
NATO claims to be the Yosemite Sam of alliances but the war in Ukraine is showing what it really is.
1. A bunch of small countries. Their armies number 2,000 but, taking wokeness, diversity, recruiting shortfalls, pregnancy leave and physical fitness into account, they can field 600. They possess 100 major weapons but, taking incompetent storage, broken parts and maintenance problems into account, they can field 40 of them
2. A bunch of medium-size countries. Their armies number 20,000 but, taking wokeness, diversity, recruiting shortfalls, pregnancy leave and physical fitness into account, they can field 6,000. They possess 500 major weapons but, taking incompetent storage, broken parts and maintenance problems into account, they can field 200 of them.
3. One big country. Its army numbers 200,000 but, taking wokeness, diversity, recruiting shortfalls, pregnancy leave and physical fitness into account, it can field 60,000. (Given the enormous number of bases that have to be manned, probably not). It possesses 5,000 major weapons but, taking incompetent storage, broken parts and maintenance problems into account, it can field 2,000 of them. (And this stuff is scattered all over the place). Some of its rulers want to fight Russia, some want to fight Germany and some want to fight China – but they’re sure they can do all three at once.
4. Nobody has more than a month or two of ammunition and, actually, a lot less than that because they’ve give so much to Ukraine and it’s all gone. Somewhere.
5. All this costs more than you can imagine.
6. These countries’ GDPs are the sum of lawyers’ fees, financial flim-flam, fake numbers, real estate commissions, payoffs to politicians and non-stop printing presses. The only one of them that actually makes anything is going bust.
7. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
By Helmholtz Smith