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

"Their [NATO's] main task is to contain the evolution of Russia. Ukraine is merely a tool to achieve this goal. They could draw united states into some kind of armed conflict and forcefulness their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked nigh in the United states today. Or they could depict Ukraine into NATO, set strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and nonetheless draw u.s. into an armed disharmonize."

Putin continued:

"Let united states of america 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 lone Donbass? Allow u.s. imagine that Ukraine is a NATO fellow member and ventures such a combat performance. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought annihilation 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 business firm that he'southward scared of the chickens," adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine "should not be reported as a argument 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 past, been couched in terms of diplomacy - "[t]he synergy of our efforts must strength Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula," Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining command over Crimea - the reality is his strategy for render is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified every bit a "armed services adversary", and the achievement of which tin can merely be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using armed forces means has not been spelled out. Every bit an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive armed services activity to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine's membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO's Commodity 5 - which relates to collective defence force - when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a land of 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 existence formed on Ukrainian soil equally a 'trip-wire' force, and modernistic air defenses combined with forrard-deployed NATO shipping put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what information technology 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 "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 than likely utilize its own anarchistic capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for commonage defence force nether Article 5. In short, NATO would be at state of war with Russian federation.

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

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

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

"Article 5 nosotros take every bit a sacred obligation. I want NATO to know America is at that place."

Biden's view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his feel as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, and then-Deputy Secretary of Defense force Bob Work told reporters:

"As President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... be able to choose its own hereafter. And we pass up any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made it clear that our delivery to our NATO allies in the face of Russian assailment is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and there are no new members. There are no junior partners and there are no senior partners. At that place are but allies, pure and simple. And nosotros will defend the territorial integrity of every single ally."

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

Don't have my word for it. In 2016, and then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking nearly 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 have superior artillery firepower, meliorate combat vehicles, and accept learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical issue.

"Should United states of america forces find themselves in a land war with Russia, they would be in for a rude, cold enkindling."

In short, they would become their asses kicked.

America'southward twenty-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, Iraq, and Syrian arab republic produced a armed forces that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battleground. This reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the United states of america Army'southward 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO'due south Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The study found that US military machine forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront war machine assailment from Russia. The lack of viable air defense 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 US Army in rapid order should they face up off against a Russian armed forces that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The result isn't just qualitative, but also quantitative - fifty-fifty if the US military could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can't), information technology only lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or entrada. The depression-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built effectually the thought that every American life is precious, and that all efforts volition exist fabricated to evacuate the wounded so that they tin receive life-saving medical attending in as brusk a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the US was in control of the surround in which fights were conducted. It is, still, pure fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare. At that place won't exist medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue - even if they launched, they would exist shot down. In that location won't exist field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in brusque society. At that place won't be field hospitals - even if they were established, they would be captured by Russian mobile forces.

What in that location will be is death 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 artillery brigade by Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of whatsoever 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 Forcefulness may exist able to mount a fight in the airspace above any battleground, 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 by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian basis troops will be operating under an air defense force umbrella the likes of which neither the United states of america nor NATO has always faced. In that location 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 volition exist furthered by the reality that, considering of Russia'due south overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability , the US forces on the basis will be deafened, dumb, and blind to what is happening effectually them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate every bit radios, electronic systems, and weapons terminate to function.

Whatever war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-xl percent and go on 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, construction, and capability - in brusk, nosotros could give as proficient, or better, than we got.

That wouldn't be the case in whatever European war against Russian federation. The US will lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Fifty-fifty when they close with the enemy, the reward the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the by. Our tactics are no longer upwardly to par - when at that place is close gainsay, information technology will exist extraordinarily vehement, and the United states of america volition, more times than non, come out on the losing side.

But fifty-fifty if the U.s. manages to win the odd tactical date against peer-level infantry, it simply 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 U.s. ground troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably non), American troops will but be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians will face up them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style assail carried out by especially trained United states of america Regular army troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-fashion Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off confronting a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at effectually two in the morning. By v:30am it was over, with the U.s. Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. At that place's something about 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all simply inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would look similar. It would not be limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. Information technology 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 adhere the "sacred obligation" of Article five of the NATO Lease to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

Well-nigh the Writer:
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officeholder and author of 'SCORPION Rex: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Marriage every bit an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in Full general Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter