Is it time to join Nato

We should arm the Cork fishing fleet!

And so we move into the nitpicking phase.

Lets do the same for nato, its main power tied up in a knot by internal Russian influenced corporate interests, and /or the changing tides of Israels mess.

The US (and thus nato) doesnt care about any overriding standard as was the case initially, now its just about this quarters numbers.

Europe can only rely on Europe.

Looking to an increasingly isolationist America is foolish. Fxxk them. And Russia. Europe first.

Exactly what empirical evidence have you presented?

Right, so you say EU common defense is a talking shop.

Then get shown csdps deployments which show it gets missions complete.

Then the goalpost shifts to yeah but theyre too slow because they talk before taking action.

Then the evidence shows this unfortunately, then actually there is no evidence.

Great.

Right, and whos the adversary?

Russia. A laughing stock. 700 days to get past Avdiivka.

Youre all about critisizing the EUs failings, and those failings might be something worth talking about if the adversary wasnt the Benny Hill of the worlds militaries.

Piddling around in their golf carts, and their newest turtle tank blyat-mobiles. Desperately looking for a new angle.

Just clocking up the losses, at a ratio which would be comic if it werent so tragic. This is in a country where they have control of the air.

Were Russia the force which they were rumored to be for so long natos continued existence might still be justified.

If Russia was not preoccupied getting slapped around by Ukraine, EU countries might actually need to be able to quickly manifest as one massive entity, but as it stands Finland/Nordefco or Poland would smash Russia.

EU common defense is growing its ability to act as one, not that its even particularly needed.

Nato meanwhile, is being led by an increasingly weird and self obsessed US, a country so in bed with Russia (the same adversary which concerns you) that theyre officially asking Ukraine to lay off attacking Russian oil production.

Merriam Webster dictionary;

talking shop; a place where people talk about doing things but do not actually achieve anything

EU diplomatic office;

Currently, some 3,500 military personnel and 1,300 civilian personnel are deployed around the world. Since the first CSDP missions and operations were launched back in 2003, the EU has undertaken over 40 overseas operations, using civilian and military missions and operations in several countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. As of today, there are 24 ongoing EU CSDP missions and operations, including 13 civilian, 10 military and 1 civilian and military initiative

Does that look like a talking shop to you.

No, it doesnt.

I wanted to find out if there is strong popular support in European countries for their remaining in NATO and thought it might be as well to drag up this oldish thread (that I didn't participate in or otherwise have knowledge of)

Maybe one of the participants or anyone else can tell me what the answer is to that question?

Have polls been conducted?

I did find this survey but it seems to be limited to Germany

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-nato-growing-in-popularity-in-germany/a-68749726

What about the other countries ?

Thanks.I had anticipated that France would be less favourable to NATO membership than other countries.They were against NATO membership for a long time before eventually joining..

This is from the site

"

According to a survey conducted in February 2023, exactly one year after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 52 percent of French people believed France's participation in NATO was a good thing, in the context of the war. On the other hand, 19 percent of those surveyed thought it was generally a bad thing."

I wouldn't call that lukewarm (not overwhelming admittedly) and would not suppose that the majority of the french respondents to that survey (or indeed "other countries") would appreciate your characterization of them as "being Americas bumlick"

I wonder what other notable countries' (UK,Spain ,Italy,Poland ,Ireland etc ) corresponding levels of support would be?

Would they also be, in your words "America's bumlicks"?

Yes "somewhat on the fence" maybe.As you would expect from any independent country and with the oddity of the senior partner that is sadly in plain view.

Russia is as great of of a threat now than ever, imo and it would be very interesting how Nato's "hanging fruit" (Latvia et al) see the situation.

If Russia goes in there then Nato is duty bound to repel the attacks and ,probably take territory in the same way that Ukraine has . Finland might be up for that.

I am still interested as to the breakdown of Nato's acceptability across all member states .

We have France ,Spain(if you are right) and Germany but there are many others.

USA and Canada would also be interesting to know.

Edit :I think I have found the up to date figures all round

https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/foreign-policy/1242964/survey-finds-popular-support-for-nato-at-a-challenging-time-for-the-western-alliance/

and

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/07/02/views-of-nato-july-24/

Yes Spain seems a bit more skeptic than France , as do Greece and Turkey.

Hungary ,interestingly is holding on to nurse for fear of worse.

And US has a decent majority level of support

(58/38 - but Trump may choose to weaken Nato anyway if he thinks it will make him look good(and he wins in November)

They are a nuclear power and ,at the time of the Ukraine invasion (the main invasion) it was expected that they would roll through to Kiev in short order if they were stupid enough to take it on.

That was just a few years ago and it is not a given in my mind that they will not end up with Crimea ,East Ukraine maybe Odessa if there is a collapse in Ukrainisn morale and resources

Then Russia would have time to rebuild and regroup (even if I hope that the bottom will soon fall out of the petro chemical market as a result of the transition away from fossil fuels)

Hype about dirty bombs is just that, hype.

Actual nuclear weapons didn't make Hiroshima or Nagasaki uninhabitable, there's no way a dirty bomb would.

If they don't have a green card, that would definitely stop them joining anything in the US. There is no more citizenship through military service.

These were air burst nukes and they certainly de populated the areas, ground burst would have released more radiation but killed less in blast

But my point stands, given homegrown capabilities Ukraine already has nuking them would be so monumentally stupid as they can repay in a much worse way

Israel and Palestine are not in NATO??

I think you are a bit confused.

Why have the only attacked others ?