NATO: Discussion and News

OOOps, from today's Daily Mail.


US soldiers accidentally reveal top secret locations of nuclear weapons on European bases after classified security protocol training becomes searchable on Google

American soldiers stationed at military bases in Europe armed with nuclear weapons have been unknowingly sharing secret protocols and base details
Military personnel used flashcard apps to study and memorize the details of the nuclear weapon systems
They failed to realize the flashcards containing highly confidential information was available online which anyone could look up
Flashcards contained details including info helping soldiers remember which vaults within a base contained nuclear weapons and which ones were empty
By simply looking up the names of specific bases thought to contain nuclear weapons details including about passwords, security procedures were revealed
Locations of security cameras and duress signal words soldiers can use when compromised were also included
The flashcards dated back to 2013 but some were as recent as April 2021
Bellingcat then cross-referenced data from the flashcards with other reports and images shared online by soldiers themselves to verify existence of nuclear vaults
All flashcards have since been deleted after the military were asked for comment

That is fine, that just makes those new nuclear weapon locations priority targets for Russian nuclear weapons.

Good excuse to vapourise them... and probably the reason the Germans don't want them.

That is actually good... Russia has no sensible reason to invade any of those countries because they don't want the land or the people... but as a base for attacking Russia they are a potential threat so having US nukes there means they can target them with nuclear weapons which means they don't have to invade or occupy but they can eliminate them as a threat which they are...

That is a good thing... US aircraft and ships have no business operating near Russian borders on Norways territory... that is just flamebait... and also just asking the Russians to build up their forces on their border with Norway... which in no way benefits Norway.

Russia spends around US $ 60 billion.  It is behind the UK and Germany at the French level.
They spend 17 times more than Russia and they would not be able to win even a conventional war with Russia

NATO is a defensive alliance and Putin is the aggressor

kvs wrote:

Arrow wrote:Russia spends around US $ 60 billion.  It is behind the UK and Germany at the French level.
They spend 17 times more than Russia and they would not be able to win even a conventional war with Russia

NATO is a defensive alliance and Putin is the aggressor

These are nominal exchange rate values.   Using a realistic PPP (based on actual prices for Russian military hardware),
the Russian military budget is closer to $300 billion.    But Russia does not have the pork barrel base in every crack racket
that sucks up a lot of the US military budget.    

People should not use budgets to compare the potency of a country's military.  It has to be measured in terms of technology,
equipment and trained soldiers.     The whole of Europe could not defeat Russia in any war.    Russia can take on the USA
no matter how hard US fanbois pretend that it is much weaker than the USSR.    

Well when you see the actual numbers it seems that the corruption in Russia is past, at least in big companies like Sukhoi. They have engineers paid 1000$ which is a good amount there and su-35 at less than 20 million.

People should not use budgets to compare the potency of a country's military.

Especially when Russias budget is for defence while HATO spends money on attack and occupation and war.

The difference in budgets has more to do with criminal bloated MICs and corruption than value for money.

Russia has amazing value for money... and that is amusing because the west is always bullshitting everyone about how the west is rich because it creates higher productivity than anyone else.... American workers make America rich because they are more productive than other workers... the problem is that the money charged for the work goes to the share holders of the companies and the workers don't get paid what they are actually worth.... the workers create the products and services but the profit and value they create goes to the shareholders who just gambled money on the business and likely had no idea about what the company was doing apart from it made profits the last few years or was rumoured to be getting a new contract from the military soon...

Getting outperformed by Russia and China means they have to demonise them... the alternative would require change and that would upset the gravy train... and hurt the rich and powerful that run things... they wouldn't become poor or anything, but they wont be so obscenely rich any more... not acceptable...

Not sure where to put this. As Republic of Ireland isn't part of NATO but part of Europe, mods feel free to move post.

I personally think they don't need such aircraft. They could buy more Pilatus PC-9 or buy super tucano it's enough for their needs. If they do really want jet aircraft buy Aermacchi M-346 Master which is extremely similar to the yak-130 (originally designed together), but I wouldn't go above this. And the price quoted on F-16 cost they are dreaming, even second hand cost more than that. And dreaming of taking the defence budget from around €800mn to €5bn is pure fantasy. I highly doubt F-16 will be purchased or any other jet aircraft. And I doubt defence budget will increase.

"Top Gun-style F-16 fighter jets recommended for new Irish Air Force
A “squadron” of fighters is a preferred option, while the report also recommends adding at least another three ships to our naval fleet

Jet fighters for a newly rebranded Irish Air Force will be recommended at the publication of the Government’s Commission on the Defence Force’s report on Tuesday.

In the most ambitious of the Commission’s plans presented to the Minister for Defence in a report, seen by the Irish Mirror, a “squadron” of fighters is a preferred option.

These could be the world famous F-16 fighters seen in many films, such as Top Gun.

The report also recommends adding at least another three ships to our naval fleet bringing the total complement to 12 - we currently only have five operational.

And it is quite firm that we need proper “primary radar” to monitor ships or submarines lurking in our waters.

The report goes on to further say that we should have defence capabilities “comparable to similar sized countries in Europe.”

One country that is often compared to Ireland in many instances is Denmark, which has a population of 5.5million people.

The Royal Danish Air Force uses F-16 fighter jets, supplied by the Americans, to primarily defend their maritime waters.

This would be what Ireland would want fighter planes for too, although it is doubtful we could afford too many F-16s as the average price per fighter is €35million.
Denmark currently has 34 of these top-of-the-range jets in their Air Force.

A source on Tuesday night said we would more likely be looking at between five and eight in our squadron to cover our territorial waters and wider Exclusive Economic Zone.

The report suggests: “Air combat and intercept capability through the acquisition of a squadron of combat aircraft,” with “combat aircraft, pilots and support personnel to provide organic intra-theatre mobility.”


There have been three Levels Of Ambition (LOAs) presented to Minister Coveney in the report by the Commission on the Defence Forces.

LOA1 is the least ambitious and would just be a maintenance of the status quo, while LOA3 would see the Defence budget soar from under €1billion to €5billion a year, providing us with a world class Defence Forces.


https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/top-gun-style-f-16-26176500

lancelot wrote:Which "Top Gun" is this? The original movie was around the F-14. Which isn't in service anywhere but in Iran right now. Not in production either.
I agree that Ireland does not need anything better than the M-346. Getting combat jets is a waste of money.

Second hand F-16 jets are getting to be so expensive even the Gripen is starting to look like a good deal.

Western media are terrible when it comes to getting facts on military equipment. Maybe the west deems the F-16 to be top notch the new top gun hahaha well they do think the F-35 to be a super aircraft another laughable claim.

This article is a republic of Ireland defence minister or MP's fantasy nothing more

The recent naval exercise near their waters might spur HATO to push the Russian threat to Ireland to get another addict hooked on their low quality crack.

What use would fighter aircraft be for maritime patrol?

The Dutch have rather more territory to defend than the republic of Ireland I would think... unless they sell Greenland to Trump...

It is a pretty standard ruse for governments determining pay rates.... they compare themselves with business rates, but often that is the CEOs of big powerful high income companies, and of course they don't take into account the fact that in the real world there is accountability... if you stuff things up you can lose your job and don't get your bonuses, whereas in politics often you can hide it all or blame the previous government, plus all the extra perks like free travel for you and your family so you end up not even needing to spend all that money they pay you... let alone the bribes from big business to get your ear...

The Republic of Ireland should be more focussed on what they actually need rather than what everyone else is buying, or more precisely what HATO countries are trying to sell to them.

Because if they can get them to buy F-16s it wont be enough... they need the added protection of being part of HATO to make them safe...

Hopefully they will be practical, this is only a recommendation after all.

Lots of piss and vinegar here in New Zealand when we dropped the Skyhawks and Aermacchis... but honestly we were never going to need them for anything at all. When they retired the Skyhawks they didn't even bother to fly them south of Christchurch for their farewell flights because it was too far... made it pretty clear they were not for protecting us.

11E wrote:

lancelot wrote:Greenland is Danish. The Dutch still have some colonies in the Caribbean I think.

Correct, they have a company on rotation base stationed there and in the very near future the air force will operate a Reaper from Hato airport. Mostly for counter-drugs.

Sincerely

It is indeed an marine unit with an navy ship that does rotations. they just facilitate jungle-training for other dutch army units. And anti-drug traffic operations.
They are not an combat deployment.

They can not project any millitary force unless they get heavily reinforced with arms and vehicles from the Netherlands.
Even then its an heavy infantry based unit.
They got the vehicle Viking. It is an death thrap on rubber tracks really.
it is based on the BvS 10.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BvS_10

In Afghanistan the dutch marines insisted on taking this thing with them in the deployment zone.
While other Dutch Millitary infantry discouraged the marines from doing so.
Pointing out the Bushmaster vehicles never resulted in any deaths or seriously injured.

When one of these Vikings hit an IED, the crew/passengers burned to death because the shock of the blast locked the doors into place.
to be fair to the manufacturer, they never where designed to take an IED or any sort of AT impact.
The things should not be in any direct engagement.

GarryB wrote:The recent naval exercise near their waters might spur HATO to push the Russian threat to Ireland to get another addict hooked on their low quality crack.

What use would fighter aircraft be for maritime patrol?

The Dutch have rather more territory to defend than the republic of Ireland I would think... unless they sell Greenland to Trump...

..................

The Republic of Ireland should be more focussed on what they actually need rather than what everyone else is buying, or more precisely what HATO countries are trying to sell to them.

Because if they can get them to buy F-16s it wont be enough... they need the added protection of being part of HATO to make them safe...

Hopefully they will be practical, this is only a recommendation after all.

Perhaps best to do as the Icelanders, create a military airfield or military/civil and let NATO use it.