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| A U.S. Army Stryker armored vehicle of Pale Horse Troop, 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment provides security while conducting an overwatch during exercise Allied Spirit at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, Jan. 25, 2015. Exercise Allied Spirit includes more than 2,000 participants from Canada, Hungary, Netherlands, United Kingdom and the U.S. Allied Spirit is exercising tactical interoperability and testing secure communications within alliance members |
Exercise Allied Spirit was scheduled well in advance of current events in Europe but it comes at an interesting time.
According to the Army's Green Book it was to host approx 3000 soldiers with 22 participating nations. They might have hit that mark but aren't releasing all the names of the nations attending for .... diplomatic....reasons.
Russia's response to this exercise, the stationing of a US Army Heavy Brigade near their border and US attempts to woo India into our circle should be a point of interest for anyone covering military affairs.
What's that old saying about not poking the bear?
If NATO wants to be taken seriously, they need to re-start Reforger, except in stead of Germany it should be held in places like Norway, Turkey, Greece, Poland.
ReplyDeleteEvery member sends either a brigade or battalion to test their rapid deployment units ability travel, deploy and inter-operate.
It's probably a stretch to say that USG's increased interest over the past 5 yrs or so, in gaining market exposure to Indian defence and Nuclear industry contracts, should be construed as wooing India into US's 'circle'. USG should understand that India is a player in a multi-polar world outlook and accordingly, is not going to be in any one 'circle'.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, it shouldn't be construed as a threat to Ru Fed, that India is open for investment, improved diplomatic relations and trade with the world. If Kremlin perceives itself to be a bear being poked in a threatening sense, due to such bilateral relations with India, then it should arguably be construed as an unjustifiably over-defensive and extreme posture being taken. The diplomatic line of communication should be resolute in reassurance of the multi-polar aspect of the greater world at play.
As far as 3,000 NATO troops taking part in a scheduled joint exercise being provocative. Such a claim should be downplayed as nonsense. It might also be raised that Kremlin has over the past couple years announced so called increased 'snap-drills' to increase (including strategic nuclear war drills) and that large-scale exercises to culminate later this year. Something to ponder when discussing provocative and uncertainty.
Perhaps a summit could be proposed though, with goal to reduce exercises on both sides in say, 2016, especially strategic-oriented ones? Moreover, dialogue to decrease unannounced 'patrols' and training flights, etc, near European boundaries and Russian boundaries, along with increased transparency and communication could be a worthy point too? Joint NATO-Ru Mil exercises might even be proposed as a means to reset trust and gain some sort of positive traction?
Dont see how this is a provocation of any kind - military drills are and should in fact be a norm.
ReplyDeleteIts quite interesting narrative - now that Eastern Europe is asking for real assistance in brining our standards on par with NATO,now that we are asking for actual defense (weapons and such) - the label of ''unnecesary fuss makers'' is on us.
As other poster said - NATO should be clear about and who knows,maybe invite an observer or two - tell them,when,what and how.
they aren't as provocative as a russian invasion of another country or constant violation of NATO airspace.
ReplyDeletean eye for an eye, that's the only language the russians understand.
the "diplomatic", the "civilised", will bite the dirt if doesn't respond in the same manner when it comes to the russians.
those things only work between European countries.
from the start it was a mistake by all NATO/EU countries that dropped below 2% on defence spendings.
there will be peace only after the chinese will take Siberia OR what will be left of russia joins the EU and NATO in a few decades (while ties get stronger and stronger between EU and US, which will be needed, because of the billions in the arab countries, india and china and declining demography in the EU & US.)
Russia gave up her buffer states in the Warsaw Pact. Russia allowed for a CIS fragmentation of the Soviet Union. But Russia will never allow U.S. forces, possibly nuclear equipped and certainly with ABM capabilities, to effectively Annex the Ukraine. Because that will compromise her trade ports, her food, her control over her petrogas and ultimately, her nuclear forces.
DeleteWhile our invasion of Iraq essentially comes down to greed over selling oil in other than USD _because we knew at the time_ that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and so trumped up a nuclear program to scare the public with instead, the Russian threat is VERY REAL. And her intervention in the Ukraine comes after Western Sponsored political terrorism upset the status quo of her SOI hegemony. Which I consider to be a lot more legitimate than our adventurism.
The U.S. is playing with nuclear fire.
The West wants it all: The oil and gas, the mineral rights, the food. And Russia will not back down to become a third rate dependency rather than one of the world's nation states, solely to fulfill the insatiable greed of those 2% of our population who march inexorably towards NWO status as an excuse to own the planet.
Let's be clear here: The Russians invested a huge amount of money in their nuclear forces modernization at a time when they could afford little or nothing else.
They will _FLATTEN_ the Ukraine and/or Europe for any encroachment on what they see as their final safety zone. And even if the U.S. et al were to retaliate with forces put back on SIOP targeted quick reaction alert, the result would be no less a pyrhhic crash for global society than it was at the height of the Cold War.
The pussified idiots of the West, thinking their socialist ideals will drive all before them and that nobody will see their venal motives, have just met their Here And Not One Step Further! counterpart of immovable will and the resulting clash will be annihilation for one, the other or both as we have encouraged infestation by foreign, low IQ, high violence, populations with huge birth rates and massive social welfare dependencies so if 'the triumph of capitalism' does not in fact occur, via the total resource domination of Eurasia, we _will sink without a trace, under the MASSIVE debt load that our glorious leaders have accrued.
This is the quality of our 'democratic' system as a cover for a disastrous vision of world rule rather than living our own lives and letting what is, be.
The U.S. population did not want Iraq. Did not and does not want Stimulus, Obamacare, Open Borders, Amnesty or continued Foreign Adventurism. And our voices are completely ignored.
It's not really a provocation. It's just that soon, Ukraine will be all over news. Shit is already all over the fan over there, but soon it will be like someone decided to drop a few more truckloads of excrement. Take a look at this :
ReplyDeletehttp://voicesevas.ru/img/5ba688d604f5c538148f4a38bd1f08ba.jpg
Blue is Ukraine, red is Russians. That is a textbook encirclement of enemy forces. There are about 2 mechanized brigades worth of Ukrainian troops there, almost 10000 soldiers. Once the Russians cut them off, its gonna be a bloodbath. Its gonna be all over the news, NATO will probably try to look tough and all, like they always do.
When the Germans attacked at Kursk, the Soviets chose to defeat the Northern arm of the pincer with massive deployment of artillery, breaking off one horn of the German envelopment and leaving themselves some maneuver room with which to turn and deflect the various Ausrollen attacks by which the standard German 'suppress what you do not wish to take time to capture' standard doctrine was blunted, absorbed and defeated, in the South.
DeleteWithout their security screens, the Southern pincer played itself out and defeating attack after attack from both the flanks and ahead until Prokhirovka stalled both sides.
In this, the final blood bath was indeed of awesome proportions and the defenders took it in the ear with the Germans unable to turn a tactical into an operational victory, simply because they had nothing left, logistically, with which to sustain the tempo of attack.
POINT BEING: Airpower is the modern artillery and ground power serves to fixate a threat upon a given objective locus which then makes it easy to attack them when they are all clumped up. Again: Ground fixes for Air and thus SUPPORTS air, as a targeting enabler. Not the other way around.
If the Russians close off that Salient rather than reduce it, NATO airpower could be called in with WCMD CEM and SFW to rip the predictably localized Russian armor a new orifice.
Defeat in Detail becomes Defeat Enmasse when you have the ability to deliver horrific attrition from just a few deployments of munitions but a very long 'reload' RTB turn interval between each pulse of engagement.
NATO will not risk an all out ground war with both sides fully vested. They will go for the 'Surprise, we Allies!' air strike with multiple hold force elements deploying from staging areas in or near the TOO as quick-hold elements thereafter.
At which point it would become a staring match: "We got it, you don't. If you try to cross the border again, we'll nail you to a cross with even more of what spanked you before. If you resort to conventional missiles, you have no targets. If you go nuke, we'll fry your ass so fast..."
This was the ultimate reason behind the CIS fragmentation efforts. To remove sufficient of the Soviet Republics from USSR direct control (economically as much as strategically) that a short, sharp, nuclear exchange could decapitate the Russian state and leave them facing ethnocide at the hands of their ex clients as well as us. In trade for 1-10 nuclear impacts in the West.
With B-2 laydown through the coverage lanes of the Soviet era Fire Chains and/or Standoff Cruise and/or DT SLBM shots from a Boomer, close in, Moscow would be twice fried by the very necessity of rolling back her strategic ABM force and the surrounding fallout zone would be enormous. Without any ability to control her strategic forces (U.S. is very good at deploying SOF to 'splice wires' and jam directional) and with no operational depth to retreat to, the Russians would be in a position of choosing occupation and submission to the Democro-Capitalist class slavery system.
Or total annihilation.
And the U.S. Congress which would be dismissed under Patriot Act provisos would be able to do nothing because it would happen in days, if not hours.
This is what Putin must be on guard against in a relatively relaxed strategic alert posture as 'Victory Disease' certainty of defeating the Ukrainians in Detail.
The West's next move is not to advance a pawn but to upset the entire chess board.
It's strategic envelopment for the bear. While the US and friends futz around in old Europe, Russia does a pincer move. Russia and Turkey have agreed on the route of the ‘Turkish Stream’ pipeline under the Black Sea. The first gas pipe with a capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters will be operational by December 2016. Six hundred and sixty kilometers of the new Turkish Stream pipeline will go through the old South Stream corridor and a further 250 kilometers will head in the direction of the European part of Turkey, and into Greece. Then Russia can use 'gas politics' on Germany while Turkey and Greece profit.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile Russia's friends are winning in Ukraine against green conscripts, and there is nothing the U.S. can do about it other than conduct these useless exercises far away.
Word from the chain of command is that Allied Spirit is not a NATO exercise but a USAREUR led exercise. At least that is what I was told by my boss who was told that from LTG Hodges.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting experience, working with our allies. Especially learning how to work through the differing staff processes and national caveats that apply to each partner. But the take away I personally got is that interoperability between NATO allies can be achieved below the Corps and Division level that is NATO doctrine. That doesn't sound too impressive, but it is kind of amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhqQPRg2WJE