Re: It's not RAF nor UK It's Nato ...
but I am not sure where NATO is heading
Its all gone to pot, really. They've long ago let in countries they probably wouldn't fight to defend (the Baltics), countries very unlikely to answer the call if things kicked off (Turkey), and countries with a defence need but no material assets, so diluting the overall strength (like Romania and Bulgaria). Then they've bloated the whole thing with the idea of a global role that's a further load of bollocks (eg Afghanistan is part of the NATO "Partnership for Peace" IIRC).
The European still won't pay their share of agreed budgets (including the UK, who cheat by including service pensions as defence spending), most of the European military assets are creaking and ancient, and inadequate in number, and the closure and run down of military bases means that they can't afford to expand easily as well as being vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike. For example, the German Air Force operates two thirds of its Tornado strike variants from Buchel, which has a single runway; the RAF is in a similar position at Marham, albeit with two runways.
Even when they try, NATO cooperation is a bit crap - for example in the misbegotten Libyan operation, the Italian ATC and ground systems couldn't support more than one third of the potential mission numbers, several NATO countries refused to get embroiled despite the UN resolution, and British and French both had problems of running out of ordnance, even against a piss pot, essentially defenceless bit of desert.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
