Russia and the Unpreparedness of NATO

David Cameron has just said that NATO is unprepared for a more challenging relationship with Russia.  Well, who’d have thought it?  What a surprise!  This is the same David Cameron who in only 5 years of government has presided over the evisceration of the UK armed forces.  He scrapped our (admittedly old, but serviceable) aircraft carriers, sold off our Harrier ‘jump jets’ and ordered a bunch of unproven (and so far undeliverable) American replacements for aircraft carriers that won’t be service-ready for another 5 years.  He cancelled Nimrod, leaving us entirely without a long-range anti-submarine or maritime patrol capability, disbanded whole battalions of army – citing the need to shape our armed forces to address the world as it had then become – with a benign and newly best-friendly Russia.  I seem to recall wiser counsel warning that things change very quickly in world politics, how right they were.  If NATO is unprepared for a confrontation with a Putin-led Russia, whose fault is it?  I’m no militarist but, really, Cameron must have a neck of solid brass!