He looked at McKinlay and shrugged his shoulders in regret. McKinlay knew how much he would hate having to say such a thing. Criticizing another nation in public was a no-go area in multinational, hypersensitive NATO. But right now he was having to censure his own boss’s nation, even if McKinlay was a NATO, rather than a British commander. But Hansen was a good man and said it regardless and McKinlay respected him for it.

Hansen was right: what sort of cake-and-arse party was this? NATO’s much-vaunted VJTF, established with a great fanfare at the NATO Summit in Wales in September 2014, was proving to be a political fudge rather than a credible military force. It now looked as if it was going to fail at the first hurdle because, while nations had delegated command and control to SACEUR immediately Article 5 was declared, the time it would take to deploy the force meant it would not be ready for at least another twenty-eight days. Not only that, Britain was so dependent on reservists after the catastrophic Defense Review of 2010 that the sinews of the force, particularly command elements and logistics units, were incapable of rapid deployment.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, Fritz,” he said, letting him know that he was not offended by his comment. “I know from my own experience that it takes weeks, if not months, to get a reservist called up and processed, let alone trained to a suitable level to fight alongside a regular, and that is time we just do not have. And don’t get me going on our inability to recruit even half enough reservists in the first place. Anyway, why don’t you run through the gaps and where we are with the NATO Response Force preparations? We reduced its readiness to move four days ago. It should be pretty much ready to deploy . . . So, how quickly can we deploy those forty thousand troops ‘anywhere in the world,’ as the Alliance has told the world it can do?” McKinlay’s voice was now heavy with irony. Everyone in the room knew full well that these 40,000 troops were pure fantasy.

Hansen gave a small smile. “First, the good news. The maritime component of the NRF, NATO Response Force—that’s five frigates and destroyers, one each from Portugal, Canada, Norway and two from France—is currently on an exercise in the eastern Mediterranean. It’ll take them eight days to steam to the Baltic. They’ve put some valuable training time under their belts and they’re good to go. Tom has also heard some more good news.” Here he looked at the Royal Navy Commander, who was part of his team of force generators.