War with Russia

He looked at McKinlay and shrugged his shoulders in regret. McKinlay knew how much he would hate having to say such a thing. Criticizing another nation in public was a no-go area in multinational, hypersensitive NATO. But right now he was having to censure his own boss’s nation, even if McKinlay was a NATO, rather than a British commander. But Hansen was a good man and said it regardless and McKinlay respected him for it.

Hansen was right: what sort of cake-and-arse party was this? NATO’s much-vaunted VJTF, established with a great fanfare at the NATO Summit in Wales in September 2014, was proving to be a political fudge rather than a credible military force. It now looked as if it was going to fail at the first hurdle because, while nations had delegated command and control to SACEUR immediately Article 5 was declared, the time it would take to deploy the force meant it would not be ready for at least another twenty-eight days. Not only that, Britain was so dependent on reservists after the catastrophic Defense Review of 2010 that the sinews of the force, particularly command elements and logistics units, were incapable of rapid deployment.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, Fritz,” he said, letting him know that he was not offended by his comment. “I know from my own experience that it takes weeks, if not months, to get a reservist called up and processed, let alone trained to a suitable level to fight alongside a regular, and that is time we just do not have. And don’t get me going on our inability to recruit even half enough reservists in the first place. Anyway, why don’t you run through the gaps and where we are with the NATO Response Force preparations? We reduced its readiness to move four days ago. It should be pretty much ready to deploy… So, how quickly can we deploy those forty thousand troops ‘anywhere in the world,’ as the Alliance has told the world it can do?” McKinlay’s voice was now heavy with irony. Everyone in the room knew full well that these 40,000 troops were pure fantasy.

Hansen gave a small smile. “First, the good news. The maritime component of the NRF, NATO Response Force—that’s five frigates and destroyers, one each from Portugal, Canada, Norway and two from France—is currently on an exercise in the eastern Mediterranean. It’ll take them eight days to steam to the Baltic. They’ve put some valuable training time under their belts and they’re good to go. Tom has also heard some more good news.” Here he looked at the Royal Navy Commander, who was part of his team of force generators.

“That’s right, Sir,” continued Tom Black, recently captain of a Royal Navy Type 23 frigate and now a key player in Hansen’s team. “The UK is deploying an amphibious task group to the Baltic led by our new carrier, Queen Elizabeth. It’s expected to deploy on Wednesday. That means it could link up with the NRF maritime component in due course. If the UK is prepared to wait for it to catch up, that is.”

“Why would they wait?” asked the Turkish Air Force lieutenant colonel, who had recently joined his team from an operational tour on the Syrian border. He spoke excellent English, unlike his Greek army counterpart, who had so far refused to even accept his arrival. The two men from the traditionally belligerent countries were continuing, in customary NATO style, to score points off each other at every opportunity.

“Good question, Erol. Explain please, Tom.”

“Simple. Command and control. For starters, the NRF is commanded by a French admiral, who happens to be senior to the British admiral on Queen Elizabeth. That means there will be questions to sort out about who will command the Task Group when it joins up. Call that one wrong and you can imagine how that will play with the Brits… or the French for that matter.” Black shrugged his shoulders.

The others in the room nodded back in understanding. Anyone who had spent any time at NATO knew that, with certain nations at least, the needs of the “flags to post” plot—which nation had which generals in which job—frequently meant messy compromises that made little operational sense.