Russian tanks

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

In a contempo press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime number 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 brotherhood. He said:

"Their [NATO's] main chore is to comprise the evolution of Russia. Ukraine is simply a tool to attain this goal. They could draw u.s.a. into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked almost in the United states today. Or they could describe Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the effect of Donbass or Crimea by forcefulness, and still describe us into an armed conflict."

Putin continued:

"Allow us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO fellow member and is stuffed with weapons and there are state-of-the-art missile systems merely similar in Poland and Romania. Who volition stop information technology from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let united states of america imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a gainsay performance. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything nearly it? It seems not."

But these words were dismissed by White Business firm spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox "screaming from the top of the hen house that he's scared of the chickens," adding that whatsoever Russian expression of fear over Ukraine "should not be reported as a argument of fact."

Psaki's comments, still, are divorced from the reality of the state of affairs. The principal goal of the authorities 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 affairs - "[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the render 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 war machine one, in which Russian federation has been identified as a "military adversary", and the accomplishment of which tin can only exist achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive armed services action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine's membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO'due south Commodity 5 - which relates to collective defense - when addressing the Crimea state of affairs, or else a country of state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine beingness speedily brought under the 'umbrella' of NATO protection, with 'battlegroups' like those deployed into eastern Europe beingness formed on Ukrainian soil as a 'trip-wire' strength, and modern air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

One time 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 unconventional 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 down 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 than likely use its ain anarchistic capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would exist confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article 5. In curt, NATO would exist at war with Russia.

This is non idle speculation. When explaining his recent determination to deploy some 3,000 US troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, Usa President Joe Biden declared:

"As long as he's [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to make sure nosotros reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we're there and Commodity 5 is a sacred obligation."

Biden's comments repeat those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 last twelvemonth. At that time, Biden sabbatum downwards with NATO Secretarial assistant-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America'southward delivery to Article 5 of the NATO charter. Biden said:

"Commodity v nosotros take as a sacred obligation. I want NATO to know America is there."

Biden'southward view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work told reporters:

"As President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... exist able to choose its own future. And we reject any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president fabricated it clear that our delivery to our NATO allies in the confront of Russian aggression is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and in that location are no new members. There are no junior partners and in that location are no senior partners. There are just allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every unmarried marry."

Just what would this defence entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can attest that a war with Russian federation would be unlike anything the US military has experienced - e'er. The US armed forces is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-calibration combined arms conflict. If the U.s.a. was to be drawn into a conventional basis war with Russia, it would discover itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American war machine history. In brusque, it would be a rout.

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

"Should US forces notice themselves in a land war with Russian federation, they would be in for a rude, cold awakening."

In curt, they would get their asses kicked.

America's 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Republic of iraq, and Syria produced a armed forces that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a study conducted past the U.s. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO's Rapid Deployment Strength, in 2017. The study found that United states war machine forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to face up armed services assailment from Russian federation. The lack of viable air defence and electronic warfare capability, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would effect in the piecemeal destruction of the Usa Army in rapid order should they confront off confronting a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a U.s.a./NATO threat.

The issue isn't just qualitative, just also quantitative - even if the The states military could stand up toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can't), information technology simply lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The low-intensity conflict that the US armed services waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos congenital around the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will exist made to evacuate the wounded then that they can receive life-saving medical attending in as short a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the US was in command of the surround in which fights were conducted. Information technology is, still, pure fiction in large-calibration combined arms warfare. In that location won't be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue - even if they launched, they would be shot down. In that location won't exist field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in brusque order. At that place won't exist field hospitals - even if they were established, they would exist captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is death and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster's report of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade past Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of whatever similar US combat germination. The superiority Russian federation 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 The states Air Force may be able to mount a fight in the airspace in a higher place whatever battlefield, there will exist nothing like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American armed forces in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air forcefulness, and Russian footing troops volition exist operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the United states of america nor NATO has ever faced. There will exist no shut air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground volition exist on their own.

This feeling of isolation will exist furthered by the reality that, because of Russian federation'southward overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability , the US forces on the ground will be deafened, impaired, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and fifty-fifty operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons stop to function.

Any war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in big numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-xl percent and keep the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Dorsum and so, we were able to effectively lucifer the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability - in short, we could requite as good, or better, than we got.

That wouldn't be the case in any European war against Russia. The U.s.a. will lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the past. Our tactics are no longer upwards to par - when there is shut combat, it will be extraordinarily vehement, and the US will, more times than not, come out on the losing side.

But fifty-fifty if the US manages to win the odd tactical engagement against peer-level infantry, it simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to deport. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of The states footing troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will simply be overwhelmed past the mass of combat strength the Russians volition face them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-manner attack carried out by specially trained Us Army troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Grooming Heart in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-manner Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off confronting a US Ground forces Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morning. By five:30am it was over, with the U.s.a. Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. At that place'due south something virtually 170 armored vehicles begetting down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a state of war with Russia would expect like. It would non be limited to Ukraine, only 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 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

Virtually the Author:
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and writer of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Comprehend 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 every bit a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter