Russian tanks

© AP
Russian tanks in drills at the Kadamovskiy firing range in the Rostov region in southern Russia
Jan. 12, 2022

In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke well-nigh continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance. He said:

"Their [NATO'southward] main task is to contain the evolution of Russia. Ukraine is but a tool to reach this goal. They could depict the states into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked well-nigh in the United States today. Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, ready up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by forcefulness, and notwithstanding draw us into an armed conflict."

Putin continued:

"Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are land-of-the-fine art missile systems just like in Poland and Romania. Who will end it from unleashing operations in Crimea, permit alone Donbass? Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Exercise we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems non."

But these words were dismissed past White Firm spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox "screaming from the height of the hen house that he'due south scared of the chickens," adding that whatever Russian expression of fearfulness over Ukraine "should not exist reported as a argument of fact."

Psaki'due south comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The chief goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the " de-occupation" of Crimea. While this goal has, in the past, been couched in terms of diplomacy - "[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula," Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea - the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military 1, in which Russian federation has been identified every bit a "military antagonist", and the achievement of which can only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. Equally an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate whatever offensive military activeness to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russian federation. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine's membership, if granted, would demand to include some linguistic communication regarding the limits of NATO's Article 5 - which relates to commonage defense - when addressing the Crimea state of affairs, or else a state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine existence rapidly brought under the 'umbrella' of NATO protection, with 'battlegroups' like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil every bit a 'trip-wire' force, and modern air defenses combined with forrard-deployed NATO shipping put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would experience emboldened to brainstorm a hybrid conflict against what information technology terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing anarchistic warfare capability it has acquired since 2015 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to "kill Russians."

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than likely use its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would weep foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Commodity 5. In short, NATO would be at war with Russian federation.

This is not idle speculation. When explaining his recent decision to deploy some 3,000 United states troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, US President Joe Biden declared:

"As long equally he's [Putin] interim aggressively, we are going to make sure we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we're there and Commodity v is a sacred obligation."

Biden'south comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June xv concluding twelvemonth. At that time, Biden sat downwardly with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America's commitment to Article five of the NATO charter. Biden said:

"Commodity 5 we take equally a sacred obligation. I want NATO to know America is there."

Biden'due south view of NATO and Ukraine is fatigued from his feel every bit vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, then-Deputy Secretarial assistant of Defence force Bob Work told reporters:

"As President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... exist able to cull its ain future. And nosotros decline whatever talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Republic of estonia this by September, the president made it clear that our delivery to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance there are no erstwhile members and at that place are no new members. At that place are no inferior partners and at that place are no senior partners. In that location are just allies, pure and unproblematic. And nosotros will defend the territorial integrity of every single ally."

Just what would this defense entail? As someone who in one case trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can adjure that a state of war with Russia would be dissimilar anything the U.s.a. military has experienced - ever. The The states war machine is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does information technology possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined artillery disharmonize. If the US was to exist drawn into a conventional basis war with Russia, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American armed services history. In brusk, it would be a rout.

Don't take my discussion for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking about the results of a study - the Russia New Generation Warfare - he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Heart for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians accept superior arms firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aeriform vehicles (UAVs) for tactical consequence.

"Should The states forces notice themselves in a land war with Russia, they would be in for a rude, cold awakening."

In brusque, they would go their asses kicked.

America's 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Republic of iraq, and Syrian arab republic produced a military that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a written report conducted by the US Regular army'due south 173rd Airborne Brigade, the key American component of NATO'south Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The study found that U.s.a. armed services forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military assailment from Russia. The lack of viable air defence force and electronic warfare adequacy, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would upshot in the piecemeal destruction of the US Army in rapid order should they face off confronting a Russian armed services that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The consequence isn't just qualitative, but besides quantitative - even if the United states military machine could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can't), it simply lacks the size to survive in whatever sustained battle or campaign. The low-intensity conflict that the U.s. armed forces waged in Republic of iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan has created an organizational ethos congenital around the thought that every American life is precious, and that all efforts volition be made to evacuate the wounded and so that they can receive life-saving medical attention in every bit short a timeframe equally possible. This concept may have been viable where the The states was in command of the surround in which fights were conducted. Information technology is, however, pure fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare. There won't exist medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue - even if they launched, they would be shot down. At that place won't exist field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in short society. At that place won't be field hospitals - fifty-fifty if they were established, they would be captured past Russian mobile forces.

What in that location will exist is death and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster's study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined artillery brigade past Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar US combat formation. The superiority Russia enjoys in artillery fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of arms systems fielded and the lethality of the munitions employed.

While the Us Air Force may be able to mount a fight in the airspace in a higher place any battlefield, in that location will be zippo like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian basis troops will exist operating nether an air defence force umbrella the likes of which neither the Us nor NATO has always faced. At that place volition be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the footing will be on their own.

This feeling of isolation will exist furthered past the reality that, because of Russia's overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare adequacy , the The states forces on the footing will exist deaf, impaired, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons terminate to function.

Any state of war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to take losses of 30-40 per centum and continue the fight, considering that was the reality of mod combat against a Soviet threat. Dorsum then, we were able to effectively lucifer the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability - in short, we could give as practiced, or better, than we got.

That wouldn't exist the case in any European war against Russia. The US volition lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Fifty-fifty when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a affair of the past. Our tactics are no longer up to par - when there is close gainsay, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than non, come out on the losing side.

Only even if the U.s. manages to win the odd tactical date confronting peer-level infantry, it simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to bear. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US ground troops were effective confronting modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably non), American troops will only exist overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians will face up them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-manner attack carried out by specially trained United states Army troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Preparation Middle in Fort Irwin, California, where ii Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off confronting a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morning. By 5:30am information technology was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There's something about 170 armored vehicles bearing downwardly on your position that makes defeat all just inevitable.

This is what a war with Russian federation would look similar. It would not be limited to Ukraine, just extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

This is what volition happen if the US and NATO seek to attach the "sacred obligation" of Article v of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

Nearly the Author:
Scott Ritter is a former Us Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION Rex: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter