The three links below describe NATO’s efforts to create a “rapid reaction force” with 5000 soldiers to deploy quickly to a crisis area. Obviously, the fighting on the Ukrainian-Russian border region is an impetus for this action, and NATO is at least trying to wake up out of its deep military slumber. However, the last link reports some of the obstacles to getting even such a meager force as this proposed unit into existence and the even greater obstacles of getting the 28 political leaders of NATO nations together to make a common decision so the military chiefs can implement any action.
I don’t know about you, but I am deeply unimpressed with this incredibly meager response by NATO to the Russian (or any other) threat.
The 28 nations in the NATO alliance once fielded armies and military forces numbering in the many millions in World War II. During the Cold War, millions of NATO military personnel were either on active duty or in reserve capacities in case of a Soviet invasion…and that was before the Warsaw Pact nations switched sides and joined NATO!
So, let me see if I understand this correctly. Nations which once fielded millions of soldiers and uniformed personnel not that many years ago now are struggling to find a mere 5000 soldiers that can be deployed as a rapid reaction force to a danger area? Given the size of the NATO nations, they should already have in existence a trained and fully-equipped rapid reaction force of at least 50,000 which could be deployed at a moment’s notice to an invasion or conflict site. The rapid response units and their armored forces, their air wing and their military airlift assets should already be trained and ready. After all, NATO was a military alliance created for mutual defense, right? And, seriously, they are now having trouble scraping together a minuscule 5000 combat-capable soldiers who can be sent quickly to a crisis region? My how the mighty have fallen! Let’s state the obvious: NATO has become a “paper tiger.” The NATO nations have badly neglected their military forces. The remaining nuclear forces of the USA, the UK and France are the only military assets that give NATO any credibility or deterrence value at all.
Vladimir Putin of Russia must be watching the military weakness of the NATO nations and it must be all he can do not to laugh at NATO’s ineptitude. Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, I have read reports and rumors that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a deliberate disinformation/deception campaign by Russia to induce the NATO nations into a state of disarming their military forces to such an extent that NATO would become a very weak alliance. If true, the Russian deception effort succeeded beyond its wildest expectations.
Ezekiel 38-39 prophesies that an alliance of Russia, China, Iran and their allies will attack the nations of NATO, the West and their global allies at the very end of the latter day period of biblical prophetic time. For this to be a realistic option, the NATO and western nations would have to disarm themselves to a point that they are seen as very juicy targets. It sounds like that has already happened.
- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/nato-rapid-reaction-force-counter-russia-ukraine
- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31142276
- http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-NK0NPP6K50Y701-7SOR9M3U51LO215I07450RTJA1
