... and each free Nation makes it's own decisions. Putin has successfully overturned National opinions across the continent. GE becoming
military, neutral SE getting off the fece and FI recalling it's 20th C history vis a vis RU/USSR.

You mean Western flank right?

...another thing you got wrong :(

Europe, and some parts of the Middle East, would be a lot more peaceful if NATO had dissolved itself after its raison d'etre ceased to exist. The hoax of the 'threat' of hordes of Cossacks pouring through the Fulda Gap was a money-making con trick by the military-industrial complex. Immensely lucrative, of course, but it was just a con trick that most of us, myself included, fell for.

Scaring the Russians is not a clever idea. It's pretty much the same thing as poking a bear with a sharp stick. As we say in Scotland: gonnae nae dae that.

Boris needs a war for diversionary political reasons. Tail wagging the dog and all that stuff. He's got the war he craves. For him it's a win-win because this time it won't be Union flag draped coffins being paraded through that town near Brize Norton. For the merchants of Death it's a massive bonanza. All those missiles and other weaponry being poured into Ukraine like petrol onto a forest fire will have to be re-bought by the tax-payer and the National Debt. Money galore.

It takes a certain amount of doublethink to call the Russian threat a hoax at the very same time they're attempting to invade Ukraine.

The difference between Russian expansion and NATO expansion is that NATO expands when someone wants to join it (if the rest of NATO is happy to have them), whereas Russia expands by invading countries that don't want to join it.

Yes, I meant the Western flank. The one most exposed to NATO aggression.

Ukraine is the vulnerable soft underbelly of Russia. An immensely rich prize for NATO to pluck. We will be able to put nuclear missiles within two or three hundred miles of Moscow. Russia scared the bejasus out of JFK when short range missiles were being placed in Cuba, thousands of miles beyond range of being able to whack Washington. Imagine the worries the Russian equivalent of The Pentagon have over the prospect of NATO putting missiles so close to their own capital. You can be sure that they recognise the fact that the US, which is NATO, is the only country in the world which has used nuclear weapons and that their use was intended to terrorise Russia, not the already beaten Japanese.

Pasta,

Which countries has post-Communist Russia bombed and invaded in the past three decades or so? More than one?

How many countries have been bombed and/or invaded by the US since the end of WW2? More than one? More than a dozen? How many dozen?

I don't think any country is trying to join the US. Why would you? The discussion is about joining NATO. When did NATO last try to invade a sovereign country?

There you go again with another round of your logical fallacies. You seem incapable of sticking to the point and just slide off into fantasy land at the earliest opportunity. This thread is not about the USA nor nationalistic jingoism.

And by the way, Prunus Dessicata, that town near Brize Norton is Royal Wootton Basset and is is near Lyneham not Brize Norton!

More than one? Even one is too many mate! But apparently you need to be reminded of the likes of Chechnya (twice), Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Syria. Belarus was invaded by Russians without firing a shot.

However, on topic: UK's support in these dangerous times is highly appreciated in Finland. One may think what they will of an individual but what that individual represents is valued greatly.

A good point, ORAC.

Nevertheless, Parliament does have to approve War. That's why some wars are conducted under false pretences in such a way as to be deniable. Oman in the 1970s is a prime example. RAF officers flying combat missions were posed as being employees of Airwork Services. Tier One UKSF fighting forces were labelled "Training Teams" etc.

HMG is somewhat squeamish about admitting that the wars it fights are actually "Wars". Euphemisms are routinely deployed. Korea, for example, was labelled a "police action". The Falklands War was a "Campaign" not a war.. Afghanistan was labelled something other than a War, though I can't quite remember what euphemism was used for that one. The rather inappropriately named "First(sic) Gulf War" was admitted to be a War because it was approved by the Security Council of the United Nations.

Boris, as you have pointed out, takes the same viewpoint as Louis Quatorze: l'état, c'est moi. His attitude towards his non-compliance with his own lockdown laws is just one example of that. His frequent lying to Parliament about his own malfeasances is another.

His pattern of lying, which goes right back to his days as a jobbing journalist in Brussels and beyond, is such that he feels no need to connect his lies with the Truth. For him, it is simply enough to say what he wants people to believe, regardless of the disconnect between what he says and Truth.

He's a bloody dangerous man to have in charge of nuclear weaponry. So was Trump, with whom he shares some narcissistic characteristics, but that's another matter

To be fair, they must look close from 1600 miles away.

You mean like calling it a "Special Military Operation"? ;-)

Yup. That's the one. Thanks for the correction.

I just couldn't remember the name of the town, though I do remember the images of those dignified corteges carrying the remains of brave men who died for nothing in a stupid and pointless and unwinnable war. Two such wars, actually.

My mis-quote of Brize was simply a brain-fart

There you go again, NATO is a defensive organisation and is simply there to defend those member countries against aggression or attack, Finland and Sweden are totally independent sovereign countries who after seeing Russias invasion of a nearby sovereign nation look like they now desire to join.
Why is a coalition of countries joined together for the sole purpose to defend themselves against an attack, a threat to Russia at all, unless of course if they have ambitions to invade any of the future member states, it is just like Russia is a federation of states who form an alliance to defend themselves..

NATO isn’t the big bad wolf in all of this, NATO hasn’t invaded anyone, Russia has, don’t forget that.

Yup! Exactly like that.

Our own propaganda claimed that Putin was going to upgrade it to a "War" in a speech to be made on the Victory Day parade, but that was just crap, as is so much of our own NATO propaganda.

Not really, he could simply have read the western intel and chose to call their bluff.

Just because stuff isn’t announced does not mean plans are not in the works, his news programs are already hinting at rearmament

I'll just leave this here.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avia...l#post11229108

Prunus, you have an incomplete grasp of NATO out of area operations.

1. NATO's out of area operation in Former Yugoslavia that began in 1995 (on land) was a substantial change in direction from NATO's purpose up to November/December of 1995. (IFOR). It was done as a peace enforcement operation under Article 51 of the UN charter (follow on the UNPROFOR (unsuccessful) attempts at stopping a civil war) and was explicitly based on a peace agreement ironed out (grudgingly) in 1995 in Dayton Ohio between the three major parties in the conflict. You can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts.

It is my view that the same cannot be said for the subsequent operations in 1999, although they were certainly related politically. I thought it was a bad idea at the time, and as time has gone on it has looked even worse than when I informed that opinion at the time.

2. The decision by various NATO members to support the US in what became ISAF in Afghanistan was a conclusion reached in multiple capitals that an attack on the US (a NATO member) was within the Article V scheme.
Osama and his crew were based in Afghanistan at the time. (In part because his own national government in Saudi found him persona non grata). You can argue about whether any NATO nation should, or should not, have been involved until you are blue in the face. That's opinion, not fact.
There was massive international support (not just NATO support) for that operation in 2001, and in the early 00's.
When I was involved with that op we had Kiwi and Ozzie support, neither of which were NATO nations, and IIRC some Eastern Bloc nations contributed troops. (But that was going on as I rolled back home so memory does not serve, at the moment, if it was Hungarians or someone else).

You choose to ignore that Afghanistan's government in the late 1990's was providing support and sanctuary for the terrorist group that attacked the two US embassies in Eastern Africa (Kenya, Tanzania). Sadly, the Tomahawk strikes that were sent towards a few of those terrorist group's bases didn't take out their leadership ... if they had maybe the world would be a different place today. That same group set up the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, and IIRC the Bali attacks.
Afghanistan/Taliban did not have clean hands.

Lonewolf50
I beg to differ. The wrinkly prune knows that, but it doesn't fit his brief.

Prunus … have a free read of a grown-up book.

Routledge Handbook of U.S. Counterterrorism and Irregular Warfare Operations

.