GLOBAL MILITARY UPDATE

This post is intended to update readers about important military actions and developments in various geopolitical regions. The world media doesn’t give enough attention to such matters until conflicts break out or threatens to do so. The first issue to address is the NATO alliance, which is under much strain. The first link has much important information. As many readers realize, President Trump pressured NATO nations in his first term as President to raise their military spending to deter any Russian attack. Some European nations were irked at Trump’s demands, but Trump was right. The Russian invasion of Ukraine began as Europe looked weak and that war is still raging in Eastern Europe. The fighting seems to be in a stalemate, with Russia losing so many hundreds of thousands of its young men in Putin’s war of aggression that a significant percentage of Russia’s young men are either dead, wounded or missing from combat duty. The longer this war continues, the weaker Russia becomes as it loses men and war machines at a steady rate. The Ukraine is bearing a heavy burden in this war, but it has no choice. The alternative is slavery under Russian tyranny.

Nor surprisingly, the first link notes that the Eastern European nations are beefing up their military spending the most within the NATO alliance. It singles out the Baltic nations, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria as the NATO nations which are spending the most on rearmament. These nations suffered under Soviet domination from 1945 to around 1990 so they take the threat of a Russian invasion seriously. The link states that the United Kingdom and Germany are starting to take seriously their need to re-arm as the USA has less ability to focus on Europe, given Chinese threats in tbe Indo-Pacific region. Finland and Sweden are cited as major assets to NATO as they have domestic weapons-production capacities. Sweden makes world-class warplanes, warships and other types of weaponry. Indeed, the link cites an instance where Sweden protected a French carrier recently from Russian jamming. It is my understanding that Germany does intend to seriously re-arm, but the UK’s defense policy is unclear. Recent media stories have reported the UK’s Defense Minister just resigned due to Prime Minister Starmer’s refusal to adequately fund the British military.

The worst laggards in NATO are listed as Spain, France and Italy. This is easy to understand as these nations are geographically the NATO nations furthest from Russia. That is a foolish viewpoint as war can be fought at long distances and these nations must re-arm and reduce their strategic vulnerability. It is also important for all European NATO nations to realize that with Mideast and Indo-Pacific responsibilities, the USA is now dedicating a smaller number of warships and bombers to be available for NATO’s regional needs (second link). I must also admit that I do not understand President Trump’s recurrent demands for sovereignty over Greenland for US security purposes. I heard a senior NATO spokesman saying on TV that the USA already has a treaty with Denmark and Greenland which permits the USA to build military bases wherever it wants on Greenland’s icy territory. In my mind, that should eliminate this controversy.

The third link has interesting news which I’ve not seen mentioned in American TV media. It reports that France has sent its aircraft carrier and ten support warships to the Red Sea–close to the Mideast combat zone. The French fleet is there reportedly to help in guaranteeing passage for merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz, but they would only be deployed as part of a multi-national fleet to that area after the USA has ended the war with Iran. The message that France doesn’t want to send its warships into a hostile area makes them sound risk-averse. The UK supports a post-Mideast war role, but it will have to find some warships that are available and fit for duty. The last report I saw was that one of the UK’s new carriers was in long-term unreadiness as it had major repairs to undergo before it can realistically take to sea again. However, the third link also reports that French warplanes have been shooting down Iranian drones and missiles to protect the UAE, and that France has 900 military personnel already deployed to the conflict zone. Congratulations to France for at least that level of support in the Mideast conflict.

In another important NATO development, the fourth link reveals that the USA is considering deploying nuclear weapons to Poland to be hosted there as a way of forward-deploying US nuclear forces. The link lists the NATO nations in Europe that already host American nuclear warheads on their territory. Poland is consistently the European NATO nation which demonstrates that it is determined not to ever be conquered again. As I have documented in previous posts, Poland is rapidly implementing a large increase in Poland’s heavy weaponry by buying many tanks, howitzers, warplanes, etc. from South Korea. The fourth link and fifth link report that France is forming a group of European NATO nations which would be placed under an unspecified French nuclear umbrella. France has a reported 290 nuclear warheads which may make it the fourth largest nuclear-armed military force in the world. It is not certain as the numbers of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of India, China, Pakistan and Israel are not specifically known for sure. The French nuclear umbrella would include French control of its nuclear weapons, but it puts in place a greater likelihood that any invasion of Europe by Russia could meet nuclear resistance. The fifth link lists Norway as the most recent nation to join the “nuclear umbrella” offered by France. Poland is now the European nation spending the most on its conventional forces. The sixth link discusses a $165 billion total for Poland’s military expansion costs. Poland also has a program where civilians are encouraged to undergo a military training program so they can be part of a ready-reserve force which can be quickly mobilized to serve in the event of a Russian invasion.

South Korea is about to embark on a major military upgrade program for its navy. South Korea intends to build nuclear-powered submarines (seventh link). I assume that these new South Korean submarines will be attack submarines, not strategic missile-launching submarines. Given North Korea’s nuclear weapons and modern submarine-building programs, it would be entirely understandable if South Korea decides to build missile-launching submarines at some time in the near future. While I’ve seen no discussion of it in the media, South Korea may be watching what is happening in the NATO alliance and concluding that taking this major step is necessary as the USA’s nuclear umbrella over South Korea and Japan may not be so iron-clad in the future.

Not long ago, I posted about the newly-created nation of Somaliland in the Horn of Africa. It is likely that Somaliland will be recognized by and allied to the Israelis and the Americans (eighth link). If so, Somaliland will become a dagger aimed at the Iranian-supplied Houthis in North Yemen. Somaliland is located at the southern approaches to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal so it is in a strategic location. American and Israeli forces stationed in Somaliland would help guarantee the safety of merchant ships and oil tankers heading from the Mideast to Europe via the Suez Canal so Egypt would benefit from this development. This could become very important in case Iran becomes a long-term threat to free navigation via the Strait of Hormuz. The area that Somaliland inhabits is getting crowded with military bases. Both the USA and Communist China have bases in the Djibouti region adjacent to Somaliland. That small region has two military camps facing each other at very short range. One camp is the USA, Israel and Somaliland and the other is Iran, the Houthis and China. I’m not sure whose side Djibouti is on.

I’ll conclude with a military update that has received almost no publicity. However, it is of great importance in the matter of military alliances. The ninth link reports that the Israelis have deployed an Iron Dome air defense system to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) along with a deployment of IDF military personnel to operate this advanced air defense system. This is a testimony to the advantages of being in the Mideast’s Abraham Accords. The UAE was one of the first Arab Sunni nations to join the Abraham Accords, and Israel and the UAE have developed an alliance which is paying dividends for both nations. The Israelis stationed in the UAE have been using the Iron Dome Defense system to defend the UAE (and perhaps other Persian Gulf nations) against Iranian missile attacks. Not that many years ago, few would have foreseen that Israelis would be defending Islamic Arab nations against attacks from Shiite Iran. The Abraham Accords are well-named as both the Israelis and the Arabs know that they are descended from the biblical patriarch, Abraham. The Israelis are the modern tribe of Judah, descended from Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, and the Arab Sunnis are descendants of Ishmael, a son of Abraham via Hagar. Many other nations in the world are descended from Abraham, who was prophesied to become the father of “many nations” (Genesis 17:4-6). Perhaps in the future more nations will eventually recognize their Abrahamic origin and join the Abraham Accords.

GLOBAL MILITARY UPDATE

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