US adds European allies after Ukraine invasion by Russia

 AP:

Switzerland, Finland and Sweden are considering joining the U.S. National Guard's security partnership program in a further expansion of American military ties across Europe after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The chief of the National Guard, Gen. Dan Hokanson, announced the discussions with each country, which had not previously been reported, in remarks at the National Press Club on Thursday.

Interest by the three countries in the program is the latest indication of how Russia’s war has led each of those nations to take steps that consider ending long-standing policies of military nonalignment.
...

Finland and Sweden were the most recent countries to seek NATO membership; Finland joined in April and Sweden is waiting for approval. Longtime-neutral Switzerland began considering easing export controls on sending weapons to active war zones earlier this year.

The National Guard's State Partnership Program is a lesser-known but key military instrument for U.S. troops to build relationships with foreign militaries by conducting regular training and education exchanges with young officers. It partners National Guard units with host nations.

The program can help foreign military better shape their own operations to reflect Western military organization and equipment. That is something seen as key to getting a host of Eastern European nations on NATO standards to ease how multinational armies could conduct operations.
...

Russia's Ukraine invasion has not only been a military disaster but has also pushed other European countries into an alignment with the US and NATO. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more