You can approve of operations against Iran, as I do, AND you can dislike the Spanish and British Left, as I do, and still feel as though "what an incredibly unpleasant surprise that our allies are suddenly not as reliable as we hoped!" is a hilarious thing for a supporter of Donald Trump to say.
Well, if US at least warned its allies before acting, it might not be so bad. But starting the war and THEN demanding assistance from allies - who are under no obligation to help USA against Iran - looks like incredibly rotten way of doing politics.
Based on the prior notification of Germany, it would appear that the White House notified, and/or discussed with, nations Trump figured could keep a secret. Would you trust the current Canadian or UK governments to keep secret your next kinetic move?
Personally, I wouldn't notify anyone who I thought might be a little wishy-washy. The whole point of the initial strikes were because of time sensitive intelligence. Asking permission from those that are going to blab it to the target(s) makes absolutely no sense operationally
Except, we haven't demanded any assistance from them at all. We aren't asking for fuel. We're not asking for weapons. We're not asking for participation. We only ask them to stay out of the way. And Spain/UK have decided to insert themselves.
Except our allies have been unreliable for DECADES. If you're not purchasing enough weapons to sustain your military and not maintaining enough troops in the ranks, you are, in fact, not a reliable ally. You are a LIABILITY. Even Obama, who was a fellow traveler of theirs, could not get them to get off the dime.
OK, that is a point you could make, but it seems to me to be the exact opposite of the point Sal is making.
Sal is saying it's bad that the UK and Spain aren't helping. You (and others in these comments) are saying it doesn't matter. You're entitled to your opinion, but it's a non sequitur.
Sal's complaint is funny because Trump (who clearly agrees with you, btw!) so transparently doesn't care about reassuring our allies, but throws a sissy fit when our allies don't back us to the hilt even when our alliance doesn't require them to.
What you call a 'hissy fit', I look at as 'telling it like it is'. For most of my life, Americans on the whole, have walked small and dealt with being looked upon like cowboys or bumpkins. Much of why the Euros are ticked off with Trump is that he doesn't sugar-coat his responses to their bad behavior.
We have a treaty allowing us to use Base X. Country Y suddenly, in the middle of operations, declares, 'nah, you can't use that!' We have Base C in the Pacific. Country B suddenly decides to literally give it away based on arguments they themselves admit are bogus so their leadership can score points with their constituency. The terms of said agreement require us to basically reveal tactical plans to third parties who are associated with China.
Is Spain entitled to kick us out of a base? Sure. It's their land. But it's kind of jerky to do it when things have already kicked off. At least Sir Keir told us in advance. Tell the US, 'hey, we don't want to be involved'. Don't go, 'hey, we're pulling the rug out, right now. Get out! Don't care where your planes have to go.'
Since Iran isn't placed in Europe or North America, in North Atlantic or Mediterranean, it is not covered by NATO treaty. So any US desire to use allies territory for military action against Iran must be negotiated separatedly. Its actually pretty simple; the fact that you are allied with someone does not means that he is under any obligation to do anything exceeding the alliance treaty.
US problem is that current administration is so opportunistic and chaotic, that it simply forgot about negotiating matters with allies BEFORE the action. Instead, US is basically trying to drag European nations into war they never wanted - and weren't even warned, much less asked about. Its not a good strategy at all.
Not sure you’ve been following along but US spent alot of time in meetings during Munich Conference and took the temperature.
They take away was which allies could be trusted with knowing D-1 and which ones would sell us out.
This wasn’t happening in a vacuum. And by all reporting including reporters who purposely had spent led up to zero hour said they saw nothing inside the pentagon nor congress that gave any sense this was happening.
It shows how squared away General Caine’s team is. He’s been a revelation especially for being a senior Air Farce leader. The Air Farce typically doesn’t allow warfighters to rise up.
It took long enough to halt that foolishness especially in the day of Doordash & Uber Eats that can easily be hacked at both the app and hardware level (ie drivers).
Let me explain what "alliance" means in its core. It means "common interests" or "common enemy". Period. Its no friendship, or commonality of ideology, or anything like that. It basically means that "we have common goal, lets agree to work together toward it".
The alliance does not equival friendship. Allied nations might not like each other actually - but they could put problems aside for common goal. Commonality is the key. Without common goals, there are no alliance.
In the case of current American-Iranian war, there are no common goals between America and Europe. Not even formal obligations - Iran is pretty much outside of NATO responsibility. So no "automatic help" there. Everything needed to be negotiated - personally.
Well, POTUS Trump forgot about that. Or maybe didn't think about that in first place, assuming that everyone would "fell in line" automatically. The result? Instead of making agreements with allies and ensuring their support BEFORE the war, US is now trying to persuade them to join war that those allies aren't interested in. No commonality. No working alliance.
Friendship among allies should require no such ‘hat in hand’ begging. Nuclear -armed Theocratic Iran is a threat to all western countries, which is why US and Israel are doing what we’re doing. Europeans need look no further than their growing violent Muslim immigration problem - and the attendant social, political, and economic problems that are unfolding in real time to look for commonality. They are approaching an extremis situation to which they will no doubt require help from America to solve. They have no time for petulance.
Friendship amongst allies is not required. Allies might not be friends at all - like Britain and USSR during WW2 - but work perfectly toward common goals. Exactly because they both understood such goals and both understood that working together is in their common interest.
So doesn't really mean that when it comes to NATO Alliance. As for POTUS he's just using opportunity to prove himself right when it comes to which NATO partners are not reliable nor trustworthy allies.
When the South Chine Sea kicks off we now have a clear understanding why we need to reorient all our EUR forces to CONUS and the Indo-Pacific, Same with the focus of US supply chain and arms supplies.
But I am all for your logic and would be happy to apply it to every "alliance". Spain has shown Ukraine isn't in it's "common Interests" thus shouldn't be in the US Common Interest given it's in a far-off theater. That the Canary Island are more in the US interest so should be taken from Spain to ensure US access to Western Africa. The Balearic Islands is another one and is in the US Common Interest to liberate for US as a replacement for Roto. While we are at it we should support Morocco a good ally with the return of the African Algarve in exchange for US basing rights as needed.
So sure "alliance" is common goal, and Spain no longer shares with the US since it's take over by the Marxists. No level of it's rebranding since 1979 has changed it's underlying anti west goals.
Heck! Poland is on a path to have a larger military than Germany soon and, given yesterday's announcement by PM Tusk, a willingness not to trust France and the UK nuclear weapons to deter anything outside their own country's interests. https://www.gov.pl/web/primeminister/polands-security-cannot-wait
Not a fan of Tusk but as long as US NGOs are buried forever less concerned about him given ability of Law & Justice to counterbalance him and ideally force Poland to stay on the right path. Teh Civic Coalition is still well infiltrated by leftist especially with the Greens & AgroUnion and him then still needing the New Left to ally with him being instrumental in his holding onto power.
Would prefer Poland (even with Tusk)/Italy/Japan/Isreal. Germany is scared senseless by Industrial China coopting it's industrial might. The days of that asshat Merkle selling out Germany has ended and once they looked around and saw how China has basically raped their auto industry & chemical industry and now is looking to do dame to industrial machinery etc. they realize how screwed they are.
I believe we saw this movie before......Turkey denying overflights of their territory when Gulf War was kicking off........
yep, more carriers. based in CONUS, I concur. But.......(sorry if this gets old).....flying carriers, able to deploy direct from Kansas to anywhere on the globe within 100 hours. seems to me that the speed of creating those (months compared to years for marine vessels) and their low costs/low manning......would be a fine match for BIG loads of LUCAS, neh?
Let's be clear: Spain has whatever sovereignty and agency it is *permitted* to have. If you could bring Curtis LeMay out of a time machine, he would note that we could bomb Spain to radioactive ash twelve hours after the sitting President decided to.
Only in the post-WWII world do we have this notion of restraint that is more powerful than power itself. If Julius Caesar had wanted to use Spain's bases, he would have simply taken them. And so on.
Spain has no more say in this than a child had over its parent. I might feel unable to make my son eat broccoli, but that is not strictly true. I can punch him until he eats it. Anything else is restraint.
Nice to see you pop in here. Come for the articles and stay for the B&B comments.
Spain is a sovereign nation, a NATO deadbeat and has never been a stalwart ally.
The simplest solution is to merely cast them adrift from any benefits association with the US may bring. If Spain was an orange the juice just ain't worth the squeeze.
So the Athenians started the Peloponessian War as the cradle of Greek civilization, with unchallenged control of the seas, the richest nation in the area, and a huge network of allies and trading partners. By the end of the war, they'd lost their democracy, they'd lost their entire trading network, and eventually they lost their freedom since they were so weak they got rolled up by the Macedonians a few decades later.
In the midst of destroying the Melians, who wanted to remain neutral, Thucydides notes that the Athenian attitude was, "the strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must." Over time, people have cited that quote as a positive justification, forgetting that Thucydides is pointing out that that attitude led to the Athenian defeat.
The Athenians launched their last, ill-conceived campaign with no allies, hoping to get a few on board along the way, which didn't happen because they could no longer be trusted.
It is important to reevaluate your relationships occasionally, especially if something is really changing between the two of you. It is childish to get upset if a friend doesn't see things your way. It is destructive to begin assigning them motivation. If you want to bring a business mindset to relationships, you recognize that focusing on the opportunities you share is more productive than on the differences you have. And you work hard to avoid burning bridges because you never know when you might need that partner in the future, even if you're competing in the present.
That's a two way street and Kier Starmer might have wanted to consider that point before he spent the weekend celebrating Ramadan with his increasingly volatile Muslims instead of being our "oldest ally." So much for special friendships. Then again, they were sending people around last election cycle here trying to stir up the vote for Trump's opposition. We won't even begin to discuss the other unsavory stuff they have done behind his back.
Skip the right wing fluff and get down to the business that we exist in a multi-polar wold where putative allies or adversaries vary their stance as they see fit at a given moment without becoming doctrinaire anything.
A one-trick-pony counterpunch is not sufficiently nimble in many circumstances to serve our interests. Other times it might. But all responses require consideration of short term gains against longer term consequences. For instance, one canard that has been circulating for years is that is that Iran is on the point of acquiring nuclear weapons within 2-3 months if we don't do [fill in the blanks].
Well then those multi polar one trick ponies can ride their ponies on their own time and their own dime. We'll remind us when they come whining to us that it isn't in our interests. I think 47 years of patience is long term enough to wait. From what I read, the Iranian negotiators themselves were bragging how close to nukes they were, which caused alarm bells to ring.
Iran attempted to assassinate a former president/president elect in such a blatant manner that even Biden's DoJ couldn't ignore it and prosecuted the case.
Attempted assassination of a President elect is casus belli.
The canard, as you well know, was limited to the periodic announcement for years that in 2-3 months Iran would have developed nuclear weapons. Everyone also knows that Iran tried to target Trump (see below). Try not to mix and match, it detracts from your usually interesting comments. Your Latin phrase is more Cato the Elder, "Carthago delenda est" than any Article 1, Section 8 discussion.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump."
Much better. In January 2023, IAEA inspectors detected uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% at Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. This level is very close to the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium. A cause for alarm.
You're absolutely right. The left leaning pro-Hamas government of Spain seems intent on burning bridges. Perhaps they'll snuff out the sparks when all their civilians lose their jobs in an already tight and constrained economy suffering from the invasion of illegal aliens so beloved by the Progressive Left.
Judging by twitter comments, the average Euro thinks they are superior to Americans based on paid vacations, free healthcare, etc. ignoring that billions in trade and hundreds of millions in aid and us carrying their defense costs are what enable that. Spain makes lovely wine and olive oil, but we can find other sources if they don't need our ships or won't lend their bases.
They're a dying people. Have some compassion for the senseless utterings of their final days. Meantime, look to the "new" Europeans and their social, religious, and political proclivities to guide your national (and international) policy.
Your assertion about the Atheians it a 2way sword. In many ways it's was allies turning on the Athenians that show allies once they reveal themselves not to be allies need to be dealt with or they will cause your failure. A few works by authors in the allied cities have been preserved by the Roman-period historian Plutarch. However, these are fragmentary and insufficient for making broad conclusions such as yours.
We just don't have a broad enough record to make turn conclusion of the Delian League and the record we do have is a bit one sided. It can show both the need to keep and the need to deal with and the need to cut out those and treat them as hostile actors and not allies. even the growth of the Second Athenian League shows that allies remained. It alot more complex than you make things to be.
All historians have biases and prejudices, regardless of how hard they might try to mitigate them. Thucydides is no different. Against that, generations continue to believe his account to be "fit for purpose." And his history, which includes the trials and tribulations of Sparta's allies as well as the need for middle powers to hedge against and manipulate greater powers to survive, is generally correct. More than that, his general lessons endure, which is why he is still studied at the Nation's war colleges.
I think my last paragraph remains relevant because it acknowledges agency across all actors while underscoring both the need for relationships and that curating and caring for them is not easy and is not helped by reductionism - though that is a part of how our brain processes information that is most often a help except when it is not.
In the end, we are dealing with independent wills with whom both incentive and coercion might be applied; neither is right nor wrong, but they can be, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. Allowing yourself overly grand diversions into what they're doing can be a lot like hand-wringing over how your neighbor and his wife do conflict resolution when your goal is to get them to stop their leaves from blowing over on your lawn.
And I think it is entirely reasonable that if you find yourself without allies, it is worth asking why. Maybe it is them, maybe you are being done wrong. Maybe the quantifiers "all" or "most " really do apply. But Thucydides would have us reconsider how we got that condition.
Over 2 decades ago, I was privy to intel which indicated that Iran planned to develop nuclear warhead capable IRBMs to threaten European capitals like Madrid and Paris. The long term plan was ICBMs.
The fecklessness of the current Spanish, UK and French governments is breathtaking.
While they are all breaking Ramadan fast together with their invaders, they may want to read up on 12th Imams and immanentizing the eschaton as a national goal of some countries. Cough. Cough.
I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but this is goofy weirdo nonsense and an undeniable symptom of severe internet poisoning.
We are allied with millions of Muslims, including thousands who are putting themselves in harm's way fighting alongside us right now and millions who are dancing in streets across the world thanking us for buying Khamenei an express ticket to hell. Getting all keyed up about Charles Martel and gnashing your teeth because the British PM honored Ramadan (which President Trump also did) is hateful ignorant trash, and I'm sure your mother raised you better.
Yes, "holy war" is a very common concept among deranged, uncivilized fanatics, like the ones in this comment section working themselves into a spittle-flecked rage because Starmer "celebrated" Ramadan.
Neither came to fruition due to decades of concentrated and often violent multinational efforts by the US and other countries to prevent such things from happening.
This is akin to claiming people got "played" just because the Kaiser's dream of invading the US and Copenhagenizing the USN, the Nazi dream as outlined in the Second Book of uniting Eurasia to destroy the US, and the Soviet dream of global revolution never panned out, in spite of that happening because people actively sought to prevent those from happening by just about any means possible.
Considering we've had evidence of Iraqi WMDs at a minimum since Saddam deployed them in the 1980s, probably well after. And the core of that intel was confirmed when we rolled into Iraq, hence why we spent so much time rolling up what was left of Saddam's WMD programs and destroying things like his old sarin gas and yellow cake.
Yeah, a lot of the intel was false if not outright fabricated and stuff like how he had strategic missiles equipped with nuclear payloads was nonsense. Doesn't change the fact that he worked hard to preserve the programs that would get him there and had a lot of the precursors around, or that he had taken great agonies to preserve decades old chemical and virological weapons dumped in to pits by slave labor consisting of people like some of my Kurdish-American neighbors in the weeks and months before they got liberated by Coalition forces or the Peshmerga, probably well after its best Use By date.
It's amazing to see the number of people who will try to sell you the con that a WMD is not a WMD just because it was very old, in poor condition, or not assembled quite yet. In much the same way it is jarring to see people have "no direct" carry more stress than Atlas by claiming that Saddam authorizing the funding and arming of Al Qaeda vassal groups such as Abu Sayyaf or even outright cutouts like the Army of Muhummad KNOWING they are part of the Al Qaeda ecosystem with sworn allegiance to UBL/OBL means Saddam's regime had no alliance or cooperation with Al Qaeda. Or how a bunch of Taliban and AQ bigwigs driven out of Afghanistan in '01 with wounds somehow got top line medical treatment in Saddam's Baghdad (a Soviet Union-meets-Nazi-Germany-meets-Neo-Babylonian homage on a Flood Plain in one of the areas of the world controlled by authoritarian palace regimes for the longest time, which he tried to engage in literally 1984 on) while Saddam supposedly legitimately did not know and had absolutely no idea how that happened.
That describes only much of the intel we had. And keep in mind that in the intelligence game "Fake but Accurate" is an actual result and sometimes an acceptable one. See things like the intel we got from the Italians after the surrender in 1943 about the number of Germans in Italy.
On the other hand, intelligence we had such as that Saddam was still employing his WMD scientists and had employed slave labor to help work on the WMD facilities? That was dead on. As was that he remained open contact and cooperation with Salafi terror groups like Al Qaeda, and that he had directed his diplomatic staff to smuggle weapons, funding, and fake IDs to Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, hence why the Philippines had to Persona Non Grata large swaths of the Iraqi Diplomatic Staff in country back in the day.
But by all means, let's ignore all that in favor of pithy statements.
Interesting to consider how and why Saddam produced his chemical weapons, too. First, he attacked Iran without provocation, as he did Kuwait later on.
Then, the USA and its allies stepped in to stop the Iranian counterattack by financing Iran and providing it with weapons, including the elements for chemical weapons.
Boomers endlessly complain about the 1979 hostage taking but don't know how the USA got revenge for that in the Iran-Iraq war. Thousands more Iranians killed because of US and allied support for Iraq. The Kurds who were gassed at Halabja were also victims. It was a minor scandal known as "Iraq-gate" related to Iran Contra, in which the US sold weapons to Iran, too! Perfidious.
Americans are ignorant of a lot of unfavorable history.
While German politician is better diplomat, the net result is same:
Iran is not worth life of single Pomeranian grenadier.
Especially while US is deliberately withholding help to Ukraine, who is fighting ACTUAL threat to Europe. And deprecating all the help it got with previous Gulf adventures.
On a happier note, congratz to the skipper of whichever SSN got to nab first US torp kill since WW2 off Sri Lanka coast.
With all respect, Pawel, we have had 47 years of thousands of our grenadiers and civilian employees and such being obliterated by Iranians and Iranian proxies and Iranian weapons. Don't know how many billions in aid to Ukraine is enough but we've subsidized that long enough.
Lest we forget a somewhat different legacy. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), the U.S. provided significant covert and overt support toHussein's Iraq to prevent an Iranian victory, aiding Saddam Hussein with intelligence (satellite imagery), agricultural credits, and "dual-use" technology. That policy for good or ill led to the death of thousands of Iranians, included facilitating the flow of equipment used in Iraqi chemical weapon development and, paradoxically, secret arms sales to Iran in the Iran-Contra affair.
This not to suggest that decapitating the Iranian leadership was not a quick, bold stroke and a fine proportional response. What has not been adequately discussed is what is the effective limit of a proportional response that serves our national interest. We have yet to see whether decapitation of leadership leads to effective change or simple reflects ne job opportunities
Not gonna refight a 40 year old war or decisions made 6 presidents ago. Speaking of decapitating.... how many of our military ran into Iranian manufactured EFPs and were maimed and killed? Iran has funded and staffed and trained most of the terrorists roaming the world in some form or fashion. At what point is just waiting for the next attack a reasonable course of action? Maybe cut the malignancy out of there and the entire region can finally flourish.
Nothing holding back any NATO partner and European Nation from supporting and providing direct aide to Ukraine. Us is no t holding back anything that Europe can't provide. It's Europe's back yard.
As they have proven time and again, they are not there to help in the Indo-Pacific nor the Middle East nor Africa nor South & Central America. All places the US has commitments and forces to support.
Hell, they still haven't allowed Ukraine into the European Union. Yet the US is the one that is "holding back".
Time to leave Europe and either reduce our footprint or even better pull out of NATO. Italy can’t handle the Spanish footprint without major infrastructure changes at Geata or Sig. I’m waxing nostalgia when I say I was a Cold War Brat that got to attend high school on a navy base in Italy. Got to travel all over Europe. Later came back for two grown up tours in Italy one being a NATO command. I enjoyed the fruits of those tours and I will cherish them always, but I also know It’s time to leave. As in leave all the way. Close the bases down and let Europe survive on her own.
MTH, saw this yesterday: Greek police and intelligence services have detained a 36-year-old Georgian national at Athens International Airport on suspicion of espionage, as Greece remains on high alert following the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The man arrived in Greece from Germany on February 3 and spent weeks staying at a hotel near Souda Bay in western Crete. Authorities found photographs of the USS Gerald R. Ford on his phone, taken while the carrier was docked at the base for resupply hours before the strikes on Iran began. A specialized app on his device is suspected of facilitating confidential file transfers to a contact in Iran.
Greece's national intelligence service EYP first flagged his suspicious movements and notified police, leading to his arrest at the airport. The man has not yet made any statement on the accusations, according to Reuters.
According to To Vima, this is not the first such case at the same location. A second man was arrested near Souda in June 2025 under near-identical circumstances, also staying for days at a hotel near the base. Both Azerbaijani nationals arrested at Souda and in Cyprus last summer were later linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Authorities are now investigating whether all the cases are connected.
Souda Bay is Greece's most strategically sensitive military installation, hosting US warships, NATO assets, and a major air base serving as the US Navy's only permanent forward-operating site in the eastern Mediterranean.
My Greek relatives found this sort of funny... What a bad day that guy is probably having. The Greek police are probably beating each other up to see who gets to beat the Muslim up. Some countries over there have more recent memories of what is at stake in the region. Maybe we can accommodate them with mutual interests.
True. Poland and Greece and Italy have been strong. Funny story about the Greeks playing beat the Muslim. Souda is a strange pier. Very exposed from the north side but a nice deep water port. We can still make use of ports with friendly allies minus NATO. The Spanish were insufferable when I had to deal with them. Got stranded in Rota for a week because the SPACE A C141 broke. The Spanish wouldn’t let the pax leave the air terminal. Even though we had ID cards and documents. The pregnant and nothers with infants couldn’t even shop at the commissary to buy diapers and formula. One of the ombudsmen from a Navy tenant command bought the supplies for the moms breaking the SOFA for sure. Spanish. Meh
Move to Portugal, Italy or Greece (Crete).
You can approve of operations against Iran, as I do, AND you can dislike the Spanish and British Left, as I do, and still feel as though "what an incredibly unpleasant surprise that our allies are suddenly not as reliable as we hoped!" is a hilarious thing for a supporter of Donald Trump to say.
Well, if US at least warned its allies before acting, it might not be so bad. But starting the war and THEN demanding assistance from allies - who are under no obligation to help USA against Iran - looks like incredibly rotten way of doing politics.
Like anyone would keep it a secret. Do you realize some of this required secrecy???
Fredrick Merz was notified...was somebody else missing?
Based on the prior notification of Germany, it would appear that the White House notified, and/or discussed with, nations Trump figured could keep a secret. Would you trust the current Canadian or UK governments to keep secret your next kinetic move?
We didn't "start the war" - the Iranian government did 47 years ago. As one who saw this begin I'm very glad we're finally pursuing Victory
Personally, I wouldn't notify anyone who I thought might be a little wishy-washy. The whole point of the initial strikes were because of time sensitive intelligence. Asking permission from those that are going to blab it to the target(s) makes absolutely no sense operationally
Except, we haven't demanded any assistance from them at all. We aren't asking for fuel. We're not asking for weapons. We're not asking for participation. We only ask them to stay out of the way. And Spain/UK have decided to insert themselves.
True but you can't trust our "allies" not to spill their guts to the world and Iran of the date and time.
That build up was a message to the world.
Read the article. The German Chancellor was notified. Canada is the one whining.
People are taking Trumps faux surprise as something it’s not “Actual shock”.
He’s reinforcing what he’s said for years our Western allies are not reliable and have gone from unreliable to untrustworthy.
For all the failures of his of his first Administration, his second has been a revelation of the Great American strength of being the disruptor.
For those who champion US business disruptors never forget the US is world’s most important political disruptor since it’s founding.
Glad to see we have remembered that fact and are exercising the muscle before it was too late.
If you follow the Polymarket Taiwan has been strengthened by Trump 2.0.
Except our allies have been unreliable for DECADES. If you're not purchasing enough weapons to sustain your military and not maintaining enough troops in the ranks, you are, in fact, not a reliable ally. You are a LIABILITY. Even Obama, who was a fellow traveler of theirs, could not get them to get off the dime.
OK, that is a point you could make, but it seems to me to be the exact opposite of the point Sal is making.
Sal is saying it's bad that the UK and Spain aren't helping. You (and others in these comments) are saying it doesn't matter. You're entitled to your opinion, but it's a non sequitur.
Sal's complaint is funny because Trump (who clearly agrees with you, btw!) so transparently doesn't care about reassuring our allies, but throws a sissy fit when our allies don't back us to the hilt even when our alliance doesn't require them to.
Haha, Freudian slip. I meant that Trump throws a *hissy* fit, oops.
What you call a 'hissy fit', I look at as 'telling it like it is'. For most of my life, Americans on the whole, have walked small and dealt with being looked upon like cowboys or bumpkins. Much of why the Euros are ticked off with Trump is that he doesn't sugar-coat his responses to their bad behavior.
What is their "bad behavior" in this case?
We have a treaty allowing us to use Base X. Country Y suddenly, in the middle of operations, declares, 'nah, you can't use that!' We have Base C in the Pacific. Country B suddenly decides to literally give it away based on arguments they themselves admit are bogus so their leadership can score points with their constituency. The terms of said agreement require us to basically reveal tactical plans to third parties who are associated with China.
Is Spain entitled to kick us out of a base? Sure. It's their land. But it's kind of jerky to do it when things have already kicked off. At least Sir Keir told us in advance. Tell the US, 'hey, we don't want to be involved'. Don't go, 'hey, we're pulling the rug out, right now. Get out! Don't care where your planes have to go.'
Since Iran isn't placed in Europe or North America, in North Atlantic or Mediterranean, it is not covered by NATO treaty. So any US desire to use allies territory for military action against Iran must be negotiated separatedly. Its actually pretty simple; the fact that you are allied with someone does not means that he is under any obligation to do anything exceeding the alliance treaty.
US problem is that current administration is so opportunistic and chaotic, that it simply forgot about negotiating matters with allies BEFORE the action. Instead, US is basically trying to drag European nations into war they never wanted - and weren't even warned, much less asked about. Its not a good strategy at all.
Not sure you’ve been following along but US spent alot of time in meetings during Munich Conference and took the temperature.
They take away was which allies could be trusted with knowing D-1 and which ones would sell us out.
This wasn’t happening in a vacuum. And by all reporting including reporters who purposely had spent led up to zero hour said they saw nothing inside the pentagon nor congress that gave any sense this was happening.
It shows how squared away General Caine’s team is. He’s been a revelation especially for being a senior Air Farce leader. The Air Farce typically doesn’t allow warfighters to rise up.
Everyone was told to bring their own snacks I hear. No counting pizza deliveries from local venues any longer....
It took long enough to halt that foolishness especially in the day of Doordash & Uber Eats that can easily be hacked at both the app and hardware level (ie drivers).
Ever been in a NATO chart room? Every body of water is labeled North Atlantic.
Let me explain what "alliance" means in its core. It means "common interests" or "common enemy". Period. Its no friendship, or commonality of ideology, or anything like that. It basically means that "we have common goal, lets agree to work together toward it".
The alliance does not equival friendship. Allied nations might not like each other actually - but they could put problems aside for common goal. Commonality is the key. Without common goals, there are no alliance.
In the case of current American-Iranian war, there are no common goals between America and Europe. Not even formal obligations - Iran is pretty much outside of NATO responsibility. So no "automatic help" there. Everything needed to be negotiated - personally.
Well, POTUS Trump forgot about that. Or maybe didn't think about that in first place, assuming that everyone would "fell in line" automatically. The result? Instead of making agreements with allies and ensuring their support BEFORE the war, US is now trying to persuade them to join war that those allies aren't interested in. No commonality. No working alliance.
Friendship among allies should require no such ‘hat in hand’ begging. Nuclear -armed Theocratic Iran is a threat to all western countries, which is why US and Israel are doing what we’re doing. Europeans need look no further than their growing violent Muslim immigration problem - and the attendant social, political, and economic problems that are unfolding in real time to look for commonality. They are approaching an extremis situation to which they will no doubt require help from America to solve. They have no time for petulance.
Friendship amongst allies is not required. Allies might not be friends at all - like Britain and USSR during WW2 - but work perfectly toward common goals. Exactly because they both understood such goals and both understood that working together is in their common interest.
So doesn't really mean that when it comes to NATO Alliance. As for POTUS he's just using opportunity to prove himself right when it comes to which NATO partners are not reliable nor trustworthy allies.
When the South Chine Sea kicks off we now have a clear understanding why we need to reorient all our EUR forces to CONUS and the Indo-Pacific, Same with the focus of US supply chain and arms supplies.
But I am all for your logic and would be happy to apply it to every "alliance". Spain has shown Ukraine isn't in it's "common Interests" thus shouldn't be in the US Common Interest given it's in a far-off theater. That the Canary Island are more in the US interest so should be taken from Spain to ensure US access to Western Africa. The Balearic Islands is another one and is in the US Common Interest to liberate for US as a replacement for Roto. While we are at it we should support Morocco a good ally with the return of the African Algarve in exchange for US basing rights as needed.
So sure "alliance" is common goal, and Spain no longer shares with the US since it's take over by the Marxists. No level of it's rebranding since 1979 has changed it's underlying anti west goals.
More Sealift! But probably not.
And the photo of the German Chancellor and Italian Prime Minister looked like they decided to reactivate the Afrika Korps...
Modest proposal: New international order built around a Germany/Italy/Japan/US alliance. LOL.
Heck! Poland is on a path to have a larger military than Germany soon and, given yesterday's announcement by PM Tusk, a willingness not to trust France and the UK nuclear weapons to deter anything outside their own country's interests. https://www.gov.pl/web/primeminister/polands-security-cannot-wait
Not a fan of Tusk but as long as US NGOs are buried forever less concerned about him given ability of Law & Justice to counterbalance him and ideally force Poland to stay on the right path. Teh Civic Coalition is still well infiltrated by leftist especially with the Greens & AgroUnion and him then still needing the New Left to ally with him being instrumental in his holding onto power.
Would prefer Poland (even with Tusk)/Italy/Japan/Isreal. Germany is scared senseless by Industrial China coopting it's industrial might. The days of that asshat Merkle selling out Germany has ended and once they looked around and saw how China has basically raped their auto industry & chemical industry and now is looking to do dame to industrial machinery etc. they realize how screwed they are.
Bunch of ants can't take on a bear. Or dragon.
A true case study in "With friends like these..."
I believe we saw this movie before......Turkey denying overflights of their territory when Gulf War was kicking off........
yep, more carriers. based in CONUS, I concur. But.......(sorry if this gets old).....flying carriers, able to deploy direct from Kansas to anywhere on the globe within 100 hours. seems to me that the speed of creating those (months compared to years for marine vessels) and their low costs/low manning......would be a fine match for BIG loads of LUCAS, neh?
Let's be clear: Spain has whatever sovereignty and agency it is *permitted* to have. If you could bring Curtis LeMay out of a time machine, he would note that we could bomb Spain to radioactive ash twelve hours after the sitting President decided to.
Only in the post-WWII world do we have this notion of restraint that is more powerful than power itself. If Julius Caesar had wanted to use Spain's bases, he would have simply taken them. And so on.
Spain has no more say in this than a child had over its parent. I might feel unable to make my son eat broccoli, but that is not strictly true. I can punch him until he eats it. Anything else is restraint.
Hello Jack,
Nice to see you pop in here. Come for the articles and stay for the B&B comments.
Spain is a sovereign nation, a NATO deadbeat and has never been a stalwart ally.
The simplest solution is to merely cast them adrift from any benefits association with the US may bring. If Spain was an orange the juice just ain't worth the squeeze.
So the Athenians started the Peloponessian War as the cradle of Greek civilization, with unchallenged control of the seas, the richest nation in the area, and a huge network of allies and trading partners. By the end of the war, they'd lost their democracy, they'd lost their entire trading network, and eventually they lost their freedom since they were so weak they got rolled up by the Macedonians a few decades later.
In the midst of destroying the Melians, who wanted to remain neutral, Thucydides notes that the Athenian attitude was, "the strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must." Over time, people have cited that quote as a positive justification, forgetting that Thucydides is pointing out that that attitude led to the Athenian defeat.
The Athenians launched their last, ill-conceived campaign with no allies, hoping to get a few on board along the way, which didn't happen because they could no longer be trusted.
It is important to reevaluate your relationships occasionally, especially if something is really changing between the two of you. It is childish to get upset if a friend doesn't see things your way. It is destructive to begin assigning them motivation. If you want to bring a business mindset to relationships, you recognize that focusing on the opportunities you share is more productive than on the differences you have. And you work hard to avoid burning bridges because you never know when you might need that partner in the future, even if you're competing in the present.
That's a two way street and Kier Starmer might have wanted to consider that point before he spent the weekend celebrating Ramadan with his increasingly volatile Muslims instead of being our "oldest ally." So much for special friendships. Then again, they were sending people around last election cycle here trying to stir up the vote for Trump's opposition. We won't even begin to discuss the other unsavory stuff they have done behind his back.
Skip the right wing fluff and get down to the business that we exist in a multi-polar wold where putative allies or adversaries vary their stance as they see fit at a given moment without becoming doctrinaire anything.
A one-trick-pony counterpunch is not sufficiently nimble in many circumstances to serve our interests. Other times it might. But all responses require consideration of short term gains against longer term consequences. For instance, one canard that has been circulating for years is that is that Iran is on the point of acquiring nuclear weapons within 2-3 months if we don't do [fill in the blanks].
Well then those multi polar one trick ponies can ride their ponies on their own time and their own dime. We'll remind us when they come whining to us that it isn't in our interests. I think 47 years of patience is long term enough to wait. From what I read, the Iranian negotiators themselves were bragging how close to nukes they were, which caused alarm bells to ring.
Ok let's shoot that canard down.
Iran attempted to assassinate a former president/president elect in such a blatant manner that even Biden's DoJ couldn't ignore it and prosecuted the case.
Attempted assassination of a President elect is casus belli.
The canard, as you well know, was limited to the periodic announcement for years that in 2-3 months Iran would have developed nuclear weapons. Everyone also knows that Iran tried to target Trump (see below). Try not to mix and match, it detracts from your usually interesting comments. Your Latin phrase is more Cato the Elder, "Carthago delenda est" than any Article 1, Section 8 discussion.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump."
Attempted assassination of a President elect is casus belli.
But okay, I'll ruffle a few canard feathers too.
"In 2023, the IAEA detected particles enriched to nearly 84% at the Fordow plant's product sampling point."
Much better. In January 2023, IAEA inspectors detected uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% at Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. This level is very close to the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium. A cause for alarm.
After all the history with the UK, it's surprising some people still consider them allies.
You're absolutely right. The left leaning pro-Hamas government of Spain seems intent on burning bridges. Perhaps they'll snuff out the sparks when all their civilians lose their jobs in an already tight and constrained economy suffering from the invasion of illegal aliens so beloved by the Progressive Left.
Judging by twitter comments, the average Euro thinks they are superior to Americans based on paid vacations, free healthcare, etc. ignoring that billions in trade and hundreds of millions in aid and us carrying their defense costs are what enable that. Spain makes lovely wine and olive oil, but we can find other sources if they don't need our ships or won't lend their bases.
They're a dying people. Have some compassion for the senseless utterings of their final days. Meantime, look to the "new" Europeans and their social, religious, and political proclivities to guide your national (and international) policy.
Your assertion about the Atheians it a 2way sword. In many ways it's was allies turning on the Athenians that show allies once they reveal themselves not to be allies need to be dealt with or they will cause your failure. A few works by authors in the allied cities have been preserved by the Roman-period historian Plutarch. However, these are fragmentary and insufficient for making broad conclusions such as yours.
We just don't have a broad enough record to make turn conclusion of the Delian League and the record we do have is a bit one sided. It can show both the need to keep and the need to deal with and the need to cut out those and treat them as hostile actors and not allies. even the growth of the Second Athenian League shows that allies remained. It alot more complex than you make things to be.
All historians have biases and prejudices, regardless of how hard they might try to mitigate them. Thucydides is no different. Against that, generations continue to believe his account to be "fit for purpose." And his history, which includes the trials and tribulations of Sparta's allies as well as the need for middle powers to hedge against and manipulate greater powers to survive, is generally correct. More than that, his general lessons endure, which is why he is still studied at the Nation's war colleges.
I think my last paragraph remains relevant because it acknowledges agency across all actors while underscoring both the need for relationships and that curating and caring for them is not easy and is not helped by reductionism - though that is a part of how our brain processes information that is most often a help except when it is not.
In the end, we are dealing with independent wills with whom both incentive and coercion might be applied; neither is right nor wrong, but they can be, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. Allowing yourself overly grand diversions into what they're doing can be a lot like hand-wringing over how your neighbor and his wife do conflict resolution when your goal is to get them to stop their leaves from blowing over on your lawn.
And I think it is entirely reasonable that if you find yourself without allies, it is worth asking why. Maybe it is them, maybe you are being done wrong. Maybe the quantifiers "all" or "most " really do apply. But Thucydides would have us reconsider how we got that condition.
Over 2 decades ago, I was privy to intel which indicated that Iran planned to develop nuclear warhead capable IRBMs to threaten European capitals like Madrid and Paris. The long term plan was ICBMs.
The fecklessness of the current Spanish, UK and French governments is breathtaking.
While they are all breaking Ramadan fast together with their invaders, they may want to read up on 12th Imams and immanentizing the eschaton as a national goal of some countries. Cough. Cough.
May the ghost of Charles Martel haunt Macron, Starmer, and Sánchez's dreams at night for the rest of their days.
Not to mention Isabella of Spain, the Holy League, and Jan III Sobieski.
Much as extremely online weirdos wish it were not so, we're not at war with Islam, and acting as if you wish we were is very strange.
No, but Islam's at war with us. Always has been, always will be.
I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but this is goofy weirdo nonsense and an undeniable symptom of severe internet poisoning.
We are allied with millions of Muslims, including thousands who are putting themselves in harm's way fighting alongside us right now and millions who are dancing in streets across the world thanking us for buying Khamenei an express ticket to hell. Getting all keyed up about Charles Martel and gnashing your teeth because the British PM honored Ramadan (which President Trump also did) is hateful ignorant trash, and I'm sure your mother raised you better.
Not talking about Muslims. It's Islam that's the problem. You need to work on your reading skills.
BS. Islam requires they be at war with infidels. You need to do some serious reading.
The best book we read at the War College. "The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions." Then look at a map.
Yes, "holy war" is a very common concept among deranged, uncivilized fanatics, like the ones in this comment section working themselves into a spittle-flecked rage because Starmer "celebrated" Ramadan.
Just trying to help educate the masses.
Your revealing yourself as something you don't want known in a comment arena such as this.
Was that "intel" before or after the Iraqi WMD intel in the slide deck?
Cute…
Neither came to fruition. You got played.
Haven't studied game theory much, have you.
Neither came to fruition due to decades of concentrated and often violent multinational efforts by the US and other countries to prevent such things from happening.
This is akin to claiming people got "played" just because the Kaiser's dream of invading the US and Copenhagenizing the USN, the Nazi dream as outlined in the Second Book of uniting Eurasia to destroy the US, and the Soviet dream of global revolution never panned out, in spite of that happening because people actively sought to prevent those from happening by just about any means possible.
Considering we've had evidence of Iraqi WMDs at a minimum since Saddam deployed them in the 1980s, probably well after. And the core of that intel was confirmed when we rolled into Iraq, hence why we spent so much time rolling up what was left of Saddam's WMD programs and destroying things like his old sarin gas and yellow cake.
Yeah, a lot of the intel was false if not outright fabricated and stuff like how he had strategic missiles equipped with nuclear payloads was nonsense. Doesn't change the fact that he worked hard to preserve the programs that would get him there and had a lot of the precursors around, or that he had taken great agonies to preserve decades old chemical and virological weapons dumped in to pits by slave labor consisting of people like some of my Kurdish-American neighbors in the weeks and months before they got liberated by Coalition forces or the Peshmerga, probably well after its best Use By date.
It's amazing to see the number of people who will try to sell you the con that a WMD is not a WMD just because it was very old, in poor condition, or not assembled quite yet. In much the same way it is jarring to see people have "no direct" carry more stress than Atlas by claiming that Saddam authorizing the funding and arming of Al Qaeda vassal groups such as Abu Sayyaf or even outright cutouts like the Army of Muhummad KNOWING they are part of the Al Qaeda ecosystem with sworn allegiance to UBL/OBL means Saddam's regime had no alliance or cooperation with Al Qaeda. Or how a bunch of Taliban and AQ bigwigs driven out of Afghanistan in '01 with wounds somehow got top line medical treatment in Saddam's Baghdad (a Soviet Union-meets-Nazi-Germany-meets-Neo-Babylonian homage on a Flood Plain in one of the areas of the world controlled by authoritarian palace regimes for the longest time, which he tried to engage in literally 1984 on) while Saddam supposedly legitimately did not know and had absolutely no idea how that happened.
"Fake, but accurate"
That describes only much of the intel we had. And keep in mind that in the intelligence game "Fake but Accurate" is an actual result and sometimes an acceptable one. See things like the intel we got from the Italians after the surrender in 1943 about the number of Germans in Italy.
On the other hand, intelligence we had such as that Saddam was still employing his WMD scientists and had employed slave labor to help work on the WMD facilities? That was dead on. As was that he remained open contact and cooperation with Salafi terror groups like Al Qaeda, and that he had directed his diplomatic staff to smuggle weapons, funding, and fake IDs to Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, hence why the Philippines had to Persona Non Grata large swaths of the Iraqi Diplomatic Staff in country back in the day.
But by all means, let's ignore all that in favor of pithy statements.
Interesting to consider how and why Saddam produced his chemical weapons, too. First, he attacked Iran without provocation, as he did Kuwait later on.
Then, the USA and its allies stepped in to stop the Iranian counterattack by financing Iran and providing it with weapons, including the elements for chemical weapons.
Boomers endlessly complain about the 1979 hostage taking but don't know how the USA got revenge for that in the Iran-Iraq war. Thousands more Iranians killed because of US and allied support for Iraq. The Kurds who were gassed at Halabja were also victims. It was a minor scandal known as "Iraq-gate" related to Iran Contra, in which the US sold weapons to Iran, too! Perfidious.
Americans are ignorant of a lot of unfavorable history.
Iran-Iraq was, at best, a down payment.
Most people translate WMD as nukes. Whether or not Iraq had those, they DID have chemical and biological WMDs. Be precise.
Another bunch that, apparently, lives in a '50 First Dates' world.
While German politician is better diplomat, the net result is same:
Iran is not worth life of single Pomeranian grenadier.
Especially while US is deliberately withholding help to Ukraine, who is fighting ACTUAL threat to Europe. And deprecating all the help it got with previous Gulf adventures.
On a happier note, congratz to the skipper of whichever SSN got to nab first US torp kill since WW2 off Sri Lanka coast.
With all respect, Pawel, we have had 47 years of thousands of our grenadiers and civilian employees and such being obliterated by Iranians and Iranian proxies and Iranian weapons. Don't know how many billions in aid to Ukraine is enough but we've subsidized that long enough.
Lest we forget a somewhat different legacy. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), the U.S. provided significant covert and overt support toHussein's Iraq to prevent an Iranian victory, aiding Saddam Hussein with intelligence (satellite imagery), agricultural credits, and "dual-use" technology. That policy for good or ill led to the death of thousands of Iranians, included facilitating the flow of equipment used in Iraqi chemical weapon development and, paradoxically, secret arms sales to Iran in the Iran-Contra affair.
This not to suggest that decapitating the Iranian leadership was not a quick, bold stroke and a fine proportional response. What has not been adequately discussed is what is the effective limit of a proportional response that serves our national interest. We have yet to see whether decapitation of leadership leads to effective change or simple reflects ne job opportunities
Not gonna refight a 40 year old war or decisions made 6 presidents ago. Speaking of decapitating.... how many of our military ran into Iranian manufactured EFPs and were maimed and killed? Iran has funded and staffed and trained most of the terrorists roaming the world in some form or fashion. At what point is just waiting for the next attack a reasonable course of action? Maybe cut the malignancy out of there and the entire region can finally flourish.
Not just the EFP's. I know of a USMC CH-46 that was shot down by an Iranian-provided SA-14 while on a medevac.
Thankful every day that we did.
Nothing holding back any NATO partner and European Nation from supporting and providing direct aide to Ukraine. Us is no t holding back anything that Europe can't provide. It's Europe's back yard.
As they have proven time and again, they are not there to help in the Indo-Pacific nor the Middle East nor Africa nor South & Central America. All places the US has commitments and forces to support.
Hell, they still haven't allowed Ukraine into the European Union. Yet the US is the one that is "holding back".
To be fair, France did jump on the terrorist wannabes in Mali.
Maybe not essential to US interests, but certainly useful.
“Nations have agency and sovereignty over their territory.”
Offer not valid anywhere adjacent to Russia.
Nor to any nation within West Taiwan's Nine Dash line. Which given where the CCP now send it's fishing fleets has expanded.
While Spain has decided to misbehave, Portugal emphasized that Lajes in the Azores is fully open.
Good for Portugal.
brought a "like" and a smile......kids are just about 18 months away from living expat in Portugal!
Good to know Portugal is working to distance itself from Sanchez and his cohort of Leftists.
Excellent article!
Two weak countries run by self-absorbed children.
Time to leave Europe and either reduce our footprint or even better pull out of NATO. Italy can’t handle the Spanish footprint without major infrastructure changes at Geata or Sig. I’m waxing nostalgia when I say I was a Cold War Brat that got to attend high school on a navy base in Italy. Got to travel all over Europe. Later came back for two grown up tours in Italy one being a NATO command. I enjoyed the fruits of those tours and I will cherish them always, but I also know It’s time to leave. As in leave all the way. Close the bases down and let Europe survive on her own.
MTH, saw this yesterday: Greek police and intelligence services have detained a 36-year-old Georgian national at Athens International Airport on suspicion of espionage, as Greece remains on high alert following the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The man arrived in Greece from Germany on February 3 and spent weeks staying at a hotel near Souda Bay in western Crete. Authorities found photographs of the USS Gerald R. Ford on his phone, taken while the carrier was docked at the base for resupply hours before the strikes on Iran began. A specialized app on his device is suspected of facilitating confidential file transfers to a contact in Iran.
Greece's national intelligence service EYP first flagged his suspicious movements and notified police, leading to his arrest at the airport. The man has not yet made any statement on the accusations, according to Reuters.
According to To Vima, this is not the first such case at the same location. A second man was arrested near Souda in June 2025 under near-identical circumstances, also staying for days at a hotel near the base. Both Azerbaijani nationals arrested at Souda and in Cyprus last summer were later linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Authorities are now investigating whether all the cases are connected.
Souda Bay is Greece's most strategically sensitive military installation, hosting US warships, NATO assets, and a major air base serving as the US Navy's only permanent forward-operating site in the eastern Mediterranean.
My Greek relatives found this sort of funny... What a bad day that guy is probably having. The Greek police are probably beating each other up to see who gets to beat the Muslim up. Some countries over there have more recent memories of what is at stake in the region. Maybe we can accommodate them with mutual interests.
True. Poland and Greece and Italy have been strong. Funny story about the Greeks playing beat the Muslim. Souda is a strange pier. Very exposed from the north side but a nice deep water port. We can still make use of ports with friendly allies minus NATO. The Spanish were insufferable when I had to deal with them. Got stranded in Rota for a week because the SPACE A C141 broke. The Spanish wouldn’t let the pax leave the air terminal. Even though we had ID cards and documents. The pregnant and nothers with infants couldn’t even shop at the commissary to buy diapers and formula. One of the ombudsmen from a Navy tenant command bought the supplies for the moms breaking the SOFA for sure. Spanish. Meh