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Friday, November 30, 2012

This Is Just Embarrassing

We should be embarrassed about this demonstration of NATO military agility:

NATO allies are expected to take several weeks to deploy Patriot surface-to-air missiles to defend Turkey from a spillover of Syria's civil war, a NATO spokeswoman said on Friday.

Turkey formally asked for the Patriot missiles earlier this month after weeks of talks with NATO allies about how to shore up security on its 900-km (560-mile) border.

We invaded Afghanistan halfway around the world a month after 9/11.

After weeks of talks it will take several more weeks to deploy a few batteries of anti-aircraft missiles. Within alliance territory.

Actually, the Russians should be embarrassed to talk up the threat of NATO to Mother Russia.

UPDATE: Putin will rely on nuclear weapons and has abandoned for now the nearly pointless efforts to reform the conventional military:

Noting how difficult it was to keep the strategic forces in good shape, Putin appears to have decided that shaping up the rest of the military would be put on hold for a while so that reform plans could be revised.

Yeah, it is tough to argue the NATO panzers are going to roll east with anything less than a year's preparation time. And even then it wouldn't be more than a battalion.