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 past Hungarian Prime number Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke nigh continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to bring together the trans-Atlantic alliance. He said:

"Their [NATO's] principal task is to contain the development of Russian federation. Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve 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 about in the United states today. Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, fix strike weapons systems at that place and encourage some people to resolve the upshot of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw 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 just like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let lonely Donbass? Let united states imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a gainsay functioning. Exercise we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not."

Merely these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox "screaming from the top of the hen business firm that he'south scared of the chickens," adding that whatever Russian expression of fear over Ukraine "should not be reported every bit a statement of fact."

Psaki'southward comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The chief goal of the regime 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 forcefulness 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 render is a purely military ane, in which Russia has been identified as a "military machine adversary", and the accomplishment of which can only exist 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 non initiate whatever offensive armed forces activeness 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's Article 5 - which relates to collective defense - when addressing the Crimea state of affairs, or else a state of war would de facto be upon Ukrainian accretion.

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

In one case this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to brainstorm a hybrid conflict against what information technology terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing anarchistic warfare capability information technology has acquired since 2022 at the easily of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to "kill Russians."

The idea that Russian federation 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 apply its ain unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article v. In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.

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

"As long every bit 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 v is a sacred obligation."

Biden'south comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June xv last year. At that fourth dimension, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-Full general Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America's commitment to Article 5 of the NATO charter. Biden said:

"Commodity 5 we take as a sacred obligation. I want NATO to know America is in that location."

Biden's view of NATO and Ukraine is fatigued 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 ain future. And nosotros reject whatsoever 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 it, in this alliance at that place are no onetime members and there are no new members. There are no junior partners and in that location are no senior partners. There are only allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single marry."

Merely what would this defense entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can adjure that a war with Russia would be unlike anything the U.s.a. military machine has experienced - always. The The states armed services is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined arms conflict. If the US was to be drawn into a conventional ground war with Russia, it would discover itself facing defeat on a calibration unprecedented in American military history. In short, it would exist 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 study - the Russia New Generation Warfare - he had initiated in 2022 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 accept superior artillery firepower, ameliorate combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.

"Should U.s.a. forces find themselves in a state war with Russia, they would be in for a rude, common cold awakening."

In brusk, they would go their asses kicked.

America's 20-twelvemonth Eye Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Republic of iraq, and Syria 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 Army'south 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO'due south Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The study plant that United states of america military forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to face military machine aggression 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 effect in the piecemeal destruction of the Usa Army in rapid gild should they face off against a Russian armed forces that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a United states of america/NATO threat.

The event isn't only qualitative, but also quantitative - even if the US military could stand up toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can't), it simply lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The depression-intensity conflict that the U.s. military waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built effectually the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts volition be made to evacuate the wounded so that they can receive life-saving medical attention in every bit short a timeframe every bit possible. This concept may have been viable where the US was in control of the environs in which fights were conducted. Information technology is, however, pure fiction in big-scale combined artillery warfare. There won't be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue - even if they launched, they would be shot downwardly. There won't be field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in short order. In that location won't be field hospitals - fifty-fifty if they were established, they would be captured past Russian mobile forces.

What at that place will be is death and devastation, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster'southward study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would exist the fate of whatsoever similar U.s. combat germination. The superiority Russian federation enjoys in arms 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 exist able to mountain a fight in the airspace higher up whatever battlefield, in that location will exist nothing similar the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American armed services in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air strength, and Russian ground troops volition be operating under an air defence force umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has ever faced. There will exist no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground will 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 The states forces on the ground volition exist deaf, impaired, and bullheaded to what is happening effectually them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate every bit radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease to part.

Any war with Russian federation would observe American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Dorsum in the 1980s, nosotros routinely trained to accept losses of xxx-twoscore percentage and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modernistic combat against a Soviet threat. Back 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 better, than nosotros got.

That wouldn't be the case in whatsoever European war against Russia. The United states of america volition lose almost of its forces before they are able to close with whatsoever Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Fifty-fifty when they close with the enemy, the reward the Us 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 close combat, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than not, come up 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 bear. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US footing troops were constructive against modern Russian tanks (and feel suggests they are probably not), American troops volition just exist 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-style set on carried out by particularly trained U.s.a. Ground forces troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around ii in the morning. By v:30am it was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There'south something about 170 armored vehicles bearing downward on your position that makes defeat all just inevitable.

This is what a war with Russian federation would look 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.a. and NATO seek to attach the "sacred obligation" of Article 5 of the NATO Lease to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

Virtually the Author:
Scott Ritter is a former The states Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION KING: 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'south staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 equally a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter