If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
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.
Ukraine already has homegrown long range missiles and enough highly radioactive materials to make every major western Russian city uninhabitable for a very long time by using dirty bombs
That alone would stop Russia from using nukes as they are not invulnerable and that’s before we get to what other countries like China would do as last thing they need is to completely lose western markets of that dipshit in Kremlin
Not really concerned about how many missiles Russia has, doesn't make a whole lot of difference if they launch 5 or 5000. The only thing to be concerned about if they were to follow through with their threats, and nothing to suggest they would be more likely now than in 2022, is if any of their missiles actually work.
Russia has repeatedly claimed that any involvement from the West in supplying arms to Ukraine would result in them taking action against NATO. Russia has done nothing, whilst the west is gradually taking tiny steps forwards (painfully slowly) in relaxing restrictions on Ukraine.
op, NOOOOO…….Vladimir Putin has firmly stated that if the U.S allows Ukraine to use long range missiles against Russia… Europe and all NATO countries will be drawn into a Nuclear War..“You won’t even have to blink your eyes when we carry out Article 5 of the Roman Treaty”…Russia has the most confirmed nuclear weapons, with over 5,500 nuclear warheads.
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)
it was all in the 2nd link.
Russia is down in strength by 620,000 men, vs 2022. And its economic foundations are weakened. I can understand the Baltics feeling a need for nato, for now. The rest of the continent would kick the shyte out the Ruskies.
The global map, and the decades of for-profit hype would have you think otherwise, but theyre basically Mexico on roids.
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)
Very well, would 'somewhat ambiguous' be acceptable.
27% in France stats are undecideds.
Spain is even more cynical on nato.
I expect such survey stats to climb in the mid term, depending on election results in US, and how things go in Ukraine.
We've all now seen that Russia isnt half the power it was made out to be. And we've seen the unreliability of the unpredictable US.
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."
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"?
a quick search with the terms 'france, nato, popularity' yielded this result.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1422517/french-opinion-on-france-s-participation-in-nato/
lukewarm, as expected. They dont believe in being Americas bumlick, unlike some.
Countries.
edit. This too
Greece and Spain sure dont seem happy in nato.
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 ?
Adversaries, there's many… You've harped on about EUFOR missions and yet you come to conclusion that it's only Russia?
That's some fantastic mental gymnastics.
You can bark on about people in places and missions in x,y and z…. it still doesn't take away the fact that 99% of EU missions are:
-reactive
-slow
-usually a copy of an existing coalition mission
Diplomats have their part to play, but harping on about thousands of pen pushers in a hotspot, doesn't exactly meet the need of an offensive posture.
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.
Goalposts haven't shifted at all… you project you're familiar with EU defence missions, yet clearly overlook the numerous criticisms of them, particularly in response time and then pull the "there's no evidence"…. get off the stage :-D
majority of missions you mentioned have been the EU response to already established co-coalition missions, usually led by the American's, but, in the case of the Piracy mission, there has been middle east interfaces….
It's easy to copy an already established mission, it's easy to meander slow time into a deployment, it's easy to meander back out of it while it's still ongoing and call it a success. All while posturing in Brussels "we're so great".
Operation Sophia is a case study on how the EU does this copy and paste approach time and time again, and also how not to approach a Humanitarian aid mission, using an anti piracy template.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09662839.2020.1845657
If you are just copying what you've done before, whether it works or not, you are a talking shop.
The EU are currently terrible at any proactive security. This is a known fact and something adversaries are taking full advantage of.
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.
me? nothing.
EU however has tons of it. Especially when it comes to defence.
Exactly what empirical evidence have you presented?
Unfortunately empirical evidence isn't nitpicking… fully agree Europe should be relying on themselves, but currently no one is in unison bar the Baltic and Nordic states, who lack the compelling influencing skills on other states/worldwide without France/Germany.
Not to mention the clusterfuck of trying to integrate with the UK…. technically, there is nothing currently in place except some unilateral agreements and the over arching NATO agreements, since Brexit.
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.
Bar the Ukraine mission, the ramp up time for each of the other missions was a farce…. you know why… because everyone had to agree then deploy, that's what makes it a talking shop… If you also read my post, you will see I mentioned Denmark only want in now so they have input to security on their neighbours boarders.
We should arm the Cork fishing fleet!
I don't see our feckless approach to defence changing until something happens. If a Russian attack happened on infrastructure in Irish waters and this caused catastrophic communication or other issues then you'll see a sharp change of tone and more urgency to do things. The public would demand it as well.
It's been a pretty basic thing through human history that no one likes a freeloader.
When things go wrong for the freeloader and they require the assistance of those they freeload off that's when change happens.
That's what it's going to take before we get serious by the looks of things.
Ironically it's only recently we had the spectacle of the Russian navy declaring they would undertake exercises in our economic waters goading this state and basically saying "what are you going to do about it?". It took a bunch of fishermen to dissuade them.
That's the level we are at.
Yeah I've read up on it a little from time to time.
Thats how I know that EU/Csdp has quite a few military operations under its belt. Rather than being so clueless as to think of it as simply a "talking shop".
Was EU Navfor Mediterranean 2015 a talking shop?
Was EU Navfor Mediterranean 2020 a talking shop?
Was EU Navfor Somalia a talking shop?
Were any of the previous 6 EUFOR Missions talking shops? Or the 2022 Ukraine mission?
Do you really think Denmark recently changed its membership status for the convenience of not having to leave the room? Or perhaps are there some other recent developments around about the same time.
Telling me to read up the details, lovely post for April fools day.
Yes, I had read them both some time ago, and then reread when we started discussing it here. I still did (do) not see how much better or more binding on the members the Article 5 text (as posted) is, sorry, so just have to disagree there. I suppose a lawyer or defence/security expert's interpretation of the 2, with opinion of which one is stronger worded, or less flexible, may persuade me.
You are correct that you could have 1 or more EU members welching on it (EU defence) and Hungary is the most problematic right now, but (similar to NATO?) they can't actually stop other members that are committed to it, from honouring it themselves.
Equally one could question Hungary's good faith and committment to NATO's Article 5 promise as well I think, given their behaviour and their leader's relationship with Putin on display over the past 2 years. I would speculate most of the other NATO states do not (fully) trust them either.
Obligations need to be spelled out specifically, is what I'm getting at… to use it in a general term makes it open to interpretation (i.e. ambiguous)
"to aid and assist it by all the means in their power"
EU doc states that… but in what way, who dictates how much is considered "in their power", how much does that accumulate in from a financial, medical and military perspective?
It can be argued that's a chicken and egg argument, but, it's that type of ambiguity that has caught the EU out on numerous topics, let alone defence.
What if we have 2 or 3 Hungary's at the time, who stall and cause infighting to a response.
Whereas, article 5 clearly spells out what will happen:
the Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.
I am not a lawyer. I don't know your expertise but that clearly says "obligation" (something you have to do, not a choice) and also they are to use "all means in their power". It seems fairly clear. The ref. "in accordance" [i.e. in agreement with] the UN Charter appears (to me?) to be purely about stating that this is permitted rather than a get out (i.e. under Int. law, we have the right to pledge to come to aid of each other, potentially even using military force in response to armed aggression committed against one of us).
The big "get out" clause I see is about policies of neutrality that existed before the treaty, ours, and the Finns and Swedes at time of Lisbon. I left out the key following sentence from the paragraph I quoted:
This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.
Anyway probably getting lost in the weeds. I totally agree with you that piece from the EU treaties and EU common defence in general is not replacement for NATO membership or rendering latter unnecessary. My point was I do not see how NATO Article 5 committment is that different from the EU treaty promise (on paper). I think the EU is also going to be heavily involved in response though if we ever (again God Forbid!) see some EU member state attacked.
I don't think we need to join NATO myself at the moment, but wouldn't have the very strong ideological opposition to it many people in Ireland seem to have either.
Obligation is ambiguous, as it's not measurable… obligated by how much, for how long, required how much of X ?
Which then points to the UN charter… which is even more ambiguous, open ended and full of caveats.
That's the point I was getting at… It's a lift and shift as it just says member states are obligated to do "something" and that something should be in line with the UN charter.
It has been demonstrated numerous times in the last 30 years, people will follow the UN charter as they please.
From a defence perspective, I'd be hedging my bets on a NATO response, or unilateral UK or French response (covering their own interests) over an EU response. If we ever get to a point where it's required, the EU will already be knee deep in it or preparing on a secondary front (either before, or directly afterward).
You will probably ask still why bother with NATO then, I still think deterrence is better than trying to react to a global issue at the time, which would have been years in the making and would take years for Ireland to build an effective deterrence against.
Again mentioning Gotland… Island in the Baltic sea owned by Sweden and was probed by the Russian's numerous times before 2022, then approached pretty provocatively by amphibious craft full of men and kit in Jan 2022…. This island, owned by a nation with a pretty advanced military, who partook in numerous UN and NATO missions, was surrounded by NATO states, was told essentially, they would be on their own for at least 48hrs in dealing with a potential invasion.
While I don't think Ireland would be invaded, I do think it has a lot of high value targets which a lot of people are quite happy to secure through ambiguity, due to our location, demographic, neutral stance and lack of previous attacks being taken as the point at which to measure security posture…. which doesn't take into account changes worldwide
If there is some way to increase that defence robustness, to include:
-being able to hold off an attack for 48hrs
-being independently able to view and track underwater, surface and airborne targets within 100 miles distance of shore
-have some sort of effective offensive measures in place against the above if needed
-be able to secure comms and energy infrastructure within our area of responsibility (UN actually states the EEZ as our area of responsibility)
Without a ridiculous amount of money and losing neutrality…. sign me up…
Unfortunately, the shortcut to (and will probably be a necessity in the next 10 years) the above is NATO.
Good point and an important consideration as what would bring Nato to our aid. As I don't think invasion is possibility currently. Actually I see very few,posters now pushing for us joing Nato , just to increase military spending.
It doesn't seem to be a "lift and shift" (assume that means copy and paste). It is adding something.
"If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter."
From more googling the UN piece from charter (article 51) is merely saying countries have a right to defend themselves, and they also have the right to help defend other countries that suffer "armed attack" if they so decide…not that they have obligations to do anything at all.
I admit that all I have read is the short text of these NATO/EU promises on paper [where f.e.g. terms like "armed attack" are not defined further]. Already agreed with you that there's a lot more substance and weight in practice to the NATO alliance/NATO membership than there is to EU common defence. edit: Also a far larger military "stick" brandished at those who might test the promises, given the membership of the US. That is important.
As mentioned previously, it's basically a lift and shift of Article 51 in the UN charter….. every statement is either an "obligation" or has numerous caveats to get out of it.
NATO Article 5 is straightforward and to the point, and not convoluted in ambiguity, as the UN charter can be taken.
While it hasn't been exercised in full, there is the legal framework and processes in place to respond quickly and effectively, that aren't in place with the UN and EU elements, something which Russia et al fully abuse.
Due to the ambiguity in the UN and EU elements, they will push and push and push, claiming not to have broken any treaties…
NATO article 5 is quite clear with "you do X, Y can happen"…. what is muddy in this side is the Hybrid warfare definitions and is currently be felt out from adversaries what they can and cant get away with under these additions.
