Prologue: LOSERS In Name Only
In the first two decades of the Cold War, the intelligence services of the West Block made some startling discoveries that hinted at an unexpected build-up of Soviet military capability, airlift capability, and even spaceflight capability. With spyplanes temporarily grounded due to certain political and diplomatic issues at the time, spy sats had to step up their efforts more than usual. To add insult to injury, not only did their photos and footage seem to imply a great and unexpected build-up, it also showcased tests of unknown new vehicles in the Caspian sea. These were theorised to be prototypes of some sort of revolutionary aircraft and hovering speedboat hybrids. No doubt testbeds for later models intended for a potential invasion of the West Block nations.
The resulting revelations caused an occurence that was fairly common in a timeline also known as OTL. Overestimating the capability of the enemy side, in some cases, even to comically hypercompetent levels. However, unlike in the timeline known as OTL, in this alternate branching of the OTL timeline, the paniced overestimating of East Block capabilities became a little too overzealous, and a little less skeptical than it was in OTL or than it should have been. Given the more rudimentary espionage technology of the era, even one utilised in spy sats - such as the United States' Corona series - such mistakes occassionally happened. But goodness gracious, did the mother of all intel-gathering mistakes occur in the early-to-mid 1960s !
Even with the benefit of hindsight, the whole hullabaloo caused a slow-burning panic in the governments and armed forces of West Block countries, with new weapons programmes launched, readiness doctrines strenghthened, and a build-up of conventional military capabilities and even more financial investment into spaceflight infrastructure west of the Iron Curtain. (Why, yes, dear reader, you have perceived this unsubtle hint correctly as the beginning of a bigger allohistorical divergence. But this time, it won't be primarily about the big players.) While NATO countries and cooperating neutral European countries west of the Iron Curtain decided to reassess their defence strategies, something happened that few could have predicted.
In the early 1960s, there was an inaugural "International Congress of Small European States" (ICSES), where several small to outright tiny countries of Europe met to discuss potential mutual cooperation. With the exception of Iceland and Luxembourg, none of these were members of NATO. Malta was the most recently independent of these countries.
One of the major political figures attending the congress was then new grand duke of Luxembourg, Jean. A veteran of the 1944 Allied operations in western Europe, including the liberation of his native Luxembourg, Jean had grown concerned over the much-disseminated reports by NATO states and even several neutral European states about increasing East Block military capacities. During some private relaxation with fellow heads of state, heads of governments, and other dignitaries, Jean struck up a conversation with fellow monarchs, prince of Liechtenstein, Franz Joseph II, prince of Monaco, Rainier III, and also with prime minister of Iceland Bjarni Benediktsson (of the pro-NATO, pro-Atlanticist Independence Party), the Maltese prime minister Giorgio Borg Olivier, the Sanmarinese captains regent Giuseppe Micheloni and Pier Marino Mularoni. Grand duke Jean suggested that, as part of the future activities proposed by the ICSES, the time might be ripe to consider whether the countries could proceed to spend more on proper militaries. All in light of the worrying revelations about a new wave of East Block armament and possible investment into terrifying new weapon programmes. Several of Jean's fellow statesmen at first thought he was joking, but as the friendly debates continued at moments of downtime during the Congress, they started mellowing to the grand duke's unexpected suggestion, his bold idea.
A few months later, in early 1965, Europe was witness to an announcement on the founding of a new cooperative international organization, the League of Small European Republics and States.
(Some of the cheekier 1960s anglophone journalists and political scientists noted the resultant unfortunate acronym, which spelled "LOSERS". In the decades since, the organization has never changed its name, nor objected to its peculiar acronym. This has led to occassional speculation that the humorous acronym was devised on purpose, to catch the global public's attention and perhaps even defy their mocking expectations.)
To everyone's surprise, the signatories of the LOSERS founding charter also promised a programme of reinstating and/or modernizing their countries' military forces (e.g. Liechtenstein's and Andorra's military in the former case, the existing militaries of all these small countries in the latter case). Small as these republics and monarchies may be, they, as the member states of the newly established LOSERS argued that "in these trying times, with news of military build-up in the East Block, it is high time for us to reconsider our positions on national defence measures. As a consequence, we have deemed that a basic military capability should be created in all of the member states, on land, in the air, and where applicable, at sea. We will establish or develop these military institutions and their infrastructure purely for the sake of national self-defence, never military offensives. We will also reject any WMD inventories on our soil...".
And that wasn't the end of the story.
By the mid-1970s, it eventually came to light that the intelligence services in the 1950s and 1960s had made some hasty assumptions, and even misplaced a few numbers. (This was later blamed on some clerk of one of the agencies who worked on documentation late into the night, eventually losing concentration, misplacing some numbers and dozing off.)
One revelation had brought about a Cold War scare that nearly rivaled that of the even grimmer-seeming Cuban Missile Crisis, but now, more than a decade later... that revelation from roughly two decades ago proved a flap, a mistake, a misunderstanding, an overestimation.
This left the small European countries of the "LOSERS" defence union in an awkward place. They now realised they formed the defence union and started arming their countries more heavily in response to a threat that turned out to be a mistake. Oops !
The governments of the LOSERS countries were now faced with the dilemma of whether to rollback or once again abolish their militaries. Ultimately, given the newly increasing tensions between West and East in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the Cold War still having no end in sight, they decided to do what the previous generations of their politicians would have deemed "Operation Unthinkable". They would decide to keep their newly established or modernized armed forces and defence forces, and attempt to gradually update them as the decades went on.
This is a tale that occured in a timeline almost exactly like OTL, yet subtly different, in a timeframe between the 1950s and the 2020s.
This is the tale of how a bunch of small-to-tiny European countries told themselves "We're big enough to go for a beer ourselves !" and established their modern military and peacekeeping traditions in the seven to eight decades of European history after the second world war. This is a little allohistorical tale of everyone's favourite European underdogs: Luxembourg, Iceland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Malta... and the Vatican's military as an official "long-term observer member".
This is a tale of... actually really lucky... LOSERS !
----
Petike presents
LOSERS: The League of Small European Republics and States
A somewhat tongue-in-cheek European microstates military history timeline
The resulting revelations caused an occurence that was fairly common in a timeline also known as OTL. Overestimating the capability of the enemy side, in some cases, even to comically hypercompetent levels. However, unlike in the timeline known as OTL, in this alternate branching of the OTL timeline, the paniced overestimating of East Block capabilities became a little too overzealous, and a little less skeptical than it was in OTL or than it should have been. Given the more rudimentary espionage technology of the era, even one utilised in spy sats - such as the United States' Corona series - such mistakes occassionally happened. But goodness gracious, did the mother of all intel-gathering mistakes occur in the early-to-mid 1960s !
Even with the benefit of hindsight, the whole hullabaloo caused a slow-burning panic in the governments and armed forces of West Block countries, with new weapons programmes launched, readiness doctrines strenghthened, and a build-up of conventional military capabilities and even more financial investment into spaceflight infrastructure west of the Iron Curtain. (Why, yes, dear reader, you have perceived this unsubtle hint correctly as the beginning of a bigger allohistorical divergence. But this time, it won't be primarily about the big players.) While NATO countries and cooperating neutral European countries west of the Iron Curtain decided to reassess their defence strategies, something happened that few could have predicted.
In the early 1960s, there was an inaugural "International Congress of Small European States" (ICSES), where several small to outright tiny countries of Europe met to discuss potential mutual cooperation. With the exception of Iceland and Luxembourg, none of these were members of NATO. Malta was the most recently independent of these countries.
One of the major political figures attending the congress was then new grand duke of Luxembourg, Jean. A veteran of the 1944 Allied operations in western Europe, including the liberation of his native Luxembourg, Jean had grown concerned over the much-disseminated reports by NATO states and even several neutral European states about increasing East Block military capacities. During some private relaxation with fellow heads of state, heads of governments, and other dignitaries, Jean struck up a conversation with fellow monarchs, prince of Liechtenstein, Franz Joseph II, prince of Monaco, Rainier III, and also with prime minister of Iceland Bjarni Benediktsson (of the pro-NATO, pro-Atlanticist Independence Party), the Maltese prime minister Giorgio Borg Olivier, the Sanmarinese captains regent Giuseppe Micheloni and Pier Marino Mularoni. Grand duke Jean suggested that, as part of the future activities proposed by the ICSES, the time might be ripe to consider whether the countries could proceed to spend more on proper militaries. All in light of the worrying revelations about a new wave of East Block armament and possible investment into terrifying new weapon programmes. Several of Jean's fellow statesmen at first thought he was joking, but as the friendly debates continued at moments of downtime during the Congress, they started mellowing to the grand duke's unexpected suggestion, his bold idea.
A few months later, in early 1965, Europe was witness to an announcement on the founding of a new cooperative international organization, the League of Small European Republics and States.
(Some of the cheekier 1960s anglophone journalists and political scientists noted the resultant unfortunate acronym, which spelled "LOSERS". In the decades since, the organization has never changed its name, nor objected to its peculiar acronym. This has led to occassional speculation that the humorous acronym was devised on purpose, to catch the global public's attention and perhaps even defy their mocking expectations.)
To everyone's surprise, the signatories of the LOSERS founding charter also promised a programme of reinstating and/or modernizing their countries' military forces (e.g. Liechtenstein's and Andorra's military in the former case, the existing militaries of all these small countries in the latter case). Small as these republics and monarchies may be, they, as the member states of the newly established LOSERS argued that "in these trying times, with news of military build-up in the East Block, it is high time for us to reconsider our positions on national defence measures. As a consequence, we have deemed that a basic military capability should be created in all of the member states, on land, in the air, and where applicable, at sea. We will establish or develop these military institutions and their infrastructure purely for the sake of national self-defence, never military offensives. We will also reject any WMD inventories on our soil...".
And that wasn't the end of the story.
By the mid-1970s, it eventually came to light that the intelligence services in the 1950s and 1960s had made some hasty assumptions, and even misplaced a few numbers. (This was later blamed on some clerk of one of the agencies who worked on documentation late into the night, eventually losing concentration, misplacing some numbers and dozing off.)
One revelation had brought about a Cold War scare that nearly rivaled that of the even grimmer-seeming Cuban Missile Crisis, but now, more than a decade later... that revelation from roughly two decades ago proved a flap, a mistake, a misunderstanding, an overestimation.
This left the small European countries of the "LOSERS" defence union in an awkward place. They now realised they formed the defence union and started arming their countries more heavily in response to a threat that turned out to be a mistake. Oops !
The governments of the LOSERS countries were now faced with the dilemma of whether to rollback or once again abolish their militaries. Ultimately, given the newly increasing tensions between West and East in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the Cold War still having no end in sight, they decided to do what the previous generations of their politicians would have deemed "Operation Unthinkable". They would decide to keep their newly established or modernized armed forces and defence forces, and attempt to gradually update them as the decades went on.
This is a tale that occured in a timeline almost exactly like OTL, yet subtly different, in a timeframe between the 1950s and the 2020s.
This is the tale of how a bunch of small-to-tiny European countries told themselves "We're big enough to go for a beer ourselves !" and established their modern military and peacekeeping traditions in the seven to eight decades of European history after the second world war. This is a little allohistorical tale of everyone's favourite European underdogs: Luxembourg, Iceland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Malta... and the Vatican's military as an official "long-term observer member".
This is a tale of... actually really lucky... LOSERS !
----
Petike presents
LOSERS: The League of Small European Republics and States
A somewhat tongue-in-cheek European microstates military history timeline
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