NATO ALLIES: Not ready for prime time: “Over a decade of shrinking budgets has meant less money for realistic training. There are also equipment shortages. The net result is several layers of leadership that are really not well prepared for a shooting war. The leaders of these nations have also been warned about this by their own special operations troops, who have seen combat in Afghanistan. Most of these operations have been kept secret, as is normal for this sort of thing. But the commandos from these different nations had opportunities to exchange notes, and it was generally agreed that most post Cold War European nations had let most of their combat troops down.”