Robert Peters
A member of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment fires a Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW)...Paratroopers have demonstrated the firepower that they could bring to bear during combat missions as the British Army’s global response force. ..As the culmination of a course in support weapons skills, paratroopers staged a firepower demonstration on Salisbury Plain. ..The Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW) is the first, non-expert, short-range, anti-tank missile that rapidly knocks out any main battle tank in just one shot by striking it from above...NLAW utilises predicted line of sight guidance and has overfly top and direct attack modes, and it is easy to use, making it a valuable tank destroyer for light forces that operate dismounted in all environments, including built up areas...It also has night vision capability and is designed for all climate conditions and environments..
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine served as a wakeup call to NATO, reversing a decades’ long trend of European members disarming at the end of the Cold War.
To that end, many (but not all) have been increasing their defense budgets and restarting weapons production lines—not only to supply Ukraine, but to enable a longer-term rearming of the European continent to deter potential future Russian aggression.
A M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank in 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division fires at a prop target during a live fire exercise on Feb. 17, 2023 in Petrochori Training Area, Greece. American armored units along with Greek armored units spent the past couple days training force-on-force and other combat simulation exercises.
This is a welcome development, but we should not forget that in many ways, Europe’s security challenges are a direct consequence of its past decisions.
At the height of the Cold War in 1970, NATO fielded a military force that included over 10 million people in the active and reserve military (out of a population over 500 billion), with a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of almost $2 trillion. This force included tens of thousands of aircraft, tanks, and artillery rounds, with nations such as Germany and the UK stationing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the front lines of NATO, squaring off against the Warsaw Pact.
All of this was backed up by over 6,000 American tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Europe itself. In 1970, the United States committed 8% of its GDP on defense—more than twice the 3% the average European NATO member spent on defense. The end result: an effective—and, therefore, credible—military that deterred Soviet aggression.
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