“Right.” McKinlay could see where the colonel was going with this and interrupted him. “There’s no point in crying over spilled milk. Take me through the detail. I want to know the status of each unit, the nation concerned, and what we need to do about it. I’ll then talk to the Defense Chiefs of the nations facing the biggest challenges and brief SACEUR so that he understands the art of the possible.”

Two hours later, after an exhaustive session with his staff and a couple of difficult telephone conversations with the Defense Chiefs of France and Spain, McKinlay was sitting in SACEUR’s palatial office. Both men could not help but keep glancing at the silent CNN picture on the flat-screen TV, set between the multiple books arranged in shelves next to it. It was showing shots of Russian troops setting up road blocks in the cities of the Baltic states.

McKinlay came to the point. “Bad news first, SACEUR. The land element of the NRF is not fit for purpose. As you know, NATO is meant to be able to deploy forty thousand all-up, with the lead element being the VJTF brigade of five thousand. But, that’s awa’ wi’ th’ fairies.” He momentarily relapsed into Scots in his irritation. “We can’t even deploy five thousand from the VJTF, let alone forty thousand from the follow-up NRF and, for a change, it’s not the force generation which is the problem; it’s moving units across Europe and into position.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you on this one, Dave.”

“We’re seeing the unintended consequences of closing internal European borders as a result of the migrant crisis. To give you an idea . . . The VJTF is running into all sorts of problems moving equipment and ammunition across borders. For example, I’m hearing that it could take up to fifteen days to get the diplomatic clearances to move ammunition from Germany into Poland, all the result of efforts to counter jihadi terrorists moving freely about Europe after the Paris attacks. More than that, we’ve just heard that the Albanian and Croatian units, which are inbound from the Balkans, are stuck on the Hungarian border, because the border police are not letting them cross as a result of the measures put in place to control refugees.”

SACEUR now nodded, but looked angry. The failure of the EU and NATO to work together as a result of the politics of the eastern Mediterranean never failed to irritate him.