Posted on 06/17/2011 12:04:47 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
F-16s’s operating against forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi in Libya are running out of bombs according to a June 9 report. A request to the replenish stocks has been made to the Netherlands.
"The Danish F-16s are about to run out of bombs to continue to attack Libya," the daily Politiken said, citing unnamed defence sources.
"The Danish military has therefore asked Holland for help," it added.
A spokesman for the Danish military's logistics division could not confirm the report but said his department was speaking to other coalition partners about supplies.
"It is our job to always support operations in the short, medium and long term, and we always have a close cooperation with our F-16 partnership countries, in particular Norway and the Netherlands," Anders Paaskesen of the Danish Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation told AFP.
Danish F-16s were some of the first jets to arrive for Operation Unified Protector and have been participating in the missions since March 20. 274 sorties have been carried out, resulting in 494 precision guided bombs being dropped, Inge Borggaard of the Air Force Tactical Command said.
F-16 Ping
If a nation is not able to devote enough money to wage war against all of it’s rivals at once with the realistic possibility of prevailing then it has de facto lost it’s sovereignty, since it is then relying on allies for it’s own protection and is therefore unable to dictate the terms of their assistance.
I think it is becoming clear that all European nations have been in this situation for decades and the only reason they retain sovereignty - to the extent that they do - is because they are all in the same boat.
There are no rivals near by in europe.
And this is exactly why all those militaries havn´t stocked up huge amount of weapons.
Just for example Denmark is not in danger to lose its sovereignty because of the simple fact there is no country near by who would attack them.
Of course if you want to play war in north africa those weapons would be needed.
Danish Vanish
Not our problem.
Well i get your point.
And from an american point of view it does make sense.
But the european point of view is totally different.
The worst danger for european countries have allways been
other european countries.
And this threat has definitely gone in the EU.
Beside maybe the french (because they love their little wars in africa) usually nobody stocks up weapons for the simple reason you don´t need them for your defence nor have most european countries any interesst to get involved in military conflicts outside of europe.
This is why libya has really caught me by suprise too (and i´m pretty shure the european militaries have been as suprized the moment those politicians told them pleas start bombing libya ;-)
Won´t last long anyway because you can´t defend this bombing campain very long back at home because the people are against it. (even the french puplic don´t like it and it has ruined whats was left of sarkozys popularity).
As said like the US the EU does not need many weapons to defend them against outside threats.
Most europeans just have enought from wars at all.
(and beeing 10 years in afghanistan with no end in sight did not really help to change that view ;-)
Of course this means most of the countries have little to no capacity to fight an offensive war araound the globe.
But since the politicians would get eaten alieve anyway from their own population back at home they can not pull this of anyway even if they would wish.
So why prepare your self with offensive capabilities when the people back home would not let you use it anyway?
I guarantee you that the european afghanistan commitment was definitely the maxium the US could have got.
(Because if europe would send more soldiers there would definitely role some politician heads in their home country.) Without nato there would not be a single european soldier still in afghanistan.
I guarantee you this.
But Ok there was the world trade center and the US asked for help.
People understood this back then.
But as said this war was NEVER (not even in the beginning popular in europe).
Most europeans would rater sit aside and watch 10 genocides in africa before they would send just a single soldier.
Because most europeans have zero interesst in wars outside of the continent.
The this is none of our buisiness statement is pretty common.
They have weak defense because the US has carried the burden since WWII.
They have weak defense because the US has carried the burden since WWII.
If it was not for the US, the EU could not fight their way out of a wet paper bag.... =.=
I hear you, this is why I keep seeing Russia eventually taking Europe if America fails economically.
If America goes off a cliff economically, inflation will be very high, which will mean that only people with very high rates of pay will live comfortably.
Military pay will then become relatively very low; recruiting will be extremely difficult - maintaining conventional forces would be impossible. Of course, ships and planes will also be too expensive to operate and maintain.
And the nukes can’t be used for normal battle, just a last ditch act of desperation. If America is not directly attacked, the nukes don’t make sense, only conventional does, as using a nuke would invite nuke retalation.
So... contrary to what AAAALLLLLLLLL the experts are saying - we need to be prepared - as always throughout history - for massive conventional war. At least being able to scale up quickly with a force to be reckoned with.
If our economy was off a cliff and half our carriers were mothballed, forces cut, air force cut. Then Russia, say, attacked the U.K., taking out missiles and air defense. what if our military told our President that there was no way for us to get involved without disaster for us. And if our Congress and President decided that it was a “european problem”. The UK would be speaking Russian within 2 months. Would they use their nukes ? Doubt it, they be afraid and hesitate too long, cuz they’d be risking nuke annihilation in retaliation. Can’t have that.
From then, it’s Germany, just take out the air defenses, then go around Poland to the south and via the Baltic with a landing force. Poland won’t help, France won’t help.
The rest would fall like dominoes. The UK is the key because it and germany are the only ones who can really put up a fight, but germany can be attacked by land from Russia, it can’t. If Hitler wasn’t crazy, he would have taken out the UK before doing anything else.
Nowadays, troop transport is by air, so air supremacy is needed to safely move troops across the Atlantic in big, lumbering transports. As far as moving by ship, they’re very much easy targets.
The U.S. “defense umbrella” only extends over Europe inasmuch as we have an incredibly powerful naval and air power - and have trillions to spend on keeping them supplied.
And Russian will have both submarines AND air power in the Atlantic to harass shipping.
Sorry but this is the next wrong impression many americans have. As said the cold war is gone.
Russia is not the USSR are anymore.
There is no way Russia could conquer europe or win a conventinal war with the EU. (Let alone that not even the russian have any interesst in fighting it because the EU is their biggest trading partner and consumes their oil and gas like crazy).
I don´t know where so many americans get the impression that europe is totaly defenceless.
Because it´s not.
Believe me the weapons are there they are just not used this is all.
Yes most of europe has cut its defence budget pretty low but even with this low numbers the EU spends countless times the money russia spends.
Just for example germany alone spends about the same money on defence like russia. (now add the rest of the 26 EU countries too this list and it becomes a no contest and btw. there exists an obligation treaty for the EU countries since the lissbon treaty).
Really only the US does spend more money (granted a lot more) on defence than the EU.
This is a fact.
The defence weapons are there (not in the same numbers like the US has it but they are there).
This reports from nato paint a wrong picture about europe.
They don´t have a fighter shortage because there don´t exist anymore fighters to bomb libya for example.
They have a fighter shortage because nobody is willing to send them for a war in north africa which is more or less nothing of “our” business.
Same is for all european missions.
The weapons are there (They just rot back home in europe) because the public is just not willing to send them in large numbers for wars in forreign places.
Just for example there was the chad mission some years ago to protect some refugess somewhere in africa.
A few tousand EU soldiers for africa.
There have been reports around that they EU doesn´t even manage to get 20 helicopters for it.
Well it was true (but it was allso true that they didn´t get the helicopters because the people back home said what helos for Africa? WTF? F+ck em who cares about this hell hole so the politicians have been forced to not commit them (at least if they wanted to get voted again).
But don´t think that those choppers didn´t exist.
Quite ironic when all tell you Sorry but we can not send only a single one and one week later 50 Black hawks (from the same country) show up at a local air show ;-)
Again the weapons are there!
But anyway i guess the main problem is NATO itself.
It should have died with the cold war or at least replaced with something new.
And the next problem was that we started the use nato for offensive millitary actions without member states beeing attacked.
This definitely now is the biggest problem.
Because NATO has so many members with so many different national interessts that it´s as good as impossibe to get everyone on board or at least to fullfill their commitments for foreign wars.
Defending a member state that is attacked is one thing.
But sending troops somewhere (and get ripped appart back home from the public) because other members may want to start a war there which is definitely not in your national interesst is a total different topic.
So no wonder NATO more and more falls apart.
Time for something new.
Russia is the same USSR with different names; same KGB, Putin, etc., same power elites. Which do have different factions, to be sure, some more warlike than others. But nevertheless, the leadership thinks they are a bunch of cool tough guys.
They simply realized USSR was broke and could not keep up with the military spending, it was a joke. So they “collapsed” the government and told the West they were abanding communism. Which is really just a bunch of power elites anyway !
Now the power elites in Russia are free to acquire wealth without fear of being labeled a “corrupt communist” because there is no more “communism” there. Now it can freely just be corrupt. Which it is, top to bottom. Like how much the real price is of a Moscow apartment and what people declare it is for tax purposes.
The real “war” is going on to bring down the U.S. from the inside, because it will eliminate our military from policing anything. IMHO, you have a much differnent situation if the U.S. is militarily out of the picture.
Once that happens, the big rich guys in Russia - and anywhere - running business and government have no threat from anyone or anything to impede them from going back and picking up the satellite countries that they let go when they “collapsed”. Politicians historically have always seen satellite nations or colonies as cheap raw materials and labor.
IMHO, Europe is mistaken in thinking that Russia poses no threat. If you have two hungry dogs and one plate of food, you get a fight. I think many agree that the future holds the distinct possiblity of resource-related wars.
Well since the end of the USSR russia “only” has a population of 138,739,892 (July 2011 est.) people anymore.
and a GDP of $1.465 trillion (2010 est.) (official exchange rate)
The EU on the other side has a population of
492,387,344 (July 2010 est.)
and a Gdp of $16.07 trillion (2010 est.) (official exchange rate)
So do the math.
If the EU really only would spend 1% of gdp which really would be nothing! russia would still have to spend 11% (which would ruin any country) of their gdp to get to the same numbers.
Stats are from the CIA world factbook.
I hate to break it to you but is US forces left europe. The russian air force can kick euro air force ass. They have excellent planes and pilots, not to mention missles. They may not be the soviet union but the EU could not defeat russia alone.
Good news for East Tennessee....... we make the explosives
-——They have weak defense because the US has carried the burden since WWII.-——
Not true. They have weak military because after two devastating wars the Euros swore off war forever. No war, no military.
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