AlexLaw76

Today is ‘Trans Day of Remembrance’. I hope you all paid your respects!

What a video. I was there as a kid and a teenager for MLT. Unbelievable player. he would be a £150m player now, comfortably.

Fellows is going to COOK playing in a hybrid right wing back role

What ever is spent, the decision of successive governments to cleverly account that we allocate just 2.2% on the military. if we want to do more than strongly worded press conferences, against a peer, then it is simply not enough. it was not always 2% spent by our government, but there we are.

But they didn’t, and it was not. The same/similar mistakes of pre-1982 are happening in plain sight.

They were examples of where the priorities are. They are choices. Like spending billions on accepting illegal immigrants, along with everything else. Scraping 2.2% of GDP on Defence, with clever accounting, is a political choice

14 years is just the tip of the iceberg. The state of the armed forces is on both parties.

No. We simply have not had the military capability for many years to sustain anything like what would be required. If Europe had invested properly in its collective armed forces for the last 25+ years, and had the will to do something/anything without the USA, then I am sure we/they would. Neither is reality, and as a result we are completely and totally in the pocket of the USA. Why? Because welfare, free stuff for anyone who wants it, Net Zero and such like are all priorities. A result of which may make the news over the coming weeks/months, from a maritime perspective. We do have 'sanctions' and strongly worded press conferences to rely on... 🤨

Then why are very rich nations in mainland Europe doing very little about it?

the big dog in the fight usually does

We had one of the worlds most formidable military base, and an empire, at the time vastly different situation from now. Reality is Ukraine is being destroyed, inch by inch, and losing 1000s of troops quickly (as are Russia) if we really wanted to stop this, Europe (inc the UK) could have sent land and air forces in years ago. We all could have sailed into the Black Sea years ago, and put NATO assets in the way. none of that has happened and the angry words from Europe continue.

Where do you think Russia is going when done in Ukraine? European leaders appear almost irrelevant to this given we have, for decades, sub-contracted out our own defence to the USA.

If this stops the meat grinder, then better than anything that Europe has suggested.