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 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's] main job is to contain the development of Russia. Ukraine is simply a tool to reach this goal. They could draw usa 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 of america today. Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, prepare up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the outcome of Donbass or Crimea past force, and still draw u.s. into an armed conflict."

Putin continued:

"Allow us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and in that location are country-of-the-art missile systems just like in Poland and Romania. Who will finish it from unleashing operations in Crimea, allow lone Donbass? Let us 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 it? It seems non."

Only 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 whatsoever Russian expression of fear over Ukraine "should not exist reported equally a argument of fact."

Psaki'south comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the state of affairs. 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 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 military 1, in which Russia has been identified every bit a "military adversary", and the achievement of which tin can just be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military ways has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military activity to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine'due south membership, if granted, would demand 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 state of war would de facto be upon Ukrainian accession.

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

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict confronting what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing unconventional warfare capability it has caused since 2022 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to "impale Russians."

The thought 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 likely use its ain unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of grade, would cry foul, and NATO would exist confronted with its mandatory obligation for commonage 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 US troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, US President Joe Biden declared:

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

Biden's comments repeat 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 commitment to Article v of the NATO charter. Biden said:

"Commodity v we accept as a sacred obligation. I want NATO to know America is at that place."

Biden's view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience every bit vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, and so-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Piece of work told reporters:

"Equally President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... be able to choose its ain future. And nosotros reject whatever talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made 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. In that location are no junior partners and at that place are no senior partners. There are just allies, pure and simple. And nosotros will defend the territorial integrity of every unmarried ally."

But what would this defense entail? Every bit someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Regular army, I tin can attest that a state of war with Russia would exist unlike anything the US military has experienced - ever. The Usa military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting big-calibration combined arms conflict. If the US was to be drawn into a conventional ground state of war with Russia, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In curt, it would be a rout.

Don't take my word for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant Full general H.R. McMaster, when speaking almost the results of a study - the Russian federation New Generation Warfare - he had initiated in 2022 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 accept superior artillery firepower, meliorate combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.

"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 get their asses kicked.

America's 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, Iraq, and Syrian arab republic produced a military that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the US Ground forces'southward 173rd Airborne Brigade, the primal American component of NATO'south Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The report constitute that US armed services forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront armed services aggression from Russian federation. 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.a. Regular army in rapid social club should they confront off confronting a Russian armed services that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a U.s./NATO threat.

The issue isn't merely qualitative, but also quantitative - fifty-fifty if the United states of america military could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it tin't), it merely lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The depression-intensity disharmonize that the US armed forces waged in Iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built effectually the thought that every American life is precious, and that all efforts volition be made to evacuate the wounded so that they tin receive life-saving medical attending in every bit brusk a timeframe as possible. This concept may accept been feasible where the US was in control of the environment in which fights were conducted. Information technology is, however, pure fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare. There won't be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue - even if they launched, they would be shot down. There won't be field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would exist destroyed in brusque order. At that place won't be field hospitals - fifty-fifty if they were established, they would be captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there volition exist is death and destruction, and lots of it. 1 of the events which triggered McMaster's study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian arms in early on 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar US 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 The states Air Strength may be able to mountain a fight in the airspace to a higher place any battlefield, in that location will be nothing like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Republic of iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. The airspace volition exist contested past a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops will exist operating nether 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 own.

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 ground will exist 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 end 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 xxx-40 percent and keep the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Back and so, we were able to effectively match the Soviets in terms of force size, construction, and capability - in curt, we could give equally skillful, or better, than we got.

That wouldn't be the case in whatever European state of war against Russia. The US will lose most of its forces earlier they are able to shut with whatever Russian antagonist, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage 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 shut gainsay, it will be extraordinarily tearing, and the US will, 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, it merely has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to bear. Fifty-fifty if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of Usa footing troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will only 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-fashion assault carried out by specially trained The states Army troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-fashion Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off confronting a United states Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the forenoon. Past 5:30am it was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. In that location's something nigh 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all just inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would look like. Information technology would not be limited to Ukraine, simply extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. Information technology would involve Russian strikes confronting 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 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

Well-nigh the Writer:
Scott Ritter is a onetime US 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'due south staff during the Gulf State of war, and from 1991-1998 equally a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter