I take any NATO document with a grain of salt having been in Naples and Bavaria - great duty stations if you can get them.
NATO was known as - and for good reason -as Not at The Office or Not After Two O'clock. Don't you dare contact anyone while they were on vacation.
The greatest threat to Europe is not Saracen fleets, but small boats filled with refugees looking for handouts and waiting to recreate the Third World upon the ruins of Western nations.
Absolute fact! My youngest son just returned from a visit to the British side of the family and he said all that we see is true. The citizens/subjects have had a belly full of the poor oppressed bullshit routine and are rising up...not just in the UK. He indicated that the people are stuck between the radical Islamist hoards and increasingly tyrannical governments.
I worked in North Africa and the Persian Gulf for years. London was a convenient meeting point for my wife and me. We've been there many times but will never go back because of what you son described.
The greatest threat. Too true. A cousin's daughter teaches English and German to refugees in Germany. She met, fell in love with and married a man (one of her students) from The Gambia. She is kind of plain jane but hails from a rich family. She and her beau flew to Italy to get married so that his extended family, in an Italian refugee camp, could attend. How nice. Chain migration and her being a single mom in Boston in 5 years is the running bet.
What's missing here that will be front and center in 14 years? Just spitballing, but schmaybe the takeover of at least one NATO government by a Muslim-majority party, with allll the downstream effects and implications inherent thereof, including the possible splintering and even breakup of the alliance itself? Just a wild-hare guess.
I'm not sure that I really count Turkiyye (sp?) as a NATO government, TBH. I suspect that Erdogan imagines himself as the next Ottoman Caliph as much as Putin imagines himself as a Tsar - and Xi pictures himself as Emperor.
This business of free-market representative democracy really is an historical aberration in human history, you know. It's had a good 250-year run, but sometimes I wonder how much longer the power of individual enterprise and virtue can hold out against the forces of mass laziness and venality.
I suppose we'll find out how well we've raised our children soon enough.
Or he'll be 85 and either presiding over a power struggle to succeed him or preparing to hand power over to a well-groomed protoge. A lot can happen in 14 years. A lot can NOT happen in 14 years.
CDR Salamander, I copied and pasted too just to say all bases covered.
Good you like “Word Count”, numbers are good. Comparing “country word-counts” is interesting.
Remember the old days, 1976-1977, I do. My telegrams to the USS Tecumseh could not exceed 16 words, I believe.
In about 2003, I was paid per question with the right answer. I submitted fifty (50). I was paid $2 per question. Homeland security paid me.
Very grateful to research every piece of unclassified information and build a Quiz for J.Q. Public. The Fisher Institute in Florida, was my Authorization.
NATO got pretty dicey as I recall, about 2010. Still, I had to cover that Iraqi who made his way to South Carolina and slept with other women.
I was told by Wissam al-Muzhir to keep my mouth shut!
I was very grateful to DIA at Ft. Meade, Maryland. NATO was very busy and did not know that the PRC had penetrated the Buildings at Ft. Meade. I showed the Country Duty Officers of both China and Russia my “Evidence”.
NATO was hood-winked by Ghana! I’m the witness to the cargo moved by Jehovah Witnesses also Medically Licensed Anesthesia Providers in Maryland Hospitals. Cargo sent to Ghana.
Pebbles in my shoes! Oh yes! And did I walk about three hours yesterday in the Hot sun! Come on I said to Luke Dunn of Eco Systems. He was raised in Texas and never went on a “walk about” by a NIS, DeffAtt Trained DIA Naval Officer!
I showed Luke Dunn the Chesapeake Bay.
When we were at Ray Sievers home, waterside, I said “Smell the urine?” He nodded! We walked ten paces to Mrs Wright’s house. I said, “Smell, no urine!”
I gave Luke Dunn a Naval, USMC FSSG lesson in “Know where you are so you can find your way back in the dark.”.
CDR Salamander, we’ve got new Naval priorities.
Good Job asking the Hillbilly, Long Hair folks because they know how to “Sus” the correct information and pass it along.
Stand by about anything from Russia. I’ll be your best source, I’m sure!
Stay calm, and “Don’t Panic!” Dad’s Army … Nurse Jane has both eyes on the Arctic.
CDR Salamander, it’s all hands on deck and patrol our docking spaces, our sleeping quarters, our Supply Tender, and every inch of dock our supplies are hauled, carried or carted.
I don’t know about you, but my BOQ spaces were ship-shape in Charleston, S.C.
When I was billeted in the Motel at Cape Girardeau, MO, our spaces were clean as a whistle! A quiet word with a Chief Petty Officer, corrected any problem I saw.
We have a new Commander and Chief of Naval Operations.
CDR Salamander, respectively speaking, I do not care if you are “Retired or Disabled”, or Disenfranchised, we are one United States Navy and we will pull together!
Go sit on the bench if you don’t want to help.
Ask to be discharged! I’ll process your request immediately!
Without Lieutenant Wilson’s help in St. Louis, I wouldn’t have known about many bad actors in North Africa! That was 1982-1983!
In Glenview, Illinois, we sat as a Naval Board, “Who wants to volunteer for Cape Girardeau, Missouri?”
My hand was the only raised hand!
I learned first hand about the Construction Battalion!
What happens on the Golf Course, stays on the Golf Course. Our motto in Coronado, California!
In Corpus Christi Texas, the men cobbled together a Naval Uniform, I stuffed newspaper into my men’s shoes!
Okay, my “Gig-Lines” were off…said the female LCDR Navy Nurse. I was polite and kept out of her line of sight.
Nobody was going to stop my mission! My job was to computerize health care for DOD!
CDR Salamander, we don’t take “No” for an answer. We find another “Solution”!
We limit our scope and we proceed.
We do not surrender!
We leave no Buddy behind!
I’m Nurse Jane, I’m Captain of this Ship permanently affixed to “Forevermore by the Bay”…
I know where to find the Submarine that went aground across from Skippers Pier, Deale Maryland 20751.
Coast Guard assigned to Shadyside, MD nodded to me… Soviet (Russian) Submarines did patrol the Chesapeake Bay about 2019 or prior.
Have a nice rest of your Tour.
I’ve got men coming to haul the trash to the dump before it closes at 4:00 PM.
Yesterday, Senoir Florencio M. showed me his X-Ray … Diagnosis “Arthritis”. Not what I saw, sorry! His knee was “Bone onto Bone”! I will make sure he’s wearing the prescribed knee brace.
We have the “Walking Wounded”! I’m a Registered Nurse. We will be just fine!
The really important words - China and piracy - aren't there. By this I mean that, while we're supposed to be willing to go into a city-busting, civilization-wrecking nuclear war on behalf of NATO, their interest in helping us with our main security concern, China, is less than nil. Neither do they even mention piracy, which is a bigger concern to them than to us.
Yes, one could say that the treaty doesn't cover those. So what? It only shows that NATO is obsolete, senile, and needs to be put to sleep.
"NATO is the sword and shield of The Enlightenment." 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, sorry, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, funniest,🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, thing, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, I've read, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, in 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, some time.
"NATO is united and steadfast in its resolve to protect its one billion citizens, determined to safeguard the freedom, democracy and security of allies, and is......blah blah".
This new NATO Maritime Strategy may not be the old COMAROPS forward defense NATO maritime doc of the late 1980's but its a welcome course change back in the right direction.
No mention of protecting sea lanes in the Red Sea for European trade? Not a serious document.
Paging Alfred Mahan; Paging Alfred Thayer Mahan. Please step to the white NATO courtesy phone. Paging Alfred Mahan.
Half assed. Which is a stepped up for the fully assed last version.
I take any NATO document with a grain of salt having been in Naples and Bavaria - great duty stations if you can get them.
NATO was known as - and for good reason -as Not at The Office or Not After Two O'clock. Don't you dare contact anyone while they were on vacation.
The greatest threat to Europe is not Saracen fleets, but small boats filled with refugees looking for handouts and waiting to recreate the Third World upon the ruins of Western nations.
Absolute fact! My youngest son just returned from a visit to the British side of the family and he said all that we see is true. The citizens/subjects have had a belly full of the poor oppressed bullshit routine and are rising up...not just in the UK. He indicated that the people are stuck between the radical Islamist hoards and increasingly tyrannical governments.
I worked in North Africa and the Persian Gulf for years. London was a convenient meeting point for my wife and me. We've been there many times but will never go back because of what you son described.
The greatest threat. Too true. A cousin's daughter teaches English and German to refugees in Germany. She met, fell in love with and married a man (one of her students) from The Gambia. She is kind of plain jane but hails from a rich family. She and her beau flew to Italy to get married so that his extended family, in an Italian refugee camp, could attend. How nice. Chain migration and her being a single mom in Boston in 5 years is the running bet.
Sad
NATO really, really needs Russia.
What's missing here that will be front and center in 14 years? Just spitballing, but schmaybe the takeover of at least one NATO government by a Muslim-majority party, with allll the downstream effects and implications inherent thereof, including the possible splintering and even breakup of the alliance itself? Just a wild-hare guess.
I assume you mean other than Turkey?
I'm not sure that I really count Turkiyye (sp?) as a NATO government, TBH. I suspect that Erdogan imagines himself as the next Ottoman Caliph as much as Putin imagines himself as a Tsar - and Xi pictures himself as Emperor.
This business of free-market representative democracy really is an historical aberration in human history, you know. It's had a good 250-year run, but sometimes I wonder how much longer the power of individual enterprise and virtue can hold out against the forces of mass laziness and venality.
I suppose we'll find out how well we've raised our children soon enough.
Erdogan will be dead in 14 years.
Or he'll be 85 and either presiding over a power struggle to succeed him or preparing to hand power over to a well-groomed protoge. A lot can happen in 14 years. A lot can NOT happen in 14 years.
The enemy of individual liberty is the government, not the fat and lazy.
Probably not. The demographics are wrong for that to happen in the next two decades.
It might happen by 2070, 2060 at the earliest, if it ever happens.
I hope you're right.
But truly doubting
A nuclear armed element of the Caliphate. I hope that the US has a contingency plan to deal with this. I suggest Operation Catapult.
CDR Salamander, I copied and pasted too just to say all bases covered.
Good you like “Word Count”, numbers are good. Comparing “country word-counts” is interesting.
Remember the old days, 1976-1977, I do. My telegrams to the USS Tecumseh could not exceed 16 words, I believe.
In about 2003, I was paid per question with the right answer. I submitted fifty (50). I was paid $2 per question. Homeland security paid me.
Very grateful to research every piece of unclassified information and build a Quiz for J.Q. Public. The Fisher Institute in Florida, was my Authorization.
NATO got pretty dicey as I recall, about 2010. Still, I had to cover that Iraqi who made his way to South Carolina and slept with other women.
I was told by Wissam al-Muzhir to keep my mouth shut!
I was very grateful to DIA at Ft. Meade, Maryland. NATO was very busy and did not know that the PRC had penetrated the Buildings at Ft. Meade. I showed the Country Duty Officers of both China and Russia my “Evidence”.
NATO was hood-winked by Ghana! I’m the witness to the cargo moved by Jehovah Witnesses also Medically Licensed Anesthesia Providers in Maryland Hospitals. Cargo sent to Ghana.
Pebbles in my shoes! Oh yes! And did I walk about three hours yesterday in the Hot sun! Come on I said to Luke Dunn of Eco Systems. He was raised in Texas and never went on a “walk about” by a NIS, DeffAtt Trained DIA Naval Officer!
I showed Luke Dunn the Chesapeake Bay.
When we were at Ray Sievers home, waterside, I said “Smell the urine?” He nodded! We walked ten paces to Mrs Wright’s house. I said, “Smell, no urine!”
I gave Luke Dunn a Naval, USMC FSSG lesson in “Know where you are so you can find your way back in the dark.”.
CDR Salamander, we’ve got new Naval priorities.
Good Job asking the Hillbilly, Long Hair folks because they know how to “Sus” the correct information and pass it along.
Stand by about anything from Russia. I’ll be your best source, I’m sure!
Stay calm, and “Don’t Panic!” Dad’s Army … Nurse Jane has both eyes on the Arctic.
OMG I am BANGING on that sign in a most impolite manner! “Flank” indeed.
CDR Salamander, it’s all hands on deck and patrol our docking spaces, our sleeping quarters, our Supply Tender, and every inch of dock our supplies are hauled, carried or carted.
I don’t know about you, but my BOQ spaces were ship-shape in Charleston, S.C.
When I was billeted in the Motel at Cape Girardeau, MO, our spaces were clean as a whistle! A quiet word with a Chief Petty Officer, corrected any problem I saw.
We have a new Commander and Chief of Naval Operations.
CDR Salamander, respectively speaking, I do not care if you are “Retired or Disabled”, or Disenfranchised, we are one United States Navy and we will pull together!
Go sit on the bench if you don’t want to help.
Ask to be discharged! I’ll process your request immediately!
Without Lieutenant Wilson’s help in St. Louis, I wouldn’t have known about many bad actors in North Africa! That was 1982-1983!
In Glenview, Illinois, we sat as a Naval Board, “Who wants to volunteer for Cape Girardeau, Missouri?”
My hand was the only raised hand!
I learned first hand about the Construction Battalion!
What happens on the Golf Course, stays on the Golf Course. Our motto in Coronado, California!
In Corpus Christi Texas, the men cobbled together a Naval Uniform, I stuffed newspaper into my men’s shoes!
Okay, my “Gig-Lines” were off…said the female LCDR Navy Nurse. I was polite and kept out of her line of sight.
Nobody was going to stop my mission! My job was to computerize health care for DOD!
CDR Salamander, we don’t take “No” for an answer. We find another “Solution”!
We limit our scope and we proceed.
We do not surrender!
We leave no Buddy behind!
I’m Nurse Jane, I’m Captain of this Ship permanently affixed to “Forevermore by the Bay”…
I know where to find the Submarine that went aground across from Skippers Pier, Deale Maryland 20751.
Coast Guard assigned to Shadyside, MD nodded to me… Soviet (Russian) Submarines did patrol the Chesapeake Bay about 2019 or prior.
Have a nice rest of your Tour.
I’ve got men coming to haul the trash to the dump before it closes at 4:00 PM.
Yesterday, Senoir Florencio M. showed me his X-Ray … Diagnosis “Arthritis”. Not what I saw, sorry! His knee was “Bone onto Bone”! I will make sure he’s wearing the prescribed knee brace.
We have the “Walking Wounded”! I’m a Registered Nurse. We will be just fine!
God Bless America! Nurse Jane
NATO should have been disbanded the day after the Warsaw Pact broke up.
The really important words - China and piracy - aren't there. By this I mean that, while we're supposed to be willing to go into a city-busting, civilization-wrecking nuclear war on behalf of NATO, their interest in helping us with our main security concern, China, is less than nil. Neither do they even mention piracy, which is a bigger concern to them than to us.
Yes, one could say that the treaty doesn't cover those. So what? It only shows that NATO is obsolete, senile, and needs to be put to sleep.
Aside from the changes in the buzz-word bingo card did anyone really see a plan to accomplish anything? Perhaps I missed it.
"NATO is the sword and shield of The Enlightenment." 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, sorry, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, funniest,🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, thing, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, I've read, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, in 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, some time.
So . . . who will cover the Arctic? I guess NORDEFCO and the U.S. are left to do that job.
"NATO is united and steadfast in its resolve to protect its one billion citizens, determined to safeguard the freedom, democracy and security of allies, and is......blah blah".
"freedom and democracy", eh?
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/08/26/little-girls-in-scotland-now-sporting-axes-and-machetes-n3806189
https://x.com/i/status/1960281118386597937
Etc.
This isn't your grandfather's NATO.
This new NATO Maritime Strategy may not be the old COMAROPS forward defense NATO maritime doc of the late 1980's but its a welcome course change back in the right direction.
Thanks Sal for posting.
Good write-up, thanks!
Thanks for this.. great analysis.