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 near continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance. He said:

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

Putin continued:

"Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is blimp with weapons and there are state-of-the-art missile systems just similar in Poland and Romania. Who volition terminate it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Permit united states imagine that Ukraine is a NATO fellow member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we accept to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not."

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

Psaki'due south 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 Russian federation 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 ane, in which Russia has been identified as a "military antagonist", and the accomplishment of which tin only exist achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive armed forces activity to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine's membership, if granted, would demand to include some language regarding the limits of NATO's Commodity 5 - which relates to collective defense - when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a land of war would de facto be upon Ukrainian accession.

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

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

The idea that Russia would sit down idly past while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more probable apply its own anarchistic capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article 5. In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.

This is non 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'southward [Putin] acting aggressively, nosotros are going to make sure we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we're in that location and Commodity 5 is a sacred obligation."

Biden's comments repeat those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 final twelvemonth. At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America'south commitment to Commodity 5 of the NATO charter. Biden said:

"Article 5 nosotros take 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 as vice president nether Barack Obama. In 2015, and so-Deputy Secretary of Defence Bob Work told reporters:

"As President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... exist able to choose its own time to come. And we reject any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made it articulate that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian assailment is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance in that location are no old members and there are no new members. There are no junior partners and at that place are no senior partners. In that location are just allies, pure and uncomplicated. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single marry."

Just what would this defense entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Regular army, I can attest that a war with Russia would be unlike anything the U.s.a. military machine has experienced - ever. The US armed forces 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 United states of america was to be drawn into a conventional basis war with Russia, it would find 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, and so-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking well-nigh the results of a report - 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 have superior arms firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated utilize of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.

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

In short, they would get their asses kicked.

America'southward twenty-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 report conducted past the Usa Regular army'south 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO's Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The report found that Usa armed services forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military machine assailment from Russia. The lack of viable air defence and electronic warfare capability, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would result in the piecemeal devastation of the Us Regular army in rapid club should they confront off confronting a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The outcome isn't just qualitative, but also quantitative - even if the US military could stand up toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can't), information technology simply lacks the size to survive in whatever sustained boxing or entrada. The low-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Iraq and 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 so that they can receive life-saving medical attention in as brusk a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the U.s.a. was in control of the environment in which fights were conducted. Information technology is, however, pure fiction in large-calibration combined arms warfare. There won't be medical evacuation helicopters flight to the rescue - even if they launched, they would exist shot down. There won't be field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in short lodge. There won't be field hospitals - even if they were established, they would be captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there volition be is expiry and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster'due south report of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar U.s. 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 Strength may exist able to mount a fight in the airspace in a higher place whatsoever battlefield, there volition be cipher like the full air supremacy enjoyed by the American war machine in its operations in Iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops will be operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has ever faced. There will be 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 US forces on the ground volition 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 end to function.

Whatever state of war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of xxx-40 percentage and keep the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Back then, nosotros were able to finer friction match the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability - in short, we could give as practiced, or better, than we got.

That wouldn't exist the instance in whatever European state of war against Russia. The US will lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the U.s. enjoyed against 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 combat, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than not, come out on the losing side.

Simply fifty-fifty if the U.s.a. manages to win the odd tactical engagement confronting peer-level infantry, it just 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 constructive against mod Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will simply be overwhelmed past the mass of combat force the Russians will confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-mode assail carried out by specially trained US Ground forces troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off confronting a US Regular army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at effectually two in the morning. Past 5:30am it was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. At that place's something almost 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would await like. It would non be limited to Ukraine, simply 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 and NATO seek to attach the "sacred obligation" of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

About the Author:
Scott Ritter is a former United states of america 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 Full general Schwarzkopf'southward staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 every bit a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter