As Larry posts his friend's piece.
“We will increase the number of high readiness forces to well over 300,000” said its General Secretary after the latest NATO talkfest. Larry has already sneered at this preposterous assertion, Bernhard has scoffed at it too, but I want to jump in as well because such fatuity deserves more contempt. Indeed, if there were anything amusing about this level of delusion, it would be a funny. But it isn’t. These people actually construct decisions based on such fantasies. (Ask the sanctioneers’ subjects as the sanctions backfire.) 300K – where are they going to come from? This site – Macrotrends – gives numbers. To no one’s surprise, almost all of the NATO countries have reduced their military over the past twenty years. USA from 1575K-1379K, Poland 264K-196K, Spain 262K-196K, UK (especially belligerent if you pay attention to its utterances) 218K-148K, Netherlands 60K-41K, Turkey 850K-512K, France 411K-304K, Italy 521K-341K and Germany 331K-181K. And so on and so on. I guess Stoltenberg expects this trend to reverse. But will it?
Mr. Helmholz Smith has a sharp mind and a sharp pen. Read the whole thing at Larry's blog. It is about numbers. Especially those numbers of the "dead souls" once prophesied in Gogol's immortal, and you guessed it, Dead Souls.
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