hardly…

AFAIK they have very little, if any, compatible equipments, which would pose the problem of interoperability with the rest of brasilian forces

Depends on the political will, sooner or later Brazil is going to want something more advanced than second hand fighters.

Over the net decade Brazil is going to buy new aircrafts and whatever they buy is going to have limited compatibility with the systems operated by FAB today so that is not going o be a problem. There are off-the-self avionics that can provide interoperability between different systems and there’s always the possibility of tailoring a solution.

If you are talking about the Eastern European Countries that entered NATO and the UE the answer is yes, yes, massively yes and yes.

That’s cheating, NATO is not EU.

The alternative is Bielorussia (or Moldova)…
Please compare today´s Poland or Romania with today´s Bielorussia, or with Poland/Romania from the 80´s.
Ceausescu was such a nice chap… Nevermind Aleksandr Lukashenko.

I suppose choosing two non EU and non NATO countries and portraying them as the only possible alternative instead of a pair of EU members outside of NATO is just a coincidence.

You obviously dont have much contact with Poles, Chec´s, Romenians, etc, do you?
There´s more suport for NATO there than in much of “Western” Europe.

I do and that’s why I know that the stereotype doesn’t live up to the expectations.

There is a perception in some NATO countries that the US use NATO as a way of implementing their own aims by forming ‘coalitions’ of NATO partners in conflict zones far removed from the North Atlantic and outwith the mutual assistance element that NATO was originally all about.

The population of many countries was promised a lot of things in exchange for membership and what they have received is clearly not up to the expectations.

Another reason for a unified European Air Force!

Since US is not in Europe and Russia is not in European Union that idea is doomed so NATO is here to stay.

The choice is here between no-one performing Freedom of Navigation exercises or the USN doing it…usually in concert with others…the latter option is the better for the global economy and that one fact is indisputable.

What is indisputable is that US has not signed and therefore not ratified United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that rules sea lanes, innocent passage, transit passage and its enforcement and safeguards.

Well the latest article from Reuters very much paints the picture of a political turf war!

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/10/uk-iraq-russia-arms-idUKBRE8A90GH20121110

What is bemusing about the Russian deal is the lack of proper tender (then again a fair amount of recent Iraqi procurement has been without a proper tender so nothing new there) and its announcement by the Russians rather then Iraqis when Al-Maliki visited Moscow. The acting defence minister who negotiated the deal denies anyproblems! Question is who has more clout the acting defence minister or the Prime minister and who is pulling what string behind the scenes.

Rather murky in all respects!

Iraqi schizophrenic government is in dire need of recovering its military capabilities to keep the country together and a tender is the slowest and tortuous path, and US is not helping much. If someone feels that weapons are needed, and looking at Iraqi armed forces they are, there’s a high probability of resorting to former suppliers, even if its not politically halal, and in some places customs come in hand with corruption that may be or not be the case depending of who was first.

Russians pulling the rabbit beforehand is not surprising at all since it serves the purpose of publicly restoring arms trade wih Iraq. Relations between Iraq and Iran are gaining momentum with western sanctions and Syrian struggle, the idea of an all Sunni neighborhood is not exactly pleasant.

Just as soon as they can get a few carrier battle groups assembled it would actually…

Whether you generally agree with US policy or not keeping international sea lanes open benefits the whole world.

Neither whalers nor Somali pirates are threatening sea lanes, let alone Iran that uses those same shipping lanes to export their oil and import all kind things.

Even if Iranian vessels start sailing next to US territorial waters US Government is not going to spoke against it because US Navy is the main advocator of innocent passage and in that situation media outrage would be limited to newspaper side notes and finger pointing at UN on Fox News.