NATO Alliance Project Idea {Work in progress}

[Ex-Dragoon]

Maybe some of the senior types out there can answer this but why is there not more integration of forces amongst Alliance members? We have limited i.e E3A Sentrys, but why is it it seems they have not put a larger ship in the water. {Cdn Blackshirt I know you will like this}A VSTOL carrier would be ideal for an undertaking such as this.

Command of said vessel could be rotated amongst the 4 highest contributors with command positions going to member nations. Problems I see would be nations who want to use it for their own agenda and not NATO purposes as well as deciding a shipyard for it to be built.

Thoughts?

 

[PPCLI Guy]

You'd be surprised how much of that already goes on.  The USS Mt Whitney is the command ship of Striking Fleet Atlantic, a NATO force based on Second Fleet.  BGen Marc Lessard (an infanteer currently commanding LFCA) has just returned from being the Deputy Commander of STRIKEFLEETLANT.  Cool job for a grunt!

 

[Infanteer]

Like shared ownership of strategic air transport that Cretin blabbed about, I'm leery about ideas like this due to the fact that it assumes that the geopolitical structure will be constant.  The Byzantines made this mistake in the 13th century, giving their naval responsibilities to the Venetians - later, when circumstances changed and new personalities arose, the Venetians (with a load of Frankish Crusaders) cruised into harbour and sacked Constantinople, arguably the greatest city on Earth at the time.  The empire was never the same afterwards.

I'd hate to have much of our naval power or air transport "in use" when we really need it or worse, have it seized by another "owner" when political attitudes change.

Imagine two NATO allies, the Canadians and the Danish, shared ownership of their fleets....

 

[aesop081]

We would be in a bit of situation then wouldn't we, considering current events !!  On the same train of thought, imagine the greeks and the turks around the years of war in cyprus having to decide which ships are whos !!!

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Those points raised are very true but look at the benfits as well.
1) Would help foster closer relations with member nations
2) Would give nations who might not have the opportunity the experience in carrier Ops.
3) Would add to the NATO Alliances capabilites.
Some have brought up the point of someone using it for their own purposes but has that happened with the NATO E3As? With a combined ships company there would be no National authority that would take precedence over decisions made in Brussels. In the event a country decides to boycott and operation I think the only thing they could do is remove themselves from the ship and have the other members if possible send in replacements.

 

[aesop081]

I agree with ex-dragoon but to a certain extent.  Yes, the NAEWF has been and continues to be a sucess. And the idea of a multinational ship's company is worth investigating.  The trouble starts when , as in the case of the recent war in Iraq, one member of nato requests the deployement of alliance assests (i.e. E-3A AWACS) into which it provides funding and personel, alliance politics prevented this deployement until late in the game.  Firther more, NATO is rapidly taking a back seat to european politics and the idea of a europe-only defence.  Do we realy want to contribute to a major assest and risk the risk of being denied its use when we feel it is in our national interest because it doesn not fit in with other countrie's foreign or domestic policy ?  I'm not closed minded on the subject so dont get me wrong.  The international exchange programs and the multi-national staffing of nato HQ's and international courses such as ENTEC in Munich are much more worthwhile endevours, the way i look at it.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

The other problem is one of command.   I assume you envisage "joint NATO command".   Given the the Americans won't allow there troops (in most cases) to be under command of "a foreigner", we are really talking about those assets being under US command, which would be extremely unpalatable to most contributing nations.