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 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] principal chore is to contain the evolution of Russian federation. Ukraine is simply a tool to accomplish this goal. They could draw us into some kind of armed conflict and strength their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked well-nigh in the The 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 however describe united states of america into an armed disharmonize."

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 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 performance. Do we accept to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? 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 house that he's scared of the chickens," adding that whatsoever Russian expression of fright 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 past, been couched in terms of affairs - "[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russian federation to negotiate the render 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 machine one, in which Russia has been identified equally a "military adversary", and the accomplishment of which tin only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using armed forces means has not been spelled out. Equally an ostensibly defensive brotherhood, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military activeness 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'due south Article 5 - which relates to collective defence force - when addressing the Crimea state of affairs, or else a country of war would de facto be upon Ukrainian accession.

The almost likely scenario would involve Ukraine beingness speedily brought under the 'umbrella' of NATO protection, with 'battlegroups' similar those deployed into eastern Europe existence formed on Ukrainian soil as a 'trip-wire' forcefulness, and modern air defenses combined with forrad-deployed NATO shipping put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

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

The thought that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russian federation would more than likely utilise its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense force under Article 5. In short, NATO would be at state of war with Russian federation.

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

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

Biden's comments repeat those fabricated during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 last year. At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America'south commitment to Article five of the NATO lease. Biden said:

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

Biden'southward view of NATO and Ukraine is fatigued from his experience every bit vice president under Barack Obama. In 2022, so-Deputy Secretarial assistant of Defense force Bob Piece of work told reporters:

"As President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... exist able to choose its own futurity. And we reject any 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 face up of Russian assailment is unwavering. Every bit he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and there are no new members. In that location are no junior partners and there are no senior partners. In that location are just allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single marry."

But what would this defense entail? Equally someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Ground forces, I can adjure that a war with Russia would be unlike anything the US war machine has experienced - always. The US military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting big-scale combined arms disharmonize. If the Us was to exist drawn into a conventional basis state of war with Russia, it would detect itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military machine history. In short, information technology would be a rout.

Don't take my word for information technology. In 2022, then-Lieutenant 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 Heart for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better gainsay vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.

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

In brusque, they would go their asses kicked.

America'southward 20-yr Eye Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria produced a military machine 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 Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO's Rapid Deployment Forcefulness, in 2022. The study found that U.s. military forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to face up military 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 result in the piecemeal destruction of the U.s.a. Army in rapid order should they face off confronting a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The effect isn't just qualitative, only also quantitative - even if the US military could stand 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 low-intensity disharmonize that the US armed forces waged in Republic of iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the thought that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be fabricated to evacuate the wounded then that they tin can receive life-saving medical attention in as brusque a timeframe as possible. This concept may accept been feasible where the US was in control of the environment in which fights were conducted. It is, however, pure fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare. In that location won't be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue - fifty-fifty if they launched, they would be shot down. There won't be field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in brusque order. In that location won't exist field hospitals - even if they were established, they would exist captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is decease and destruction, and lots of it. Ane of the events which triggered McMaster'south report of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian artillery in early 2022. This, of grade, would be the fate of whatever similar Usa gainsay germination. The superiority Russia enjoys in arms fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of arms systems fielded and the lethality of the munitions employed.

While the US Air Strength may be able to mount a fight in the airspace in a higher place whatever battlefield, at that place will be nothing similar the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military machine in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will be contested past a very capable Russian air force, and Russian basis troops will be operating nether an air defence force umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has always faced. There will be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the basis will be on their own.

This feeling of isolation will exist furthered by the reality that, because of Russia'due south overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability , the Usa forces on the ground volition 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 part.

Any state of war with Russian federation would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-xl percent and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Back and so, we were able to finer match the Soviets in terms of forcefulness size, structure, and adequacy - in brusque, we could give equally good, or amend, than we got.

That wouldn't exist the case in any European war against Russia. The U.s. will lose most of its forces before they are able to close with whatsoever Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the past. Our tactics are no longer up to par - when in that location is shut gainsay, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the U.s. 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 only has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia volition bring to conduct. Fifty-fifty if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of United states basis troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and feel suggests they are probably non), American troops will simply be overwhelmed past the mass of combat strength the Russians volition confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-mode assail carried out by specially trained US Army 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 two in the forenoon. By 5:30am it was over, with the United states Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There's something nearly 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russian federation would expect similar. Information technology would not be express to Ukraine, just 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 US and NATO seek to adhere the "sacred obligation" of Article 5 of the NATO Lease to Ukraine. It is, in brusk, a suicide pact.

About the Author:
Scott Ritter is a onetime U.s.a. 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's staff during the Gulf State of war, and from 1991-1998 as a United nations weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter