quote:

Originally posted by SSgt_English:
As someone with one eye to the past, I dont want a strong Europe, particularly Germany or France, call me old fashioned but give them an inch and they'll soon be off invading Africa or committing genocide somewhere.

And many of the other European powers cant be trusted to put up a good fight anyway. The bulk of Europeans would be better off directing their resources into some sort of disaster relief reaction force to help out with international emergencies and the like.

Give it ten years and a potential war with China, and I'll soon change my point of view.

SSgt English

Guess you never have been to France or Germany, at least you sound leik you have no clue what you are talking about.

UK Pushes for More EU Strategic Airlift

(Source: UK Ministry of Defence; issued March 7, 2006)

John Reid challenged his EU colleagues today to improve strategic airlift capability across Europe.

Mr Reid has issued a discussion paper challenging individual Member States to be able to lift and sustain their rapid reaction forces by air themselves. This capability would then be available when operating under either NATO or the EU.

Mr Reid said that events such as the tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake and Darfur continue to highlight the long-term importance of Europe having sufficient strategic lift capability to enable us, both as nations and when working within international organisations, to respond to crises and disasters.

Mr Reid said that Europe has made some good progress in procuring more airlift capacity, for example the new multinational Strategic Airlift Interim Solution (SALIS), and agreement by a number of nations to procure A400M aircraft. But more needs to be done if we are going to have sufficient airlift capacity to contribute to security across the world with the speed and effect we desire.

Mr Reid said:

"The discussion paper I have tabled today outlines ideas how not only European nations, but also both NATO and the EU can work closely together to identify the options that will meet our needs for airlift.

"I am calling on my fellow ministers to commit to report on how we intend to provide this essential capability, so that we can satisfy our Heads of State and Government attending the European Council in December and the NATO summit at Riga in November that we are taking the necessary steps to meet the deployment challenge we have set ourselves."

There are a number of different opportunities for meeting this challenge: national or collective procurement (such as the A400M); lease (such as the UK's C-17s); assured access arrangements (such as SALIS); charter enabling contracts; and use of the commercial spot charter market. No one solution will be suitable for every country. But groups of countries for whom a similar approach best meets their circumstances should work together to pursue ideas and benefit from greater efficiency in collaboration.


BACKGROUND NOTES:

1. John Reid is attending informal meetings of EU Defence Ministers in Innsbruck, Austria, on Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 March 2006.

2. John Reid attended informal meetings of Defence Ministers in Taormina, Italy, on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 February 2006.

3. Austria took on Presidency of the EU in January 2006. The United Kingdom held the Presidency of the EU from July to December 2005.

4. The Strategic Airlift Interim Solution, known by its acronym SALIS, became operational earlier this year. It will provide short-notice assured access at a fixed cost for up to 4800 flying hours for 16 participating EU and NATO nations. The largest participants are Germany, France, UK and Canada. It uses a NATO agency as the contracting authority to guarantee access to up to six Antonov AN124-100 aircraft.

5. A number of EU and NATO nations (including the UK) are also members of Air- and Sealift Coordination Centres at Eindhoven, which assist nations in trading capacity, thus getting maximum use of their existing resources. Partners can notify each other when they have spare capacity, which others may then utilise. This is a reciprocal arrangement between nations and so does not require payments between them.

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NATO Testing “Effects-Based” Operations

(Source: NATO Allied Command Transformation; issued March 8, 2006)

A major multinational experiment being held in simulation centres across the globe from 20 February to 17 March is testing new ways of sharing information before, during and after operations.

The aim is to give decision-makers at all levels a unified picture of the situation on the ground, in order to facilitate decision-making.

Military and civilians from eight NATO and partner countries are taking part and simulation centres in Canada, France, Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States have linked up to create the experiment environment.

Achieving desired effects

The experiment is part of a new approach to operations, which experts refer to as “effects-based”.

Rather than focusing on how planned actions are being executed, the new approach identifies and plans for changes in the behaviour of key players in order to identify the opportunities for creating desired effects.

In other words, decision-makers not only have to decide “are things being done right?” but also “are the right things being done?”.

A key aspect of the new approach is timely sharing and analysis of information from a wide range of sources.

NATO’s Alliance Command Transformation is participating in the experiment participating from the Ataturk Wargaming, Simulation and Cultural Centre in Istanbul , Turkey .

It is specifically looking at the aspects of the experiment that are pertinent to NATO’s rapidly deployable Response Force, which is due to reach full operational capability this year.

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quote:

Originally posted by SSgt_English:
As someone with one eye to the past, I dont want a strong Europe, particularly Germany or France, call me old fashioned but give them an inch and they'll soon be off invading Africa or committing genocide somewhere.

Are you sure you´re not talking about your own country the United Kingdom? If I remember well there was such thing as the British Empire and Brits invading Africa, India, ...

They actually did alot of good. English langauge wide spread for 1.

Bad for america in one way though, raped their women, burned down white hosue and, well kicked *** yahooooooooooo lol.

Facto mondo. lol

quote:

Originally posted by Sgt_Schlappy:
UK Pushes for More EU Strategic Airlift

(Source: UK Ministry of Defence; issued March 7, 2006)

John Reid challenged his EU colleagues today to improve strategic airlift capability across Europe.

Mr Reid has issued a discussion paper challenging individual Member States to be able to lift and sustain their rapid reaction forces by air themselves. This capability would then be available when operating under either NATO or the EU.

...[related]...



NATO Working on Airlift Needs

InsideDefense.com NewsStand | Sebastian Sprenger | March 23, 2006
link

NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe is slated to finish the initial draft of a formal requirements document for strategic airlift by this summer, sources tell Inside the Pentagon.

The effort is expected to form the basis upon which the alliance builds its airlift capabilities, potentially costing billions. Typically, these “minimum military requirements” proposals, as they are called in NATO jargon, go before the alliance's Military Committee to iron out differences among member nations, and then to the North Atlantic Council for final approval.

Officials in North America and Europe have long decried a shortfall in NATO's ability to project large cargo, like armored vehicles or helicopters, to distant theaters. The capability is deemed crucial for operations to be performed by the alliance's new Response Force, slated to become fully operational this fall, as well as worldwide relief missions and exercises.

“I think the alliance needs strategic lift because we don't have any,” Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told sister publication Inside the Air Force earlier this month. “We have a lot of C-130s in the alliance but [they] are aircraft you use once you get to Afghanistan. We need a vehicle that can take us from Europe to Afghanistan, or Europe to Africa.”

NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment Marshall Billingslea recently circulated a briefing among officials that sheds light on the thinking of top alliance decision-makers in the area of strategic airlift. The document, obtained by ITP, is intended to inform planning and preparations for a treatment of the issue at the November NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, sources say.

The document proposes a shared financing strategy for two to six Boeing-made C-17 Globemaster aircraft. Participating NATO nations would team up to pay for the aircraft based on the number of flying hours they need, according to the document. (To illustrate the value of a flying hour, the document calculates 15 such units for a round trip to Kabul.)

The idea behind the effort is to enable nations that cannot afford a $220 million-apiece C-17 to obtain such a capability on a more affordable basis, a NATO source familiar with the proposal said this week.

In order to go forward, four or five participating nations would be “desirable,” according to the document. Maintenance for the aircraft could be performed at bases in the United Kingdom or United States because both countries already have C-17s, the document reads.

Supported by a NATO-owned “integrated military structure” to fly the machines and provide logistics support, the proposal would keep personnel and maintenance cost low, the document argues. For example, if four nations jointly owned four C-17, they would only have to shell out 13 million Euros per year, compared with 24 million Euros each nation would have to spend on personnel if they each owned an aircraft.

NATO country representatives convened for an informal meeting March 9 to discuss the C-17 idea, according to the source.

“None of them jumped up and said, ‘Yeah, we are believers now,'” the source said. Rather, the delegates at the event wanted more information and more time to think about the proposal, the source told ITP.

NATO now takes a number of different approaches for obtaining large cargo aircraft when needed.

Buying airlift capability through what the document calls the “free market” is one of the options discussed in the proposal. But prices “escalate” when demand surges, the paper reads, citing Pakistan earthquake relief work last fall as an example.

Relying on loaned equipment from “allies” also has drawbacks because aircraft may not be available when NATO needs them, according to the document.

Another option for obtaining strategic airlift capability is the recently finalized strategic airlift interim solution (SALIS), the document notes. Earlier this year, a consortium of 16 NATO and European Union countries finalized a charter arrangement with Russia and the Ukraine that grants the alliance access to six Antonov An-124 aircraft, Ukranian-made freight aircraft with a maximum cargo capacity of about 130 tons.

Two of the aircraft will be stationed at Leipzig, Germany, and NATO can use them at any time. The first aircraft is slated to arrive there this week, one official familiar with the deal told ITP this week.

NATO can request four more aircraft from Russia and the Ukraine when needed -- two at six-day notice and two within nine days, according to the document.

The An-124's limitations are its range, long runway requirements and non-pressurized cargo hold, the document states. The runway requirement makes it impossible for the aircraft to land on short airstrips in Herat or Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan.

Moreover, the SALIS contract restricts the aircraft for use in “an environment that does not require defensive aid equipped cargo aircraft,” according to the document.

Another future strategic airlift option for NATO countries, the Airbus A400M, is a “highly capable plane when it enters production,” the document states, but “it will not be available to nations in sufficient numbers until 2012 or later.”

Meanwhile, individual nations are working to fill their own airlift capability gap. The United Kingdom, for example, already has four C-17s and is thinking about a fifth, said one NATO source.

Moreover, Sweden is considering to purchase two C-17s independent of NATO's considerations, according to Stephan Kallmen, defense counselor with the Swedish Embassy in Washington.

Cost and time constraints are Stockholm's biggest concerns, he told ITP March 21. The country wants to have a strategic airlift capability by Jan. 1, 2008, when it takes over the lead of a European Battle Group slated to include Norway, Finland and Estonia, he said.

What do america think of European Union anyway? im talking to the ppl in USA that know what the EU is and does.

The EU was originally supposed to be an economic "alliance" formed to compete against the US...now the Euros (or at least French) have ambitions to make it more of a military and political power.

As long as Europe never forgets who it was that bailed them out of two world wars and kept the Soviets from overruning them, then I don't have a problem with competition from the EU.

Bailed Europe out, yes but not UK, and USA had to get involve as Russia would target USA next on the hit list, you should be blaming France for laying down arms. If Britainw as to lsoe we would go down fighting, as churchill said.

Europe can easily become superpower, we easily are a economic superpower, worlds number 1 mark now with trillions. USA 2nd. Europe could easily spend more on Military, only Europe and USA have the most hi-technology

Dont forget France bailed out USA too so WW2 is even stevens for your 2 countries.

YANK revolution.

wots up hilly billy?

Typying facts pal, dont like em piss off back to the crap you crawled out of.

Really............lol woteevr davey crocket lol

Whats up with the troll nickname anyway? i find it amusing but wonder why the use of this mysterious nickname?

NATO, EU Lease Strategic Airlift Aircraft

(Source: NATO; issued March 23, 2006)

Deputy Secretary General Minuto Rizzo travelled to Leipzig, Germany, on 23 March, for a ceremony to mark the entry into force of a multinational contract on a Strategic Airlift Interim Solution. The event was hosted by German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung, since Germany has taken the lead on this initiative.

Thanks to a multinational contract, Russian and Ukrainian Antonov aircraft are to be used as an interim solution to meet shortfalls in European strategic airlift capabilities, pending deliveries of Airbus A400M aircraft, expected to start in 2010.

On 23 January, 15 NATO countries signed a contract with Ruslan SALIS GmbH, a subsidiary of the Russian company Volga Dnepr, based in Leipzig. The 15 original signatories – Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United Kingdom – were joined by Sweden on 23 March.

The contract provides for two AN-124-100 aircraft on full-time charter, two more on six days notice and another two on nine days notice. This multinational arrangement allows the countries participating in the Strategic Airlift Interim Solution (SALIS) programme to meet commitments to strengthen capabilities in both the NATO and EU frameworks.

The contract’s initial duration is for three years with a possibility to extend it further. The aircraft, which were made available from the beginning of February, are drawn from the Russian company, Volga-Dnepr, and Ukraine’s ADB. The contract is administered by the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency and its operation is managed by the SALIS Coordination Centre in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The countries concerned have committed to using the aircraft for a minimum of 2000 flying hours per year.

The SALIS plan evolved from the signing of a letter of intent to develop a multinational consortium to arrange for strategic airlift by NATO defence ministers in June 2003. Strategic airlift is a key capability enabling the rapid deployment of troops and equipment to where they are needed. In recent years, NATO’s ongoing operation in Afghanistan, its logistical support to the African Union’s mission in Darfur, and the earthquake disaster-relief operation for Pakistan have highlighted the need for strategic airlift which can handle outsized cargo. A single AN-124-100 can transport up to 120 tons of cargo.

Volga-Dnepr and ADB already provide AN-124-100 aircraft to support the Afghanistan mission, with weekly sorties from Germany to Afghanistan and back, under contractual arrangements with the Allied Movement Coordination Center at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

Moreover, a memorandum of understanding on strategic airlift between NATO and Ukraine is pending ratification with the Ukrainian parliament. Similarly, a framework agreement on air transport and the necessary implementing arrangements is being developed with Russia. Progress on the air transport agreement with Russia is dependent on the ratification by the Russian parliament of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), signed by the Russian foreign minister in April 2004. The SOFA provides a reciprocal legal framework for the treatment of NATO and Partner troops, including Russian troops, operating in or transiting through one another's territory, covering issues related to documentation, juridical questions, taxation, customs and other technical details.

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Europe is already strong, easily capable of counter weight to USA, they just cant, right now, get their **** together, cough Chirac