Month: October 2023

Being a veteran of the Alliance at the end of the Cold War that ended roughly thirty years before the present still unnamed intense confrontation with Russia, I am worried, seriously worried because some core functions have been lost. They were functions developed from the early 1950ties to make NATO a credible deterrent.

Here I shall limit myself to two functions that I experienced in my own service then as major and lieutenant-colonel: The common readiness plan and the command structure. Both were exercised in the bi-annual Command Post Exercises that trained procedures.

The readiness plan (cannot remember if it was a SHAPE or NATO HQs document) described all the detailed steps at each readiness level from Peace Time to the war condition. It made it possible to coordinate preparations among all member states as the same steps were mirrored in a more detailed specific form in the national readiness plans. The NATO document also described when the Alliance would pool member resources such as communications, shipping and aviation.

The regional and subregional structure (I experienced the subregional HQs Baltic Approaches and its subordinate land force headquarters), were essential as a framework for bridging the front line and rear area/reinforcing member states. The subordinate headquarters such as the German-Danish Corps LANDJUT and the Danish LANDZEALAND developed defence plans and forces requirements, where at best only the initial part could be met by the front line member states. The NATO command structure could therefore work as a clearing-house for the distribution of the arriving force reinforments from rear including overseas member states, supplementing the national efforts of the frontline states to attract such reinforcements and negotiate the host nation support and other conditions.

Until NATO have recreated such functions for new European member forces and plans and consolidated them through regular exercises, the deterrent effect depends entirely on the visible remaining U.S. armed forces in Europa.

I have read no signs that this has been understood by the successor generation.

The new Israeli-Palestinian War was likely condoned and supported by Iran to break the developing relations between Israel and Arab States. This means that Russia has been informed in advance and has (at least tacitly) approved the Hamas coup attack.

However, as the Iran dominated Hezbollah was not involved from the start, it was probably not a direct Iranian initiative.

But, no matter who has been involved in various ways, the war is the worst news possible for the Ukraine since 24 February last year.

The reason is not only that it attracts world media and political attention at crucial time of fading interest in the Ukrainian cause.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict has for decades been a highly devisive issue for Europe with the large Muslim, Palestinian supporting minorities in several states. However, the latest domestic political development in Israel away from the rule of law worries even traditional European supporters of the country.

In the U.S. the issue of support for the Ukrainians now divides the Republicans, but the support for Israel does not. The more Trumpist, the more uncritical support.

Thus the new war threatens to undermine Western unity, so no matter if or how the Kremlin was involved, it is good news for Putin, and the more the new conflict spreads and longer it lasts the better for him.

Israeli support for Ukraine was limited by its security concerns in Syria. Any hope of change is now gone, if the conflicts do not merge after an escalation to a direct Israeli-Iranian conflict.

Erdogan’s Türkiye should be watched as it will try to exploit the new conflict as well.

(Photo AP)