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Europe under extreme duress

I’m thinking less “Soviet Union” (although that would justify more territorial acquisition) and more Czarist/Imperial Russia with “Putin the Great” on the throne. That said, I did note in one news image that a vehicle went by flying a red “hammer and sickle” flag!
 
taxi1 said:
This worries me a lot. Why wouldn't he use a tactical nuke or chemical weapons? Where's the upside/downside trade for him?
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That isn't just crossing a Rubicon, that's obliterating it. Whatever isolation and scorn Russia is enduring right now would be drastically increased worldwide, I'm not sure even China would help them out at that point.

However, we have warned that they might try some false flag BS involving chemical or biological weapons especially given the increased focus on US-supported biolabs in Ukraine. Showing just how effective Russian information operations are, the disinformation on the Ukrainian biolabs and their supposed nefarious usage has even been parroted by a US news network and a member of Congress. This despite that fact that our support of Ukrainian biolabs, along with several other FSU countries, has been not only been something we have done openly for the last 20 or so years it was specifically set up to prevent such nefarious usage of equipment and personnel that had been trained and set up by USSR for chemical and bioweapons research, development and deployment. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some folks are so easily suckered into believing such blatant propaganda but it is still disappointing.

Hotdogs said:
Probably true to some extent, but in that context - OIF in 2003 should’ve been a resounding success for the American military after learning the lessons of the Gulf War. Impressive none the less to the outside world - it was still a huge exploratory learning session for the joint force during the invasion. The American military establishment was subsequently caught off guard by the massive insurgency that followed in 2004.
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While there were plenty of lessons to learn we were still able to execute a very large-scale invasion of a country halfway around the world and would almost certainly be able to do the same today.
 
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Much of the failure of the Russian operation in Ukraine is explained by, surprisingly, old Soviet doctrine, from operational command to logistics, small unit tactics, combined arms, etc. I am curious as to how much different the Ukrainian military is handling the same. Although they are on the defense, clearly they have had many successes and over performed expectations at least as much as the Russians have under performed. Is that because the Ukrainian military has come that far from their Soviet heritage by way of Western European training and advising, and lessons from Crimea and Donbas? Or is the Ukrainian military still largely a facsimile of the Russian, but have performed better in many ways due to circumstances (defending the home land), nationalism, and aide? I think the final analysis will be fascinating.
 
Flash said:
That isn't just crossing a Rubicon, that's obliterating it.
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No kidding. But he's supported Syria's use of chemical weapons, and what would happen if he used tactical nukes? More sanctions? They work, for sure. On our side, we don't have many tactical nukes. It's negotiate or end civilization. Will we go MAD over a nuked Ukraine? I don't want to find out.

Russian is losing, at a minimum by not winning. How far will he be willing to go to truly not lose?

Concur with you on the false flag BS.

This is a dude with a problem in his head. I'm worried.

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taxi1 said:
No kidding. But he's supported Syria's use of chemical weapons, and what would happen if he used tactical nukes? More sanctions? They work, for sure. On our side, we don't have many tactical nukes. It's negotiate or end civilization. Will we go MAD over a nuked Ukraine? I don't want to find out.
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There are more severe steps we could take if they popped off a nuke well short of a war, and likely many of the avenues still open to them...cough UAE cough...will likely start to close rapidly.

As for our own nukes, we still have options though are unlikely to use them.

taxi1 said:
This is a dude with a problem in his head. I'm worried.

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Yeah, you're in good company. A few commentators who have dealt with him personally before have said recently that this is not the same man they dealt with 10-20 or even 5 years ago.
 
wink said:
Much of the failure of the Russian operation in Ukraine is explained by, surprisingly, old Soviet doctrine, from operational command to logistics, small unit tactics, combined arms, etc. I am curious as to how much different the Ukrainian military is handling the same. Although they are on the defense, clearly they have had many successes and over performed expectations at least as much as the Russians have under performed. Is that because the Ukrainian military has come that far from their Soviet heritage by way of Western European training and advising, and lessons from Crimea and Donbas? Or is the Ukrainian military still largely a facsimile of the Russian, but have performed better in many ways due to circumstances (defending the home land), nationalism, and aide? I think the final analysis will be fascinating.
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The US and the Brits, along with a few other NATO and European allies, have been heavily involved in training their conventional forces since 2014 with 10's of thousands cycling through various training courses. I think given the large numbers and length of time involved much of that training has taken root, especially at the lower levels.
 
I hope someone in the Pentagon dusts off Re-forger, because there's no armor in western Europe;
 
jmcquate said:
I hope someone in the Pentagon dusts off Re-forger, because there's no armor in western Europe;
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The U.S. pulled its last tanks out of Europe in 2013, but then Putin invaded Crimea, so the U.S. started Operation Atlantic Resolve which involves nine month rotations of a U.S. armored brigade to Europe and regular multinational training between U.S. forces and those of NATO countries such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, etc...the Army has also increased its stocks of pre-positioned equipment in such countries. The stocks include Humvees, M1 Abrams tanks, and all sorts of other equipment so that troops can be sent over from the U.S. and be ready to fight without waiting for equipment to be shipped over from the United States.

It used to be that a lot of the equipment was older and less maintained, more there for an emergency, but in recent years, the Army has upgraded much of it to being brand new equipment and said equipment gets regularly used in the Atlantic Resolve operations, so that if crap hits the fan, the troops sent over are utilizing equipment that they are already familiar with. The Atlantic Resolve training also exercises the Army's abilities in terms of interoperability with the NATO countries.

There's actually been quite a bit of debate on this whole issue, for example some say the nine-month rotations are adequate for deterrence and also exercise the military's ability at deploying forces whereas others say that while true, it exercises such skills too much and at the detriment of combat skills, and thus that we need a permanent armored force in Europe. This then leads to disagreements over armored brigade or full armored division. At the Army's current size and global responsibilities, I don't believe it has the resources to place a full armored division permanently in Europe right now.

Then there's the debate over where to put it. Some say Poland (also Poland wants one) while others say (well said, things have changed in the past few weeks) that such a move would be too provocative to Russia and also would be too expensive and complex as it would require construction of a whole new base there (or bases). Some say put an armored division in Germany, as it's further away from Russia and there is a whole existing base infrastructure already there. A criticism to this is that it might make the Eastern European states feel like NATO is viewing them as a buffer zone. However a full division in Germany would still make Atlantic Resolve annual training easier.
 
Random8145 said:
Then there's the debate over where to put it. Some say Poland (also Poland wants one) while others say (well said, things have changed in the past few weeks) that such a move would be too provocative to Russia and also would be too expensive and complex as it would require construction of a whole new base there (or bases). Some say put an armored division in Germany, as it's further away from Russia and there is a whole existing base infrastructure already there. A criticism to this is that it might make the Eastern European states feel like NATO is viewing them as a buffer zone. However a full division in Germany would still make Atlantic Resolve annual training easier.
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I'm no soldier, but I'd think a permanent armored division in EU is likely a foregone conclusion at this point. I'd agree with the Germany option due to existing infrastructure and central location WRT potential future hot spots. Easy option in near term to forward deploy some of that footprint to Poland to provide reassurance while exercising the moving parts required in a (for NATO) peacetime environment. We've been forward deploying USAF fighter squadrons to eastern NATO locales for years now, I don't know if id buy that an armored division is significantly more provocative.......having F-22s semi-permanently knocking on Putin's front door (and lots of other stuff) is pretty provocative, as is the presence throughout Europe on a detachment basis, of F-15E's with nuclear delivery capabilities. While I am not in favor of proposed measures such as a NATO NFZ in Ukraine, which would almost assuredly kick off WWIII, I do think it is time we stop thinking so much in terms of "what will cross a russian red line" and more in terms of "what is our red line, and how do we demonstrate we are serious about defending it?" Putin doesn't think we will launch the missiles regardless of what he does, and he isn't stopping until we convince him that we will. I think that starts with coming to terms with the fact that we may have to.
 
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Thought this analysis was interesting. I also wholeheartedly agree that it is quite ironic (and IMO arrogant) for us to tell the Ukrainians that Mig-29s from Poland won't help them:

 
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