Posted on 02/10/2024 5:14:17 PM PST by hardspunned
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first NATO supreme veallied commander. Shortly after assuming that post, he wrote these words in February 1951:
“If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project [NATO] will have failed.” One can only wonder at his reaction today if he learned that 46 years later, the United States was the dominant force in a plan not just to continue our powerful military presence there but to enlarge NATO’s responsibilities and increase U.S. costs and risks in Europe. If his granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, is any guide to his reaction, he would not be pleased. She gathered an impressive group of 49 military, political and academic leaders who joined her in signing an open letter to President Clinton on June 26 that terms the plan to expand NATO “a policy error of historic proportions.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Did Patton have enough winter gear? German army was defeated in Russia by the brutal winter. With 12 time zones, Russia is very hard to conquer. Japan is designed to be nuked with highly dense population. USA could not defeat North Vietnam, Afghanistan and made a disastrous blunder to take out Sadam who was keeping Iran under control and there was no ISIS under Sadam.
The key to conquering or defeating Russia has always been Moscow. That’s a critical flaw of the gross centralization practiced in Russia.
In 1945 all phone calls went through Moscow. Obliterating that city would disrupt Soviet command and control.
Erich von Mannstein wrote of this and so did Winston Churchill.
Not going to happen. Russia has the biggest deterrent in form of biggest stock of nukes. And those are not located in Moscow. 12 time zones make USA look small with just 3 time zones.
Russia also has 12,000 main battle tanks of which around 3,000 are functional. A far worse ratio will apply to their nuclear weapons which require frequent and very costly maintainence.
It also doesn’t help that, so far as I can tell, Russia has not produced or reprocessed a nuclear weapon since 2017 when their Mayak facility suffered a nuclear accident and was destroyed.
Eisenhower supported NATO expansion by promoting German rearmament, the creation of the Bundeswehr, under NATO, against French opposition. He wanted the Euros to become responsible for their own defense.
Longer term that didnt quite work because of the Euro demands for social welfare spending. And THAT was largely necessary to counter Soviet subversion, to keep pro-Soviet parties from making Euro countries neutrals. Its forgotten today how powerful communist parties were in postwar Europe. The Soviets fought their holy war on many levels.
That danger faded (but never went away), when Europe generally achieved an incontestibly superior public standard of living vis a vis the Eastern bloc.
The 1997 article claims that a resurgent Russia was a “chimera”. Well, thanks largely to the subsequent development of Russian energy infrastructure, that “chimera” turned out to be quite real.
I can give you 10:1 odds, no country is suicidal enough to nuke Russia. May be except Iran. But Putin gets along with Iran. May be if Zelensky had a nuke he would bomb Moscow. May be Biden will give Zelensky a couple of nukes. Biden ensures a win in 2024 by staring a war with a Russia.
“May be if Zelensky had a nuke he would bomb Moscow.”
If Ukraine had retained their nukes Russia never would have invaded in 2014.
LOL. And just how many world wars have you won?
How many battles did Patton win that Ike didn’t want him to win?
Zero.
If if if ...
This is from from General Alexander, sir, reminding you that you are not to take Palermo.
Send him a message, Cod. Ask him if he wants me to give it back.
Lol, the political and diplomatic decisions had already been made. There was zero chance of the US invading the Soviet Union. If you think Eisenhower had any choice in the matter, you are woefully ignorant of history.
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