Russian tanks

© AP
Russian tanks in drills at the Kadamovskiy firing range in the Rostov region in southern Russian federation
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 about 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 development of Russia. Ukraine is simply a tool to reach 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 depict Ukraine into NATO, fix strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea past force, and all the same draw usa into an armed conflict."

Putin continued:

"Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO 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 alone Donbass? Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a gainsay operation. Do nosotros have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything nigh it? It seems not."

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

Psaki's comments, however, 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 by, 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 command over Crimea - the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified equally a "military adversary", and the achievement 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 not initiate any 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 situation, or else a state of state of war would de facto be upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being rapidly brought under the 'umbrella' of NATO protection, with 'battlegroups' like those deployed into eastern Europe existence formed on Ukrainian soil equally 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 unconventional warfare capability information technology has acquired 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 being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than than probable 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 nether Article 5. In brusque, NATO would be at state of war with Russia.

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

"Equally long equally he's [Putin] acting aggressively, nosotros are going to brand certain we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we're there and Article 5 is a sacred obligation."

Biden'southward comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 concluding year. At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretarial assistant-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America'due south delivery to Commodity v of the NATO charter. Biden said:

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

Biden's view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience equally 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 information technology clear that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering. Equally he said it, in this brotherhood at that place are no old members and there are no new members. There are no inferior partners and at that place are no senior partners. At that place are merely allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every unmarried ally."

Just what would this defense entail? As someone who in one case trained to fight the Soviet Army, I tin attest that a war with Russian federation would be unlike anything the The states military has experienced - ever. The The states military machine is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined artillery conflict. If the Usa was to exist drawn into a conventional ground war with Russia, it would notice itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In short, information technology would be a rout.

Don't take my word for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking most 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 Eye for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians take superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated employ of unmanned aeriform vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.

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

In short, they would become their asses kicked.

America'due south 20-year Center Eastern misadventure in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, Iraq, and Syrian arab republic 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 past the The states Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, the primal American component of NATO'south Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The report found that U.s.a. military forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to face up military assailment from Russia. The lack of feasible 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 Us Regular army in rapid club should they face up off against a Russian armed services that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a U.s./NATO threat.

The issue isn't just qualitative, but too quantitative - even if the US military machine could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian antagonist (which information technology can't), information technology simply lacks the size to survive in whatever sustained boxing or entrada. The low-intensity conflict that the US armed forces waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built effectually the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be fabricated to evacuate the wounded so that they tin receive life-saving medical attending in as short a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the United states of america was in control of the environment in which fights were conducted. Information technology is, however, pure fiction in large-scale combined artillery warfare. In that location won't be medical evacuation helicopters flight to the rescue - even if they launched, they would be shot downwards. There won't be 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 be captured past Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is expiry and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster's written 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 whatsoever similar Usa gainsay 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 The states Air Force may exist able to mountain a fight in the airspace above any battlefield, there will exist nothing like the full air supremacy enjoyed past the American armed services in its operations in Republic of iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will exist contested past a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops volition be operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the United states of america nor NATO has e'er faced. In that location will be no close air back up cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground will be on their own.

This feeling of isolation will be furthered by the reality that, considering of Russia's overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare adequacy , the US forces on the ground will be deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening effectually them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease to office.

Any state of war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in big numbers. Dorsum in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-forty percent and proceed the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Back then, we were able to effectively match the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability - in brusk, nosotros could give equally good, or ameliorate, than nosotros got.

That wouldn't be the case in any European war confronting Russia. The United states of america will lose near of its forces before they are able to shut with any Russian antagonist, due to deep artillery fires. Fifty-fifty when they shut with the enemy, the reward the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the past. Our tactics are no longer upward to par - when there is shut gainsay, it volition be extraordinarily tearing, and the US will, more times than not, come up out on the losing side.

But even if the United states manages to win the odd tactical engagement confronting peer-level infantry, it merely 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 against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably non), American troops will simply be overwhelmed past the mass of gainsay force the Russians will confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-manner attack carried out by specially 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 United states of america Ground forces Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around ii in the forenoon. By 5:30am it was over, with the U.s.a. Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There's something nigh 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would expect like. It would non be limited to Ukraine, simply 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 United states of america and NATO seek to attach the "sacred obligation" of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. Information technology is, in brusque, a suicide pact.

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