Of my time in the Royal Air Force, I spent four and a half years serving in Number 4 Wing of NATOs Second Allied Tactical Air Force.<\/p>\n
It was my squadron’s primary role to deliver a significant number of our supply of the (unusable) nuclear weapons on to a massive range of military and strategic targets in Eastern Germany and the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
We were part of a machine; NATO\/OTAN was an impartial organisation that operated (at that time) outside of the political spans of control of any national administration.<\/p>\n
Things have changed, however, and the NATO\/OTAN of my years of active service – and the organisation that was created in 1949 – is not the same one that is being used, by politicians in a number of countries, as a political football, these days.<\/p>\n
One of the fundamental funding rules is that a member of NATO\/OTAN must spend at least 2% of its GDP on its defence.<\/p>\n
And yet the number of NATO\/OTAN members who actually do spend 2% of their GDP on their defence – apart from the UK, USA and France – is in the minority by a massive margin.<\/p>\n
Ironically, the two most recent NATO\/OTAN conflicts – Afghanistan and Libya – have highlighted the damaging corruptions that, surely, will become the organisation’s destruction.<\/p>\n
There are 28 nations in the NATO\/OTAN club, yet just nine sent their aircraft in to operation against Libya.<\/p>\n
Germany refused point blank to take part at all.<\/p>\n
Whether one believes that the Libya and Afghanistan actions were just and proper or not, the NATO\/OTAN club has rules – financial rules and operational rules – and if members can’t be arsed to abide by those rules, the club has no future.<\/p>\n
The club is facing a certain death.<\/p>\n
So my argument, in this bright and breezy piece of thinking, is that we should get out before the collapse.<\/p>\n
Let Spain, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Poland, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Denmark and all the other lightweight nations pick up the bill and pick up the action.<\/p>\n
Because that’s the price of admission to any club.<\/p>\n
That’s the price of admission to the NATO\/OTAN club.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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