"How the US Army Is Training European Militias to..." Topic

… Stop a Russian Invasion.

"U.S. Army soldiers have been training militia troops from the Baltic states in order to help them resist Russian occupation in the event Russia makes a land-grab west of its current border.

Special Forces from the active Army as well as from the West Virginia National Guard recently completed the first "irregular and unconventional warfare training iteration" for the Polish Territorial Defense Forces and the Latvian Zemmessardze…."
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Vive la Resistance!

Amicalement
Armand

Or they could just ask the Finns how they did it.

Would anyone in Finland still remember? They'd be pushing 90 on average.

Dunno if modern Finns could replicate those results in 1939-41. The modern westerner accustomed to all the world's finery might not make as good soldiers as their grand fathers and great grand fathers who were already hardened by tougher lives in both cities and the country side.

We Aussies with our ever expanding and ever ageing girths certainly wouldn't be able to field multiple divisions of well trained and motivated people like in 1914-18 or 1939-45.

I suspect it's much the same elsewhere in the west (indeed Taiwan is slashing its military due to a rapidly ageing population).

First of all one needs to decide what is meant with "militia". What is being trained are members of the Home Guard which is part of the countries military forces. It is not "militia" in the sense that they are armed civilians.

They are civilians who in their free time spend time in the official military forces. Kind of like the national guard in the US, just without all the fancy heavy stuff.

As for the finns they might not be as tough as they were in the 1930:s but they are still in the game, very much so. Even the young generation have a much tougher mindset than most other youngster from other youngsters

The Finnish SISU mindset is very much alive. The Finns do remember their wars and who defended their freedom.

The Finnish SISU mindset is very much alive. The Finns do remember their wars and who defended their freedom.

…yet their government is now led by appeasement-minded peacenik 30-something radical leftist feminists after a round of bizarre coalition politics.

SBminisguy Yes, but do not judge the mindset of the population by one person, even if it is the prime minister.

Like you say "after a round of bizarre coalition politics". Not necessarily the will of the people when they voted.

Same thing happened in Sweden. Two political parties, the liberals and the "centre party" went to the election promising to oust the socialist party. Their entire campaigns message was that they wanted to throw out the socialists. After the election they voted FOR the socialists, and made sure the socialists could remain in power…

I just found a Gallup survey where it turns out 74% of Finns would fight for their country.

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Compare that to about 32% for the rest of Western Europe, with Italy, Belgium, Germany and Netherlands being 20% or less (only about 15% of the Dutch said they would fight for their country!).

Amongst ex-Warpac NATO members surveyed the number who would fight for their their country was 32%.

Globally the number was 61%!

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There was poll organised by Pew in 8 large NATO states a few years ago if they should go to war to help another NATO state under Article 5.

The predominantly Anglo Saxon states (Canada. US and UK) respondents were split nearly 50-50 as to whether they should help another country under Article 5. Poland was only 48% in favour (despite them expecting American help if they were attacked). In Germany the number of people was only 38%.

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This is what 70 years of wealth and peace bring. They forget George Orwell's saying: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf"

It does put into perspective that if the the Russians punched through the Baltics, how far could they get into Europe without meeting serious resistance and especially without massive American assistance.

Indeed European NATO forces continue to crumble as defence budgets crumble (reinforced by accounting tricks that count defence pensions and welfare or certain types of policing as defence spending).

Even the Poles and Brits military procurement has stalled. RAF is the smallest it's been ever (a mere 160 combat aircraft) whilst Poland defence procurement has stalled and even maintenance is poor (eg out of nearly 100 combat aircraft only about 20 are operational including only 10 out of 48 F-16s).

The Europeans basically expect young people from the USA to die for them whilst they do nothing.

Afghans were pretty good vs. the Soviets, back in the day, too.

"…It does put into perspective that if the the Russians punched through the Baltics, how far could they get into Europe without meeting serious resistance and especially without massive American assistance…"

France and Spain would fight… also Poland… about the rest… have no idea….

Amicalement
Armand

So are you sure France and Spain would send their scarce military resources to defend Latvia or Estonia especially if Germany isn't?

The other question is capacity to fight. Up to 1991 European forces had significantly more capacity than now to fight high intensity wars. The average smaller European army now has a couple of incomplete brigades, a single small battalion of tanks, 30 or less combat aircraft. A lot lack air defence save MANPADS. Even mighty France has only 2 "heavy" brigades ie brigades equipped to wage high intensity conflict. The rest are glorified peace keepers for low insurgency warfare.

Believe it or not but a large chunk of Europe's tank park now is obsolete T-55 derivatives (Romania maintains several hundred as main MBT) or T-72s and deriatives (mainly Poland), many of which have not been significantly upgraded since delivery in the 1980s and were never top of the line Soviet models.

Post 1991 NATO has resulted in Europe disarming. And they're not rearming or expanding capacity in a meaningful way despite the US jumping around complaining about this even during Obama.