Posted on 02/03/2016 12:11:55 PM PST by Trumpinator
If Russia Started a War in the Baltics, NATO Would Lose — Quickly
War games show NATO’s eastern flank is vulnerable. To deter Moscow, the United States will need to deploy heavy armor on a large scale, a new study says.
By Dan De Luce
February 3, 2016
If Russian tanks and troops rolled into the Baltics tomorrow, outgunned and outnumbered NATO forces would be overrun in under three days. That’s the sobering conclusion of war games carried out by a think tank with American military officers and civilian officials.
“The games’ findings are unambiguous: As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members,†said a report by the Rand Corp., which led the war gaming research.
In numerous tabletop war games played over several months between 2014-2015, Russian forces were knocking on the doors of the Estonian capital of Tallinn or the Latvian capital of Riga within 36 to 60 hours. U.S. and Baltic troops — and American airpower — proved unable to halt the advance of mechanized Russian units and suffered heavy casualties, the report said.
The study argues that NATO has been caught napping by a resurgent and unpredictable Russia, which has begun to boost defense spending after having seized the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine and intervened in support of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine. In the event of a potential Russian incursion in the Baltics, the United States and its allies lack sufficient troop numbers, or tanks and armored vehicles, to slow the advance of Russian armor, said the report by Rand’s David Shlapak and Michael Johnson.
“Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad,†it said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
Not really news, NATO is essentially twisting in the wind until the the American army arrrives with reinforcements.
was like that when I served too.
Russia back then in the early 90’s could easily have swept across Europe and we were always told this.
Hell half of our vehicles were waiting for spare parts.
NATO could not have stopped a Warsaw Pact invasion back in the 60s.
The nukes are the only thing NATO has to really forestall a Soviet invasion of the Baltics.
Oops... Soviet = Russian
There are only two countries which could fight back.
UK and us.
Germany though does have a good army and great equipment, but would their elected officials screw things up.
The rest of Europe forget and Turkey please they only joined because Greece was there.
Even Jaruzelski confessed that had NATO invaded, Polish troops would have turned on the Soviets.
Germany can’t be bothered with things like defending their borders and those of their allies. They’re too busy hosting Muslims.
So, what this article is saying is that the status of US Forces, Europe has not really changed in the early 1980s.
If I recall, we were supposed to bottleneck them in the Fulda Gap.
But, I might be a little cloudy on my history.
“NATO” (meaning, Germany) would under no circumstances fight for the Baltic states.
Any “war” there would be over before it began.
And right now the pussnchief wouldn’t use a nuke even if the Russians dropped 300 ICBMs all over the North American continent. We have a dangerous year ahead of us.
But—but, Genmeral Shinseki (sp?) assured us that the tank was obsolete and the wheeled Stryker would be the optimal weapon. Somehow, I think we are short on tanks and short on any thing but up armored Hummers.
Honestly, NATO overextended by moving into the Baltics.
Russia still holds Kaliningrad. They could surround the Baltics in a pincer movement and we’d be cut off from supply lines.
Ping
I’ve said that for over 5 years. That’s Putin’s play into the baltic states.... to “protect” soviet citizens.
It’s classic. He’ll “stabilize” the situation.
Why bother when the US Congress quadruples its own European defense spending?
I served in Germany 1969-70. My boss was career, and he said the plan if hostilities broke out in Europe, was to hold Germany for a few days, until nukes could be used to even things out.
IOW the USSR was dominant in terms of conventional forces.
The ground troop in Germany during the Cold War, were expendable.
We have but a fraction today, of those Cold War force numbers.
NATO is security theater, its an arm of the new world order.
That’s what the Davy Crockett was for, until the Pentagon realized how bad of an idea putting nukes and subsequent escalation in the hands of the average lieutenant was.
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