METO Guido

“According to Norwegian military intelligence, Russia is beginning to gain an advantage in its war against Ukraine thanks to the support of its allies such as China and North Korea.”
...True in part

But within every crisis lies opportunity. Especially for those prepared to accept a tomorrow of no safety nets, guarantees or legal remedy. Does creating a supersize checkpoint C east of Zaporizija outweigh likelyhood of ongoing WW3 showdowns & US budget default? Norway intel, pls let us know. The new world order seems closer & meaner everyday we decode the media spectacle. Thanks for noticing. Are you guys in for 2% gdp or just another phony, feckless agency of feckers?

Stan446

So the US isn't, "civilized" because it pays for Vet healthcare? Another, socialism is better guy, nice try. Right or wrong, the US puts troops on the ground instead of just trying to pay their way like the, "civilized" Euro countries. Little bit more cost when Americans are really dying fighthing.

Excargodog

Norway has currently been spending about 1.7% of their gdp on defense. The problem is the total population of the country is only about 5 million people so the military capability is capped by available troops. The current CIA Facebook gives:

Just my personal experience with Norwegian conscripts:
I was on a staff assistance visit to a unit in Oslo and protocol required me to report in to the AFNORTH Commander, a USAF one star. It was January (thanks, MAJCOM planners) and I got driven onto the (unguarded) base and entered the AFNORTH commanders building. It was an older building and had sort of a long foyer leading up to the desk where the Norwegian conscript guard sat at a desk in front of the one-star's office. As I hung up my coat just inside the door I noticed the guard had hung his coat there as well, right next to his rifle and holstered pistol.
Don't get me wrong, the conscripts were good kids, but from induction to finish is only 19 months. Hard to really mold a professional military mindset with so brief an exposure.

https://www.norway.no/en/latvia/norway-latvia/news-events/national-military-service-in-norway
/

I will admit their warrant officers are military professionals though. Just not enough people with the small population to really be a force to use in a meatgrinder sort of war like the Ukraine war.

Excargodog

https://www.realcleardefense.com/art...r_1011704.html

Lowslung

Reminds me of an exercise in Bodo. We were in the Norwegian command post & noticed some of the (male) conscripts had earrings in their ears, obviously dyed hair, goatees, visible tattoos, etc. (common enough these days but pretty rare on a military base 20 years ago) When we queried the Norwegian O6 equivalent, he shrugged his shoulders. He stated that they had these kids for a couple years & then they were generally off to the civilian world. They did a good job answering phones, preparing food, cleaning up, and doing other tasks you wouldn’t necessarily need a professional soldier for. At the end of their term, if they kept their nose clean, did a good job, and were interested, a professional military career would be open to them. Seemed to work well as the Norwegian officers & NCOs were great and the conscripts were cheerful, friendly, & generally well mannered despite what we saw as their unconventional appearance. The US might do well to implement a similar mandatory service program that instills a little discipline & work ethic into our youth.

Excargodog

https://www.defensenews.com/global/e...needs-funding/

An excerpt:

Hubcapped

Interesting how jens’ brief didnt make our daily cut and paste spam…….i guess that doesn’t fit the agenda

Excargodog

You started this thread. If there are articles or statements or briefs that you believe pertinent or applicable, you certainly have my permission to post them. We all await your input with bated breath...

METO Guido

vvvvvvvvvv
[QUOTE]​​​

NATO chief hails record defense spending while warning that Trump’s remarks undermine security

Politics Feb 14, 2024 4:39 PM ESTBRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that its European members and Canada have ramped up defense spending to record levels, as he warned that former U.S. President Donald Trump was undermining their security by calling into question the U.S. commitment to its allies.

Stoltenberg said U.S. partners in NATO have spent $600 billion more on their military budgets since 2014 when Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine prompted them all to reverse the spending cuts they had made after the Cold War ended.

“Last year we saw an unprecedented rise of 11 percent across European allies and Canada,” Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a meeting of the organization’s defense ministers in Brussels.

In 2014, NATO leaders committed to move toward spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense within a decade. It has mostly been slow going, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago focused minds. The 2 percent figure is now considered a minimum requirement.

READ MORE: The world faces a ‘dangerous decade’ as instability and military spending rise, a new report says

“This year, I expect 18 allies to spend 2 percent of the GDP on defense. That is another record number and a six-fold increase from 2014 when only three allies met the target,” Stoltenberg said.

On Saturday, Trump, the front-runner in the U.S. for the Republican Party’s nomination this year, said he once warned that he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to NATO members that are “delinquent” in devoting 2 percent of GDP to defense.

President Joe Biden branded Trump’s remarks “dangerous” and “un-American,” seizing on the former president’s comments as they fuel doubt among U.S. partners about its future dependability on the global stage.

Stoltenberg said those comments call into question the credibility of NATO’s collective security commitment — Article 5 of the organization’s founding treaty, which says that an attack on any member country will be met with a response from all of them.

“The whole idea of NATO is that an attack on one ally will trigger a response from the whole alliance and as long as we stand behind that message together, we prevent any military attack on any ally,” Stoltenberg said.

“Any suggestion that we are not standing up for each other, that we are not going to protect each other, that does undermine the security of all of us,” he said.

Trump’s comments have not only sent a wave of unease through Europe but are also likely to be a major topic of conversation at the annual Munich Security Conference, starting later this week in the Bavarian city.

READ MORE: Trump comments about U.S. commitment to NATO are ‘un-American,’ Biden says

Both U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be present at the event that American officials hoped would concentrate more on immediate security concerns in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as challenges posed by China and the importance of multilateralism in collective defense.

The top U.S. diplomat for Europe, James O’Brien, said Tuesday that Blinken would be prepared to address questions about America’s commitment to NATO allies and issues related to Trump’s comments. But he also sought to downplay European concerns, noting that NATO has been a cornerstone of European security for more than seven decades.

O’Brien told reporters that U.S. administrations from the Democratic and Republican parties “have regarded NATO as the bedrock of our security, certainly in Europe but increasingly a global partner.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has assailed Trump’s comments without mentioning the former president by name. He posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, saying that “any relativization of NATO’s support guarantee is irresponsible and dangerous, and is in the interest of Russia alone” and that “no one can play, or ‘deal,’ with Europe’s security.”

Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that while “such comments are dangerous,” it is also “important to stress” they “have no influence on pressing NATO action.”

Lee reported from Munich, Germany. Associated Press Writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
[QUOTE]

Excargodog

First of all, everyone really needs to READ Article 5 to understand just how much of a weasel-worded non-obligation it is:

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive...exts_17120.htm


Secondly, it is ironic that "Reaonable" President's from Truman on have been telling the Western Europe NATO members that they needed to fix their defense capabilities and yet even after Bosnia, Crimea, and Georgia, these nations were content to let their capabilities atrophy and decay, and even after the SECOND Russian invasion of Ukraine appeared quite content to let the US carry the defense burden (in their defense, after a third of a century since the demise of the USSR and thirty years of cutbacks most had damn little capability left) it took the fear that the "unreasonable" Trump really would not bail out these free riders to start to get Europe to take carrying their share of the load seriously.