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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 Government minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke almost 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 contain the development of Russia. Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve 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 existence talked about in the Us today. Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, ready strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea past strength, and nevertheless draw united states into an armed conflict."

Putin connected:

"Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and at that place are state-of-the-art missile systems only like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop information technology from unleashing operations in Crimea, let solitary Donbass? Permit u.s.a. imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Do nosotros take to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone idea anything about information technology? It seems not."

But these words were dismissed by White Firm spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a play tricks "screaming from the top of the hen business firm that he'due south scared of the chickens," adding that any Russian expression of fright over Ukraine "should not be reported as a statement of fact."

Psaki's comments, still, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The principal goal of the regime 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 armed forces 1, in which Russia has been identified as a "military machine antagonist", and the accomplishment of which tin can only exist accomplished through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military machine means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would non initiate whatever offensive military action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russian federation. 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 land of war would de facto be upon Ukrainian accession.

The most probable scenario would involve Ukraine existence 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' strength, and modernistic air defenses combined with forward-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 adequacy it has caused since 2015 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to "kill Russians."

The idea that Russia would sit idly past while a guerilla state of war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than likely apply its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would weep foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense nether Commodity 5. In brusk, NATO would be at war with Russia.

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

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

Biden's comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June xv concluding year. At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America's delivery to Article v of the NATO charter. Biden said:

"Commodity 5 we take as a sacred obligation. I desire NATO to know America is there."

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

"As President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... be able to choose its own future. And we turn down any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Republic of estonia this by September, the president made it clear that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance there are no onetime members and there are no new members. In that location are no junior partners and there are no senior partners. There are simply allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every unmarried marry."

But what would this defence force entail? As someone who in one case trained to fight the Soviet Army, I tin can attest that a war with Russian federation would be unlike annihilation the The states armed services has experienced - ever. The US military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-calibration combined artillery conflict. If the US was to exist drawn into a conventional ground war with Russian federation, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American armed services history. In brusque, it would be a rout.

Don't take my word for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking about the results of a written report - the Russian federation New Generation Warfare - he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Middle for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior arms firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated apply of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.

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

In curt, they would get their asses kicked.

America's 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Republic of iraq, and Syrian arab republic produced a military machine that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a written report conducted by the US Ground forces's 173rd Airborne Brigade, the key American component of NATO's Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The study establish that United states war machine forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military assailment 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 outcome in the piecemeal destruction of the US Army in rapid guild should they face off against a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a United states of america/NATO threat.

The result isn't only qualitative, but also quantitative - even if the U.s. military could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it tin't), it simply lacks the size to survive in whatever sustained boxing or campaign. The low-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos congenital around the thought that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will exist made to evacuate the wounded then that they tin receive life-saving medical attention in every bit short a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the US was in control of the surroundings in which fights were conducted. It is, however, pure fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare. In that location won't exist medical evacuation helicopters flight to the rescue - even if they launched, they would exist shot downwards. In that location won't exist field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would exist destroyed in short order. There won't be field hospitals - even if they were established, they would exist captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is death and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster's study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined artillery brigade by Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar Usa gainsay formation. 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 Forcefulness may exist able to mount a fight in the airspace above any battlefield, in that location will be nothing similar the total air supremacy enjoyed past the American war machine in its operations in Iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. The airspace will exist contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian footing troops will be operating nether an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has ever faced. There will exist no shut air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the basis volition be on their ain.

This feeling of isolation will exist furthered by the reality that, because of Russia's overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability , the Usa forces on the ground volition exist deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening effectually them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and fifty-fifty operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons end to function.

Whatever war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to take losses of thirty-40 percent and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modern gainsay against a Soviet threat. Back then, nosotros were able to finer match the Soviets in terms of forcefulness size, construction, and capability - in short, we could give every bit skillful, or ameliorate, than we got.

That wouldn't be the example in any European war against Russia. The U.s. volition lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep arms fires. Even when they shut with the enemy, the reward the United states enjoyed confronting Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a matter of the by. Our tactics are no longer up to par - when at that place is close combat, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than not, come out on the losing side.

Just even if the U.s. manages to win the odd tactical engagement against peer-level infantry, it just has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russian federation will bring to bear. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US ground troops were effective confronting modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will simply be overwhelmed by the mass of combat forcefulness the Russians will confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style attack carried out past specially trained United states of america Ground forces troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where ii Soviet-mode Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a United states Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at effectually ii in the morning time. By v:30am it was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There's something about 170 armored vehicles begetting down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russian federation would look like. It would not exist limited to Ukraine, but 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 attach the "sacred obligation" of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in brusque, a suicide pact.

Nearly the Author:
Scott Ritter is a former The states Marine Corps intelligence officeholder and writer of 'SCORPION King: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Matrimony 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

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Source: https://www.sott.net/article/464018-A-war-with-Russia-would-be-unlike-anything-the-US-and-NATO-have-ever-experienced