NATO – Page 6 – Blazingcatfur

NATO chief warns war with Russia ‘is at our door’ and tells Europe to be ready for action ‘now’ to avoid battle on scale ‘our grandparents and great-grandparents endured’

NATO chief Mark Rutte has warned that war with Russia ‘is at our door’ as he urged European allies to prepare for action now or risk facing a conflict on the scale ‘our grandparents and great-grandparents endured’.

Speaking in Berlin on Thursday, Rutte said too many NATO members remained ‘quietly complacent’ about the threat posed by Moscow and insisted Europe must urgently ramp up defence spending and weapons production to deter Vladimir Putin.

‘We are Russia’s next target,’ he said. I fear that too many are quietly complacent. Too many don’t feel the urgency.

by Blazingcatfur•December 11, 2025December 11, 2025•0•NATO, Russia

US tells Europe it must take over ‘the majority’ of NATO’s defence capabilities by 2027 as Trump shifts American military focus

The United States wants Europe to take over the majority of NATO’s defense capabilities by 2027, Pentagon officials told diplomats in Washington this week.

The message, recounted by five sources familiar with the discussion, including a US official, was conveyed at a meeting in Washington this week of Pentagon staff overseeing NATO policy and several European delegations.

The shifting of this burden from the US to European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would dramatically change how the United States, a founding member of the post-war alliance, works with its most important military partners.

by Blazingcatfur•December 6, 2025December 5, 2025•0•NATO, USA

Carney government leans on ‘rounding difference’ to claim NATO spending target

The Carney government may meet its NATO defence promise this year only by relying on a “rounding difference,” according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, raising fresh doubts about Ottawa’s claims it is hitting key military spending goals.

Appearing before the Senate national finance committee, Interim Budget Officer Jason Jacques said Canada is only “close” to the NATO benchmark of spending 2% of GDP on defence by December 31 — a target Prime Minister Mark Carney has repeatedly touted as a done deal.

by Blazingcatfur•December 1, 2025November 30, 2025•0•Canada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, NATO

Poland rail bombing signals Russian escalation against Nato

Thanks to the norms of inter-state combat which have governed much of history, we’ve long been conditioned to think of war and peace in binary terms. But what’s happening on Nato’s east shows us that it is in fact a spectrum, with Poland caught right in the grey zone at its midpoint.

This weekend, for the first time since the Second World War, a deliberate explosion damaged a railway line connecting Warsaw to Lublin in what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called an “unprecedented act of sabotage”. Although Polish authorities have not yet named a specific culprit, they’re already stating the obvious — that “all traces lead to Russia.” That’s hardly surprising, given that the damaged rail line serves as a key pathway for shipping aid to Ukraine, and Russia has sent recruits to gather intelligence on Polish rail hubs near military bases and to disrupt train services using radio networks in the recent past.

Assuming it was Russia.

Poland: Ukrainians Working for Moscow Responsible for Railway Explosion

by Blazingcatfur•November 19, 2025November 18, 2025•0•NATO, Poland, Russia

Russia massing nuclear fleet in Arctic circle ‘for war with Nato’

Russia is amassing nuclear weapons and attack submarines in the Arctic Circle as it prepares for war with Nato, Norway’s defence minister has warned.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Tore Sandvik said Oslo had detected increased weapons development on Russia’s Kola peninsula, where its prized Northern Fleet and parts of its nuclear stockpile are based.

He also said that Vladimir Putin was trying to gain full naval control over the Arctic region so that he could block Nato allies’ access to two key shipping routes that would help resupply Western forces in wartime.

by Blazingcatfur•October 25, 2025October 25, 2025•0•NATO, Russia

In preparing for the end of NATO, Canada falls behind Europe

For months, Canada’s European allies have been actively preparing for the end of NATO as we know it. They’re wondering if Ottawa is fully on board.

The defence ministers of Germany and Norway were in Ottawa this week to pitch a fleet of 12 submarines to Canada (they’re competing with South Korea) which would, by their own words, strengthen a transatlantic alliance that can continue to operate in the absence of the United States.

NATO without the US is the Maginot line.

by Blazingcatfur•October 24, 2025October 24, 2025•0•Canada, NATO

NATO shouldn’t exist, China told MEPs

Chinese lawmakers told members of the European Parliament that NATO shouldn’t exist, and spouted Russian talking points about the war in Ukraine at a rare meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

The three-hour meeting between the EU Parliament’s China delegation and members of China’s National People’s Congress was the first of its kind in seven years, and came after Beijing’s decision earlier this year to lift sanctions on current and former MEPs.

But rather than a diplomatic thaw, the meeting was tense and testy, marked by the Chinese side challenging NATO’s legitimacy.

by Blazingcatfur•October 17, 2025October 17, 2025•0•"China - Communist Slave State", NATO

Jens Stoltenberg: Why did I flatter Trump? I wanted to save Nato

“It’s important to understand that President Trump is a different politician than most leaders we work with in Nato,” says Jens Stoltenberg. It would be tempting to say this is both obvious and an understatement, but Stoltenberg knows better than most exactly how different Trump is.

As secretary-general of Nato from 2014 until last year, he played a critical role in holding the alliance together when he feared it might collapse during Trump’s first term.

by Blazingcatfur•October 10, 2025October 10, 2025•0•NATO

What next for Nato — the inside account of its fight to survive

Last year, as Nato prepared to mark its 75th anniversary, its defence college in Rome published an anthology of science fiction stories imagining what the alliance might look like in 2099, another three quarters of a century in the future. One of the authors envisaged a Chinese artificial superintelligence going rogue and killing 450 million people before it was imprisoned on the Moon. Another imagined a utopia in which Nato would dedicate its energies to nature conservation and schlep cadets across the North Pole in “Thunberg-class” transport ships.

by Blazingcatfur•October 4, 2025October 4, 2025•0•NATO

Is Russia laying groundwork for strike on Nato?

Any Nato staff hoping for a quiet September must be feeling disappointed. Estonia has sought consultations with other Alliance members after three Russian fighter jets violated its air space on Friday morning. Lest this appear a one-off accident, Russian drones this month breached Poland’s and Romania’s skies, bringing Nato — in the words of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk — “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two”.

by Blazingcatfur•September 24, 2025September 24, 2025•0•NATO

Can Trump force Nato to get tough on Russian sanctions?

The pipelines would be sealed off. The supertankers would be left in the ports, and the wells would have to be capped. When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, it was confidently assumed that sanctions on Moscow’s oil and gas industry would be so punishing for its fragile economy that it would quickly force Vladimir Putin to plead for a settlement. Unfortunately, it has not worked out like that. Instead, the sanctions against Russia have been widely flouted. In response, President Trump has demaned that Nato makes them stick. But would sanctions really work and cripple Putin’s war machine?

by Blazingcatfur•September 15, 2025September 15, 2025•0•"Ukraine - Russia", NATO

Europe is a paper tiger

Europeans are being forced to confront their lack of political will for their own security

“The purpose of NATO,” Lord Hastings Ismay, the alliance’s first secretary general, once quipped, was “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.” That formula defined Europe’s security for decades, and it worked because US power anchored the alliance. But as President Donald Trump’s administration demands its European allies carry their share of the burden, shows little appetite for sending troops to Europe and worries more about the Southeast Asian theater, Europeans are being forced to confront their lack of political will for their own security, underinvestment in defense and dwindling public appetite to fight for their country.

by Blazingcatfur•September 1, 2025September 1, 2025•0•NATO

NATO’s rearmament reignites age-old defence debate of quantity vs. quality

As NATO nations, including Canada, ramp up rearmament, they are increasingly confronted with various ghosts of the Cold War, notably the resilience of Russian industry and its capacity to be able to deliver weapons — that while often technologically inferior to the West — are “good enough” to wage war.

Moscow’s ability to produce en masse drones, missiles, aircraft and other weapons of war has been hampered by sanctions and a long-term erosion of quality is taking place.

NATO?

by Blazingcatfur•August 7, 2025August 7, 2025•0•"CAF - Canadian Armed Forces", Canada, NATO

Rearmament Without Warriors? A Pointless Exercise in Impression Management

Until the West overcomes its addiction to post-heroic values, NATO’s programme of rearmament will do little to provide its nations with genuine security

At international summits and in the media, all the talk is about increased defence spending and rearmament. At the recent Hague summit, the NATO allies agreed to increase their defence spending to 5% of their GDP. And yet, all the publicity about finally taking national defence and security seriously comes across as dishonest posturing. Why? Because the leaders of most NATO member states are fully aware that their military forces are not ready for a serious fight. Worse still, the population of Western societies has embraced a post-heroic culture that regards the defence of their nation as not their concern. Young people have been turned off from embracing the values of patriotism, courage, and duty, and, consequently, many of them feel little responsibility for defending their nation.

by Blazingcatfur•July 9, 2025July 8, 2025•0•NATO

Is Canada beating ploughshares into swords with its NATO 5% pledge? Not likely

By anyone’s measure, $150 billion a year is an eye-watering amount of money to spend on anything — let alone defence.

While it pales in comparison to the inflation-adjusted appropriations of the Second World War, it is potentially, for this generation, the very definition of beating ploughshares into swords.

Or is it?

by Blazingcatfur•July 2, 2025July 2, 2025•0•"CAF - Canadian Armed Forces", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, NATO