagine him in terms shaped by historical trauma – much as so many Israelis and American Jews do Arabs and Muslims. In both cases, the trauma is eminently understandable, given the scale of the violence to which the traumatised were subjected. But trauma, however understandable, does not make for clear vision.

In fact, Putin is an extremely complex and contradictory figure. There are two useful discussions by academics with a background in British military intelligence, Henry Plater-Zyberk and Paul Robinson. These may be excessively favourable, but they certainly highlight elements in Putin’s background and thinking commonly totally neglected in the West.

http://www.da.mod.uk/CSRC/documents/Russian/C108
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/putins-philosophy/

Critically moreover current Soviet policy reflects an acute awareness of the dead end into which Stalin led the Soviet system. An interesting discussion of the lessons of the Cold War by Vladimir O. Pechatnov is at

dspace.khazar.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/955/1/01.pdf

‎Quite obviously, in terms of the priorities of contemporary Russian foreign policy, a reoccupation of the Baltics would make no sense at all. In relation to Georgia and the Ukraine, an actual and a potential problem area, NATO expansion has not had a stabilising effect, but rather the reverse.

As regards the United States, and Britain, contemporary Russia is a power with which our interests sometimes converge and sometimes diverge. On one question – the inadvisability of empowering jihadists in Syria – the Russians quite patently have a clearer view of our common interests than do many in Washington and London.

[David Habakkuk]

“The British dislike us almost as much as the Canadians.”

Actually British attitudes towards Americans are complicated and contradictory. To a degree this is because they are bound up with our attitudes to ourselves, which are often an incoherent mess.

Different people here have very different attitudes. But also there are, as there always have been, enormously diversities among Americans. So, for example, I greatly admire Henry Siegman, buthave a visceral dislike for Richard Perle.

[Ursa Maior]

Not that you need tanks anymore to conquer a country.

There is a saying here in Hungary (where we struggle to keep our 16,000 strong military alive): The russian tanks went out, and the western banks got in.

E. g. most of Austria's key infrastructure (like the refinery at Schwechat, or the Volksbank are all owned by russians). Or see Chancellor Schroeders position at Gazprom or Nord Stream.

As of NATO since the unofficial motto of it is NOT true since a decade or so (Keep the russians out, the germans down and US in) it should rest finally in peace.

I am saying all this seeing a looming new Munich (1938) above our eastern european heads.

[jerseycityjoan]

After seeing the many advantages of dependency they've enjoyed, I am becoming more and more envious of our allies.

The US needs a US to hide behind. Where will we find one?

Just think of all the money we'd save. We could finally think about ourselves for a change.

A lot of things we think we have to do we don't.

We could also insist on more strings on the help we do offer. We could insist for example that the 2% GDP spending on defense be met by the other countries as a condition for our remaining in NATO.

[turcopolier]

WRC

NATO was and is a multi capable military alliance. It remains that. I refer to all aspects of military and strategic power. It is NATO that the US uses as a mechanism to wage war in such places as Libya and Afghanistan. If you ;oive anywhre in western Europe and you think that conventional military power hqs become irrelevant you don't understand history, especially your own. We don't need to be a hegemonic power in Europe, so let's dump NATO as an obsolete idea. pl

[BruceR]

Col, just as a correction, the Ceremonial Guard on Parliament Hill in Ottawa is manned by army reservists from the Governor Generals Foot Guards and Canadian Grenadier Guards regiments. They're not actors. Many Canadian soldiers have served on both Parliament Hill and on operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, in either order. You are correct about the presence of period interactors at historical sites like Fort Henry.