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In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow past Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke near continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to bring together the trans-Atlantic alliance.

"Their [NATO'south] main job is to contain the evolution of Russia," Putin said. "Ukraine is simply a tool to accomplish this goal. They could draw us into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked virtually in the United States today," he noted. "Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw united states into an armed disharmonize."

Putin continued, "Let united states of america imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are state-of-the-fine art missile systems simply similar in Poland and Romania. Who will finish it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let the states imagine that Ukraine is a NATO fellow member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about information technology? It seems not."

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

Psaki's comments, yet, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The primary goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the "de-occupation" of Crimea. While this goal has, in the by, 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 armed forces i, in which Russia has been identified every bit a "military adversary", and the accomplishment of which tin can only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using armed forces means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military activeness to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russian federation. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine'due south membership, if granted, would need to include some linguistic communication regarding the limits of NATO'south Article 5 – which relates to collective 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 being rapidly brought nether the 'umbrella' of NATO protection, with 'battlegroups' like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a 'trip-wire' force, 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 feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing anarchistic warfare adequacy it has caused since 2015 at the easily of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to "kill Russians."

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

This is not idle speculation. When explaining his recent conclusion to deploy some 3,000 U.s. troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crunch, US President Joe Biden declared, "Every bit long as he's [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to make certain nosotros reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we're there and Commodity 5 is a sacred obligation."

Biden's comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 concluding year. At that time, Biden sat downwardly with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America'south commitment to Commodity 5 of the NATO charter. "Article v we have every bit a sacred obligation," Biden said. "I desire NATO to know America is there."

Biden'south view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense force Bob Work told reporters, "Every bit President Obama has said, Ukraine should … be 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 made it articulate that our delivery to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance in that location are no old members and in that location are no new members. At that place are no inferior partners and there are no senior partners. In that location are just allies, pure and simple. And we volition defend the territorial integrity of every unmarried ally."

Just what would this defense entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Ground forces, I can adjure that a war with Russia would be unlike annihilation the US armed services has experienced – ever. The U.s. military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does information technology possess doctrine capable of supporting large-calibration combined arms conflict. If the US was to be fatigued into a conventional ground war with Russian federation, it would notice itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In short, it would be a rout.

Don't take my word for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking nigh the results of a study – the Russian federation New Generation Warfare – he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audition at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better gainsay vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical upshot. "Should US forces observe themselves in a land war with Russia," McMaster said, "they would be in for a rude, cold awakening."

In short, they would get their asses kicked.

America'due south 20-twelvemonth Center Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria produced a military machine that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battleground. This reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the Usa Army'southward 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO's Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The written report found that Usa military machine forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military assailment from Russia. The lack of viable air defense and electronic warfare capability, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would result in the piecemeal destruction of the U.s. Regular army in rapid club should they confront off against a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The issue isn't just qualitative, simply likewise quantitative – even if the Us armed services could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it tin can't), information technology simply lacks the size to survive in any sustained boxing or entrada. The low-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Republic of iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will exist made to evacuate the wounded so that they can receive life-saving medical attending in as short a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the Usa was in command of the environment in which fights were conducted. It is, however, pure fiction in big-scale combined artillery warfare. There won't exist medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue – even if they launched, they would be shot down. There won't exist field ambulances – fifty-fifty if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in brusque guild. In that location won't exist field hospitals – even if they were established, they would be captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there volition be is expiry and devastation, and lots of information technology. One of the events which triggered McMaster's study of Russian warfare was the devastation of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade past Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of grade, would be the fate of whatever similar United states combat germination. The superiority Russia enjoys in artillery fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of artillery 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 whatsoever battleground, there will be zero similar the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Republic of iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. The airspace will exist contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops will be operating under an air defence force umbrella the likes of which neither the United states of america nor NATO has ever faced. There will be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground will exist on their ain.

This feeling of isolation will be furthered by the reality that, because of Russia's overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability, the Us forces on the basis will be deafened, impaired, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate every bit radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease 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 thirty-40 percent and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modernistic gainsay confronting a Soviet threat. Dorsum then, we were able to finer lucifer the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability – in brusk, we could give as good, or better, than we got.

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

But even if the US manages to win the odd tactical engagement against peer-level infantry, information technology simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia volition bring to bear. Fifty-fifty if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of United states basis troops were constructive against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will just be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians volition face them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style assail carried out past specially trained U.s.a. Army troops – the 'OPFOR' – at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-way Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off confronting a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morning. By 5:30am it was over, with the U.s.a. Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There's something about 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all simply inevitable.

This is what a state of war with Russia would look like. It would non be express to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes confronting NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

This is what will happen if the US and NATO seek to adhere the "sacred obligation" of Commodity five of the NATO Lease to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and practise not necessarily correspond those of RT.

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Source: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/548322-war-russia-us-nato/

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