UPI: NATO isn't prepared for new land wars in Europe - by Martin Sieff
NATO isn't prepared for new land wars in Europe - by Martin Sieff
There's one thing that Bush administration Republicans and Obama administration Democrats agree on when it comes to national security issues: The day of major land wars between major industrialized states is over. In fact the nearest thing there has been to such a war in the past generation was between two relatively small states -- Iran and Iraq, which fought a bitter ground war that cost close to a million dead -- possibly many more -- from 1980 to 1988. The idea that such a tragedy could occur again in modern Europe, six and a half decades after World War II ended, is inconceivable to liberals and conservatives alike in Washington. The possibility of having to fight such a war is even more appalling and inconceivable to the military planners who are paid to prepare for it in European nations and in NATO alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
