About the likely NATO war with Russia
Recently, the Western media has dramatically increased the number of materials in which it is written about the growth of the military threat from Russia, in connection with which NATO, and the United States and personally, are taking various countermeasures. This includes the opening of a US missile defense base in Romania, preparations for the creation of a second such base in Poland, as well as the intention to deploy an armored brigade in the territories of the Baltic countries. In addition, under the pretext of the same threat, the United States demanded that its European allies promptly bring their military spending to two percent of GDP. Articles appeared in the Western media not about a possible, but about an inevitable war with Russia.It seems that by doing such actions, the United States seeks to convince its satellites that all of them are under the reliable protection of NATO, as well as to create the necessary international atmosphere for making important decisions at the Warsaw summit regarding the extension of anti-Russian sanctions .
The reminders of 5 article of the NATO Charter on the protection of any member of the bloc in case of aggression are getting louder. The article, of course, is important, but what to do with such unbridled members of the alliance as Turkey, Poland and Lithuania? The rhetoric of their irresponsible leaders leads to a clash with Russia, and no one wants a big war, not even the United States. To intimidate the whole world with a threat from the East, to knock out extra money from the congress for the military budget - is this, please, but to fight because of (or even instead of) “loyal dogs”? .. Let's see who was the first to start. Turkey has already shown this.
But another thing is interesting. All the warlike politicians and scribblers of the West, ready at least tomorrow to "deal with aggressive Russia", forgot about what time they live. Their main mistake is that they do not understand what a modern war can be. It seems to them that everything will happen as in the 2nd World War. We have so many brigades tanks, planes, and Russia has so many bayonets and other things. And with this technique of politics, as General Bridlaw said, “they are ready to fight with Russia until victory.” They don’t realize that the European armies are now not the same as they were 30 years ago, and the US Army needs time to get to Europe.
Let's look at the current situation in the troops of some NATO countries.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and loud assurances from both sides about the end of the Cold War, armies and military budgets were cut. And it was not only the Russian army that was shrinking. So, by 1990, the American army numbered 2,4 million, who, first of all, were aimed at war with the USSR, and the sphere of US influence in the world was less. In Europe alone, the US held a grouping of 250 thousand people. Now (all figures are from open sources for February 2015 of the year), the US ground forces do not count 900 thousand bayonets, but are reduced from 560 to planned 490 thousand. In Europe there are only about 60 thousand. All warehouses with heavy weapons and equipment, intended for airborne reinforcement forces gain, long ago exported to the States. A lot of American troops are scattered around the world, and that’s why the United States thought for a long time where to get one armored brigade to deploy it battalionally in Poland and the Baltic countries.
Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands withdrew their forces from Germany and also reduced their armed forces. In 1990, the FRG and France had armies numbering 500 thousand, after the reforms in the German troops only 201 thousand remained, in France - 135 thousand, in the UK - 100 thousand, and in the Netherlands - 47 thousand, including personnel of the general staffs, providing and rear parts. A similar reduction took place in all European armies. Currently, instead of the former plan connections, it is planned to have 90 army rapid deployment corps by up to 9 days. Including: united army corps, Eurokorpus (on the French-German paper. In peacetime there are only four battalions in the whole Eurokorpus unit: two German and two French, total from 900 to 1300 people), German-Dutch, Spanish, Italian , French, Turkish, German-Danish-Polish and Greek corps.
Modern NATO in Europe only takes up to three months to deploy units to military states. But it is a big question. Given the current events in Greece, Brussels can hardly count on its share in the 50 thousand bayonets. On the Turkish troops, too - because then who will fight with the Kurds and save the country "democracy"? The big question is the participation of Spain. So the stated deadlines are likely to be disrupted.
To summarize: currently, all NATO’s Joint Forces have 1,5 million people, of whom 990 thousand are American troops (of which only about 100 thousand soldiers and officers are stationed in Europe, and the rest are deployed in the US around the world or are involved in the wars being waged by America in the Middle East and Afghanistan). The number of troops of the European countries of the bloc itself is 600 thousand. This number includes all the national armed forces of the participating countries, but less than a third, that is, about 200 thousand military personnel, is given under the command of the staff of the alliance.
The weakening of the actual combat capabilities of the alliance forces is disguised by the NATO command with a large variety of exercises, sometimes involving up to a hundred military personnel from any country, rather than full-fledged units, and a loud PR program to form all kinds of “rapid deployment” forces. The number of "Very High Readiness Joint Task Force" or "Joint forces of very high alert" was 5 thousand people. In February, 2015 was decided to increase them to 30 thousand military personnel. They are based on parachute, airmobile and other "special" units from the 28 countries of the alliance, including two light infantry battalions, one of which is from the German-Dutch corps. The whole feature of the new structure is only that it can be used for its intended purpose for a period from 3 to 10 days. (By the way, during the Cold War, army groups within NATO were ready to fight in two days.) That's all that the entire North Atlantic alliance today is capable of putting on the battlefield. But even this remains in doubt, since the officers in the headquarters of the Supreme Command of the Allied Forces of NATO do not conceal that the real level of mobility of the “Joint Forces” is not yet known.
Now let's see how things are with the transfer of reinforcing forces to the Eastern Front. Back in 2009, the developed Eagle Gard plan was announced, according to which aviation, and also by sea, four divisions will arrive at the ports of the Baltic Sea and protect everyone.
The transport aircraft of the NATO countries are outdated and have greatly decreased in size, so it is most likely impossible to transfer all forces only by air. Railways do not have enough high-capacity platforms for transporting heavy military equipment. Therefore, it is assumed that part of it, together with ammunition, food and other equipment, will be deployed in advance in special supply points in Eastern European member countries of NATO. This structure was to be fully operational by 2016. It should be.
The United States is also required to deliver troops to the future theater of operations. The airborne transfer option is no longer possible - in this way airborne units and rapid reaction forces, which have only light armament, can be deployed. Remains transfer by sea. To this end, there is the Maritime Shipping Command (ILC) in the USA, which deals with the transportation and supply of troops. It consists of large rolls, container ships, bulk carriers, tankers, etc. The most famous KMP ships are the Algol-class high-speed roller, the 55 displacement thou. Tons and the speed at the 33 knot. One such ship is able to transport up to 1000 units. cars and various armored vehicles, and with the help of a ramper, the rammers provide self-loading and unloading of vehicles. Thus, the US division (17 thousand people with equipment and weapons) may be deployed by several such ships. It should be noted that the United States is constantly considering various shipping companies for the purchase of similar ships from them. They even have a former Soviet Rokker.
But the transfer of troops is not all. The troops in large quantities need ammunition, fuel, other military goods, and the personnel must also be fed. And the American rations are very different from the soldier rations of Eastern European armies, remember the dissatisfaction of the Lithuanian soldiers with the fact that in joint maneuvers, they prepared food simpler than for the Americans. And all these problems need to be addressed.
Let us recall one example. About 30% of the personnel of the US armed forces that existed at that time, about 4 thousand tanks, 2 thousand aircraft and 3,7 thousand guns were attracted to participate in the operation “Desert Storm” in the Persian Gulf. The war was preceded by FIVE months of intensive training, ALL forces of the Shipping Command were involved. Moreover, the Americans still had to charter civilian vessels for this. In total, the 250 ships were engaged in the delivery and supply of troops. During the preparation for the operation and the operation itself, over 12 million tons (!) Of cargoes were delivered to the combat zone. At the same time, the Americans provided with great difficulty the supply of all this huge military grouping. So, towards the end of “Desert Storm,” an acute shortage of aerial bombs began to be felt. On average, it took Americans only 25-30 days to deploy only one overseas division, while the deployment of an army corps took up to 5 months.
Thus, the Europeans take 3 a month to prepare for war against the Russian Federation, and the Americans almost six months, which negates any effect of surprise. But who will give NATO half a year to fully deploy the troops to attack? 1941 year will not be repeated.
The Russian army is also not the same number as in the 1980s. As they say in the press, currently there are only 1,2 million people in it. Of these, ground forces account for only 400 thousand, which are deployed in the vast expanses of our country, and not only in the western direction. This is the only reason why Russia will not attack anyone.
Nevertheless, according to the author, if there is a real threat to the security of the country, the Russian army will have a sufficient arsenal of various means to “force the world” of all its closest “sworn friends” even before the arrival of the reinforcement forces. The remaining members of NATO will not stand up for these frantic "democrats" and Russophobes, and the American tankers, if they are there, are not kamikazes and not even mercenaries. And at NATO headquarters, too, they are able to count the bayonets and understand what is what. Therefore, PR campaigns for any reason will be continued, someone needs to “cut” the military budget, but no more. Of course, if our gunpowder itself is dry.
But the United States, and with them NATO, can go another way. There are sober-minded people in America who warn that the administration is currently following the Wolfowitz doctrine developed in 1992. This was confirmed by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter in an interview with Vox. The author of this doctrine later wrote: “The purpose of this document was to prevent the emergence of a bipolar world, that is, a new world rivalry in the spirit of the Cold War, or a multipolar world, that is, a world with a number of powers wars To do this, it is necessary to prevent the enemy power from achieving a dominant position in a key region with resources, industrial opportunities and people who, if controlled by the enemy power, could pose a challenge of global proportions. ” NATO is aggressively moving to the Russian borders. It turns out that, despite all the talk about Asia, the military priority of America and NATO is in fact Central Europe near the borders with Russia.
But this may change after the election of the President of the United States. Now the Republican Party still has confusion and vacillation, but more and more of its members are leaning towards Donald Trump, who impresses many Americans with a sober look at the possibility of changing relations with Russia, NATO, etc. As American political analyst Stephen Cohen wrote, “it will take time to untie some knots, but you can deal with some relatively simply, and D. Trump knows this. It would be possible to give this start with the help of a large-scale diplomatic initiative. If you look into history, this is how all the most radical projects started: the rejection of established ideas and a way out of the political impasse allows the reformer to suppress the most stubborn resistance to change (in this case it’s about Wall Street and the financial oligarchy).
It would be enough for Trump to declare that America’s (and Europe’s) national security is directly dependent on Russia (this is obvious), that Moscow does not pose a threat to Washington (this is also a fact), and that NATO is “outdated,” as he said. It would be perfectly logical to unite with Russia and its partners in order to surround and destroy DAISH.
According to Cohen, Trump is not so far from being able to follow this path. Of course, Trump is an American and a patriot of his country, but after all, there were sane presidents in the US who, even out of necessity, went to cooperate even with the communist Soviet Union and signed mutually beneficial agreements. After all, in the age of nuclear weapons a thin world is better than a good quarrel.
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