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

"Their [NATO'southward] main task is to contain the evolution of Russia. Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve this goal. They could draw 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 U.s. today. Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the upshot of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still depict us into an armed conflict."

Putin continued:

"Allow us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are country-of-the-fine art missile systems just similar in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let usa imagine that Ukraine is a NATO fellow member and ventures such a combat functioning. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone idea annihilation virtually it? It seems not."

Merely these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a play a trick on "screaming from the meridian of the hen firm that he'south scared of the chickens," adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine "should not exist reported as a argument of fact."

Psaki's comments, nonetheless, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The principal 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 strength 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 military ane, in which Russia has been identified every bit a "military antagonist", and the accomplishment of which tin can but be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using war machine means has non been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate whatsoever offensive war machine action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine'south membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO'south Article v - which relates to collective defense - when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accretion.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being quickly brought nether the 'umbrella' of NATO protection, with 'battlegroups' like those deployed into eastern Europe existence formed on Ukrainian soil every bit a 'trip-wire' force, and modernistic air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in identify to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would experience emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what it 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 unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of form, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for commonage defence force nether Commodity 5. In brusk, NATO would be at war with Russia.

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

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

Biden's comments echo those fabricated during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 terminal twelvemonth. At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America's commitment to Article v of the NATO charter. Biden said:

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

Biden'due south view of NATO and Ukraine is fatigued from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Piece of work told reporters:

"Every bit President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... be able to choose its ain future. And nosotros refuse any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made it clear that our commitment to our NATO allies in the confront of Russian aggression is unwavering. As he said information technology, in this alliance at that place are no old members and there are no new members. At that place are no junior partners and in that location are no senior partners. There are just allies, pure and elementary. And nosotros will defend the territorial integrity of every single ally."

Merely what would this defense entail? As someone who one time trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can adjure that a state of war with Russia would exist unlike anything the US military has experienced - always. The U.s.a. 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 conflict. If the U.s.a. was to exist fatigued into a conventional ground war with Russia, information technology would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In brusque, it would be a rout.

Don't accept my discussion for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking near the results of a written report - 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 arms firepower, better gainsay vehicles, and accept learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical upshot.

"Should US forces find themselves in a land state of war with Russia, they would be in for a rude, cold awakening."

In short, they would go their asses kicked.

America's 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria produced a military machine that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the The states Army'southward 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO'southward Rapid Deployment Forcefulness, in 2017. The study found that United states of america armed forces forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military aggression 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 result in the piecemeal destruction of the Usa Regular army in rapid club should they face off against a Russian war machine that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The issue isn't merely qualitative, but also quantitative - fifty-fifty if the U.s.a. armed services could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian antagonist (which information technology can't), it just lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The depression-intensity conflict that the United states of america military waged in Republic of iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the thought that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be made to evacuate the wounded then that they can receive life-saving medical attention in as short a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the U.s. was in command of the environment in which fights were conducted. It is, nevertheless, 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 downwards. At that place won't be field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in brusk lodge. There won't be field hospitals - fifty-fifty if they were established, they would be captured past Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is death and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster'south report of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined artillery brigade past Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of grade, would be the fate of any like United states of america combat formation. 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 above whatsoever battlefield, in that location will be nothing like the full air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will be contested past a very capable Russian air forcefulness, and Russian footing troops will be operating nether an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the U.s.a. nor NATO has ever faced. In that location will be no shut air back up cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the basis volition be 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 U.s. forces on the footing will be deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease to function.

Any war with Russian federation would find American forces slaughtered in big numbers. Back in the 1980s, nosotros routinely trained to take losses of thirty-40 percent and go along the fight, considering that was the reality of modernistic gainsay against a Soviet threat. Back and so, we were able to effectively match the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability - in short, we could requite as good, or ameliorate, than nosotros got.

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

Only even if the US manages to win the odd tactical appointment against peer-level infantry, it simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to comport. Fifty-fifty if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US footing troops were effective confronting mod Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops volition merely be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians volition confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-manner set on carried out past specially trained US Regular army troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Preparation Middle in Fort Irwin, California, where ii Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off confronting a United states Regular army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the forenoon. By 5:30am it was over, with the Us Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. At that place's something about 170 armored vehicles begetting downward on your position that makes defeat all only inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would await like. It would not be express to Ukraine, but 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 will happen if the U.s. and NATO seek to attach the "sacred obligation" of Article v of the NATO Lease to Ukraine. Information technology is, in short, a suicide pact.

Almost the Author:
Scott Ritter is a erstwhile The states Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION King: America'southward Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Matrimony every bit an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf State of war, and from 1991-1998 every bit a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter