Posted on 06/23/2015 8:23:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
"U.S. Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in East Europe: A Message to Russia," ran the headline in The New York Times.
"In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries," said the Times. The sources cited were "American and allied officials."
The Pentagon's message received a reply June 16. Russian Gen. Yuri Yakubov called the U.S. move "the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War." When Moscow detects U.S. heavy weapons moving into the Baltic, said Yakubov, Russia will "bolster its forces and resources on the western strategic theater of operations."
Specifically, Moscow will outfit its missile brigade in Kaliningrad, bordering Lithuania and Poland, "with new Iskander tactical missile systems." The Iskander can fire nuclear warheads.
The Pentagon and Congress apparently think Vladimir Putin is a bluffer and, faced by U.S. toughness, will back down.
For the House has passed and Sen. John McCain is moving a bill to provide Ukraine with anti-armor weapons, mortars, grenade launchers and ammunition. The administration could not spend more than half of the $300 million budgeted, unless 20 percent is earmarked for offensive weapons.
Congress is voting to give Kiev a green light and the weaponry to attempt a recapture of Donetsk and Luhansk from pro-Russian rebels, who have split off from Ukraine, and Crimea, annexed by Moscow.
If the Pentagon is indeed moving U.S. troops and heavy weapons into Poland and the Baltic States, and is about to provide arms to Kiev to attack the rebels in East Ukraine, we are headed for a U.S.-Russian confrontation unlike any seen since the Cold War.
And reconsider the outcome of those confrontations.
Lest we forget, while it was Khrushchev who backed down in the Cuban missile crisis, President Eisenhower did nothing to halt the crushing of the Hungarian rebels, Kennedy accepted the Berlin Wall, and Lyndon Johnson refused to lift a finger to save the Czechs when their "Prague Spring" was snuffed out by Warsaw Pact tank armies.
Even Reagan's response to the crushing of Solidarity was with words not military action.
None of these presidents was an appeaser, but all respected the geostrategic reality that any military challenge to Moscow on the other side of NATO's Red Line in Germany carried the risk of a calamitous war for causes not justifying such a risk.
Yet we are today risking a collision with Russia in the Baltic States and Ukraine, where no vital U.S. interest has ever existed and where our adversary enjoys military superiority.
As Les Gelb writes in The National Interest, "the West's limp hand" in the Baltic and "Russia's military superiority over NATO on its Western borders," is "painfully evident to all."
"If NATO ups the military ante, Moscow can readily trump it. Moscow has significant advantages in conventional forces -- backed by potent tactical nuclear weapons and a stated willingness to use them to sustain advantages or avoid defeat. The last thing NATO wants is to look weak or lose a confrontation."
And NATO losing any such confrontation is the likely outcome of the collision provoked by the Pentagon and John McCain.
For if Kiev moves with U.S. arms against the rebels in the east, and Moscow sends planes, tanks and artillery to annihilate them, Kiev will be routed. And what we do then?
Send carriers into the Black Sea to attack the Russian fleet at Sevastopol, and battle Russian missiles and air attacks?
Before we schedule a NATO confrontation with Russia, we had best look behind us to see who is following America's lead.
According to a new survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, fewer than half of the respondents in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain thought NATO should fight if its Baltic allies were attacked by Russia. Germans, by a 58-38 margin, did not think military force should be used by NATO to defend Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, though that is what Article 5 of the NATO charter requires of Germany.
Americans, by 56-37, favor using force to defend the Baltic States. On military aid to Ukraine, America is divided, 46 percent in favor, 43 percent opposed. However, only 1 in 5 Germans and Italians favor arming Ukraine, and in not a single major NATO nation does the arming of Ukraine enjoy clear majority support.
In Washington, Congressional hawks are primed to show Putin who is truly tough. But in shipping weapons to Ukraine and sending U.S. troops and armor into the Baltic States, they have behind them a divided nation and a NATO alliance that wants no part of this confrontation.
Unlike the Cuban missile crisis, it is Russia that has regional military superiority here, and a leader seemingly prepared to ride the escalator up right alongside us.
Are we sure it will be the Russians who blink this time?
I am just reading this book NOW....I’m at the 96% mark.
Very mediocre, very disappointing frankly. But man, right on topic!
Hitler made the same misjudgement with Stalin.
So far, the US can’t even defeat a ragtag bunch of goat lovers in the Middle East. Neither could the Russians, for that matter. The US is broke, we are filling our country with illegal immigrants and Muslims, and we have stretched our military to the breaking point.
What exactly is Europe doing for us? Let them take care of their own problems.
The time for world domination by one country is past. Smaller and smaller groups are able to wield power and weaponry that only large nation states had previously.
Suggested reading - The Sovereign Individual by Rees-Mogg and Davidson, and The Transformation of War by Martin van Creveld.
If the US doesn’t take care of the problems we have in our own country, we won’t be able to do anything abroad.
LOL, no one is making such a mistake, Russia doesn’t have the muscle to invade our NATO nations and he knows it.
Good lord, look at your home page.
I hope that no one is paying attention to the military wisdom of a self described, libertarian grandmother.
It was the first Clancy I ever read. I was glued to it to the end.
I’m listening to some old Star Trek TOS books. THOSE are written at a 9th grade level.
Exactly,,, all NATO would need to do is kick in the door and the whole rotten structure would collapse.
The weakness in Red Storm rising is this: there is no visit to the White House to see what the President is saying...no mention of what the media is saying...no mention of the congressional wheeling and dealing...no mention of what the CIA is doing - and they damned sure would have been very involved.
I think those are weaknesses. He also didn’t predict very well how the next wars would be fought, though I give him a pass on that somewhat since this was written in 86. I think Red October had a much better storyline.
But I’m gonna finish it.
I don’t think you need worry about that. My own kids don’t even listen to me. ;-)
BTW, I am more conservative than libertarian.
Be that as it may, the truth is, the US is in a bad way and had better solve its problems at home. As long as we have open borders and are bringing thousands of Muslims into the US, we are inviting our own doom.
Europe is the least of our worries.
“Doesn’t anyone remember how defense of Europe works?”
Considering how Russia just waltzed into Ukraine and took what it wanted, looks like American leadership doesn’t remember how defense of Europe works.
I expect both Russia and China will make massive land grabs within a few months, betting that the Obama has no interest in defending anyone. They’ll make the move while the disinterested lame duck is in office, and start soon enough that they’ll have it all wrapped up, under control, and defenses firmly in place before 20 January 2017.
Reagan saw the nation that you are supporting, as the greatest threat to America and the world.
For a woman to run around saying that all this man stuff is just unimportant and that we can just ignore the evil empire and concentrate on domestic issues, even as they are conducting an invasion right up to our NATO border, doesn’t work in the real world.
We cannot allow the return to the Cold War, and the possible loss of the United States.
Ukraine isn't a NATO nation, and we still conduct military exercises in Ukraine, and if you notice, the invasion of Ukraine is destroying Putin, and is rebuilding, uniting, and reinvigorating NATO, and may even enlarge NATO, as Sweden and Finland start looking at joining.
“Putin doesn’t have a military capable of sustained, large invasions anymore.”
Putin doesn’t need a military capable of sustained large invasions. He just needs a military capable of walking in and announcing “you’re ours” and quietly shooting anyone who disagrees, a la Ukraine.
Frequently redrawn borders are the historical norm in Europe. Leadership - current US CiC especially - shows no interest in enforcing current borders by force.
Hey, I loved Reagan, but this is not 1980. Our biggest threat is not from Russia. We are being destroyed from within. The Muslims and illegal immigration are going to destroy this country. That is what we need to fight. Europe wouldn’t pee on us if we were on fire.
That’s right Pat, let’s just bend the knee to Tsar Putin.
Like Ukraine?
We and other NATO nations are still doing military exercises in Ukraine.
Putin’s military, largely made up of poorly trained, poorly equipped, 1 year draftees, with little capability to move large numbers of troops and supplies, especially if Western nations are destroying them on the roads, are seemingly having troubles with Ukraine, they are not capable of conducting large invasions against the nations of Europe and NATO.
Selfie Soldiers: Russia Checks in to Ukraine
http://youtu.be/2zssIFN2mso
(Tracking Russian soldiers movement into Ukraine via their pictures posted to social media.)
IMO, the loss of the United States will be entirely driven from within.
“We and other NATO nations are still doing military exercises in Ukraine.”
And yet, despite promises to the contrary, we are doing absolutely nothing about a large fraction of Ukraine being annexed by Russia.
That would be like losing the southwestern USA to Mexico, doing nothing about it, and saying “we still have military bases & exercises in the rest of the country.” (Example chosen for very relevant reasons. Methinks Travis McGee here elaborated on that subject at length.)
Ukraine isn’t a NATO nation, and we are doing a lot.
Do you want NATO to join Ukraine in war?
You want us to engage in combat in Ukraine? Why would we do that, especially since Putin is self destructing, and helping our conservative defense goals?
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