5 Reasons The U.S. Army Will Lose Its Next War In Europe
5 Reasons The U.S. Army Will Lose Its Next War In Europe by Loren Thompson, Forbes
U.S. Army planners believe they may have to fight a “near-peer” adversary within five years. Near-peer in this case means a rapidly modernizing Russian military seeking to regain lost ground along Russia’s border with Europe. There’s plenty of evidence that Russia’s military is on the move in the Baltic region, near Ukraine, and elsewhere. Some observers have wrongly inferred that America’s Army has “only” five years to prepare for such a conflict. In fact, it has five years or less. It is common for aggressors to challenge new U.S. presidents early in their tenure.
If such a war were to occur, it would be mainly an Army show. The fight would be over control of large expanses of land with few geographical impediments to rapid advance. The U.S. Army would likely do most of the ground combat for NATO, because America contributes over two-thirds of the alliance’s resources. Losing such a war would drastically reshape the geopolitical balance in Europe, and reduce U.S. influence there to its lowest ebb since before World War Two. And yet losing is what the U.S. Army is currently postured to do.
This bleak outlook arises mainly because of the aggressive nationalism being exhibited by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but also because of strategic misjudgments by the last two U.S. presidents. George W. Bush removed two U.S. heavy (armored) brigades from Europe during the closing days of his presidency, and then Barack Obama proposed a strategic “pivot” to the Pacific that further reduced America’s military presence on the ground. Putin got the message Washington was focused elsewhere, and proceeded to annex parts of Ukraine in 2014…
A writer claiming to be an expert on Iraq and Afghan war vets got one thing right, the US public is alienated from its military. The end of the draft being one cause cited. Where I think she misses the boat is the anti-war movement not to be confused with genuine pacifists like the Amish or Quakers, is still a counter force to be reckoned with that is both advocates of hard socialism and believe pro-Islamic efforts will also result in forwarding socialism among Islamist revolutionaries which is how Obama’s White House so recklessly misunderstood the Arab Spring and its radical Islamist intent. The truth is they love violence.
These are people who will never concede ridding the world of Hussein was a good in itself, one blogger today responded to a comment of mine by claiming that the USA was responsible for a million deaths because of the war against Hussein. It is the same hard socialist ideology as opposed the Vietnam War.
Some people actually believe that 9-11 ended the extremist radical anti-war movement, that is an assumption and mistake. Despite the fact Hussein murdered 450,000 of his own people and invaded his neighbors to seize oil assets, this is all blamed on Bush. How do you explain such lunacy?
They are still here as malevolent and anti-American as ever and considering how far Sanders progressed in the DNC primary, gaining steam and influencing the White House as never before.
Do not underestimate these America haters who made up the oxymoron term socialist/capitalist to hide the fact they are simply new world order hard socialists anti Americans.
The author describes a dire situation, and I can’t refute any of his points. It does beg the question that if NATO members don’t have the will to resist, and are politically unreliable (maybe they’re in, maybe not), how much more should we invest in the defense of Europe? Of course we don’t want to lose our European allies for a wide range of reasons including realpolitik reasons, as well as defending common values, but will we be able to sustain the political will at home to win?
Re: the article’s title: “5 Reasons the U.S. Army Will Lose Its Next War in Europe:”
Should we say that, most likely, there will be no such war for the U.S. Army to lose?
Why?
Because Russia will be allowed — re: the Baltics states — to simply take what it wants?
This (a) much as was the case with Crimea and, this, (b) due to the seemingly — now seen as arbitrary — NATO/Article 5 requirements?
http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=60389
I’m reminded of one of the very early battles President Reagan had with NATO partners from the time he first entered office and when Western Europe was suffering serious economic recession.
The proposed Soviet energy pipeline to provide cheap energy to NATO countries.
Enriching your opponent sitting directly across the Fulda Gap was no way to look at the big picture so it was rightly stopped(albeit temporarily) and surely contributed partially to an earlier demise of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union.
But fast forward 25 years and it looks to me like Reagan was right, but what he did only delayed Russian influence over Europe.
Have a look at individual nation state reliance on Russian energy.
Baltics and Belarus are pretty much 100% reliant.
Most other Eastern European states are significant minority % reliance on Russian energy with Western Europe a bit less but still geopolitically and dangerously relevant.
How much does energy politics and influence have over Eastern European geopolitics.
“Who runs Barter Town? Master Blaster runs Barter Town.”
Our “long game” — re: such great nations/great civilizations as those of Russia, China and Iran today — is to further the “expansion” of our way of life, our way of governance and our values, attitudes and beliefs into these critically important regions.
The NATO nations know this. And so does Putin, et. al.
Thus, might we say — and re: NATO’s cost/benefit analysis/considerations of today — that the NATO nations may be finding themselves in a similar place to that of Nixon in the Old Cold War?
Wherein, he (Nixon) would:
a. Contemplate the sacrifice of lesser/obscure nations (Taiwan: their status; Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia: these countries and their populations as a whole); this, to:
b. Achieve what he (Nixon) believed was the larger, more important cause (better relations with China — and all the strategic benefits/advantages that came with same).
(I am sure — at that time — that various exceptionally important and extremely well- qualified people in American government, and indeed elsewhere, pointed out to Nixon the, countering, “appeasement,” “if you give a mouse a cookie” and “bad precedent” arguments.)
Thus, in the light offered above to see:
a. Ukraine, and the Baltic states, looking somewhat askance at NATO?
b. The NATO nations — and re: these such lesser/obscure states — hesitate/re-think their strategic (see the first paragraph above) cost/benefit considerations? And, accordingly,
c. Why there may, indeed, be no war in Europe for the U.S. Army to lose?
Forbes claims that a conflict between NATO and Russia in Eastern Europe would, “mainly be an Army show”.
Firstly, at no point during the Cold War, from 1955 on, did US/NATO or Soviet/Warsaw Pact planners believe that a conflict could be kept conventional or non-nuclear. While Kennedy’s “Flexible Response” doctrine, finally realized under Reagan when Carter’s Second Offset initiative came into being, permitted more freedom of maneuver than Eisenhower’s OPLAN did, neither side had any doubts that a conventional battle would rapidly cross the nuclear threshold.
Secondly, the US Army’s footprint in Europe is minimal, and given the speed of modern conflict (e.g Falklands, Operation Desert Storm’s air campaign, etc.) it would be impossible for the US to surge major ground forces to Europe. Therefore, most of the US contribution will be by the USAF (aircraft, nuclear weapons) and the USN (carriers, submarines, nuclear weapons).
Thirdly, the major ground forces contributions will be from Germany, Poland, France and random elements from the rest of NATO.
Let’s delve into Loren Thompson’s ridiculous 5 points, shall we?
1. Geography favors the enemy
Thompson seems to be under the misguided impression that without the US Army blocking its path, the Russians will make it to the Channel within days. He seems to forget that Russia would be fighting on other countries’ geographies…
2. The Army is woefully underprepared
According to Thompson, the US Army, “can’t match what Russia has”. But the US Army fights as part of a Joint Force, whereas Russia’s crude attempts at combined arms network-centric precision-strike in Georgia and Syria cannot even achieve a modicum of what Operation Desert Storm did. Perhaps Russia’s best-equipped and most experienced ground units can give their American peers a real challenge, but in totality, the US Army is much better equipped and supported.
3. Much of the joint force would be sidelined
Thompson seems to forget that NATO can turn the Baltic and Black Seas into NATO “lakes”, that carriers can play supporting roles from the Mediterranean and North Seas, that submarines can attack land targets and shipping, and that the USAF has the best stealth and precision-strike capabilities in the world. If the S-400 is so dangerous, then what of the Patriot?
4. NATO allies aren’t committed
It’s always an issue. Certainly Poland and the United Kingdom are. The less NATO members want to commit, the less the United States has to provide to them in the form of extended deterrence.
5. Washington isn’t willing to escalate
Washington also isn’t willing to allow its personnel to be killed by stand-off weapons launched from Russian territory either.
Unless we get away from the US FP of “doing nothing stupid”…we are losing on all fronts and a “war” has never even started.
IMHO….Russian is well on it’s way of damaging the US using non linear warfare in ways we cannot even begin to think about right now…
The Obama drive on a so called “ethnical FP” approach has been an outright disaster…..in all aspects…