The alliance has prepared several deployment plans. There is one for the Baltic region, in the event that Russia attempts to replicate its operation in Ukraine there. There is also one for Romania and Bulgaria, in case the onslaught comes across the Black Sea. Plans are still being developed for Turkey and northern Norway.
Norway? Really? Yes, the NATO official confirms. The Norwegian government is keeping a close eye on the Russian military, the official says -- the exercises, troop movements, the submarines, the ships, the aircraft. In Germany, few are paying attention.
The new U.S. president has been more vocal and insistent than any of his predecessors when it comes to NATO states taking on a bigger burden and finally making good on their 2-percent pledge.
At the moment, Germany is catching the most flak. Last year, Europe's strongest economy had a multi-billion euro budget surplus following a significant increase in tax revenues. But defense spending has nevertheless remained at
1.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has spoken of a "rearmament spiral," and Germany's top diplomat, a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), has likewise warned of the threat of a "military behemoth" in the heart of Europe. The dispute over higher defense spending, it seems certain, will be one of the issues in the campaign ahead of German elections in September.
The Rand simulation isn't as absurd as it might first appear. The researchers in California weren't trying to determine whether Russia would invade the Baltic states -- they simply wanted to see what would actually happen if it did. That's the decisive difference. When all participants know that an invasion would be successful, it changes the political calculations. If a country can credibly demonstrate that it is capable of successfully invading another country, then it is already in a position of strength. It gives it leverage to demand concessions.
And even if some of the fundamental assumptions used in the Rand wargames are controversial, most Western defense experts now believe that Putin is militarily capable of invading.
Russia appears to have succeeded in recent years in reducing the quality gap with the West, even if Moscow is now numerically inferior to NATO in most areas.
The West is clearly ahead when it comes to the number of soldiers, tanks, combat helicopters, warships and submarines it has at its disposal. But the numbers are deceptive. The lion's share of the alliance's weapons systems come from the Americans, whose military operates primarily outside of Europe.
The Europeans, for their part, maintain a hodgepodge collection of different systems, some of which, in eastern member states, are leftovers from the Soviet era.
Seventeen different combat tank models are currently in use by European armies, 13 varieties of air-to-air missiles and 29 frigate models. More importantly, however, NATO is comprised of 28 armies whose structures and equipment are not always compatible. When it comes to the military, diversity can often be a curse.
The budget figures are also misleading. NATO's European member states spend $241 billion on defense annually compared to Russia's $66 billion. Even if you factor in Russia's numerous shadow budgets, the gap is enormous.
Yet Moscow gets disproportionately more "bang for the buck," as the Americans say. A Russian tank battalion costs only a fraction of what a German one does because the equipment and, particularly, the personnel is so much cheaper. A Russian lieutenant colonel earns only a small fraction of what his German counterpart makes.
Furthermore, Russia is a militarized society and Moscow oversees a military-industrial complex that is run according to Putin's orders rather than economic criteria.
The Kremlin has invested huge amounts of money modernizing its army since its near debacle during the war in Georgia in 2008. Should a crisis develop, Russia's highly sophisticated air defense systems and cruise missiles on warships could severely limit NATO's freedom of movement in its own territory and in the Baltic Sea. Most importantly, however, Russian army leadership regularly conducts extensive military exercises involving as many as 70,000 soldiers to test the readiness and integration of its diverse weapons systems. In one of those exercises, an invasion of the Baltics was simulated.
There is, of course, plenty to suggest that the Russian government and military leadership are exaggerating their own success to play to the domestic audience.
Nevertheless, a recent study released by Carnegie Foundation Russia holds that Russia still has the upper hand. Although Moscow may not be capable of carrying out large-scale military operations outside the immediate post-Soviet region, in a "Baltic-Eastern European scenario," the Kremlin could deploy troops that are among the most sophisticated and best trained in the country, equipped with state-of-the-art weapons. NATO would have little to counter such an onslaught. Many of NATO's reinforcement troops come from smaller member states and are inferior to the better organized, better trained and better equipped Russians.
At the Clausewitz Barracks in the town of Burg, located in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the consequences of the so-called peace dividend, which Germany and other NATO member states afforded themselves after the end of the Cold War, can plainly be seen. In two-and-a-half decades, Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, shrank from more than a half-million soldiers down to 177,000 and from 2,000 Leopard 2 combat tanks down to 225, as of 2011.
One critical juncture came during a conference of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet in 2010, after which then-Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg excitedly claimed that the government's requirement to cut 8.3 billion euros from the military budget was a "unique opportunity." The German military still hasn't recovered from his "restructuring."
The lieutenant has diligently listed all his battalion's hardships on a colorful piece of paper. Targeted inventory of five-ton trucks: 22. Actual number available: 5. Number that are operational: 4. Targeted inventory of 15-ton trucks: 50. Actual number available: 20. Number that are operational: 14. And the list goes on.
Of the 117 night-vision goggles the unit is supposed to have, only 17 exist. The battalion doesn't even have its own command post and has to make do with borrowed desks, chairs and tents. It has no mobile accommodations. When it conducts exercises, the unit is forced to scrounge from five similar battalions spread out across the country.
Germany will play a decisive role in NATO's realignment. As a large country at the center of the Continent, Germany is to become a logistical hub, upon which the credibility of the deterrence ultimately hinges.
At the same time, Germany will also be one of the primary providers of troops. Berlin has promised NATO that Germany will establish three deployable army divisions, each with eight brigades, in three stages by 2032 -- a significant strengthening of the country's armed forces. Some of the associated structures are already in place today, but they are largely hollow.
It would make sense to continue developing a more effective division of labor between Europe's armies. Why, for example, does Slovenia maintain its own air force, made up of nine aircraft, when the country is forced to mothball its expensive armored howitzers because it lacks the personnel to operate them?
Why does the Czech Republic spend such a large share of its military budget on leasing payments for Swedish Gripen fighter jets when NATO would be just fine without them? Why don't Slovenia and the Czech Republic instead concentrate on military capabilities that might actually be useful to the alliance? Germany could assume responsibility for monitoring the airspace of both countries -- it wouldn't be a problem. But it is unlikely that such a thing will happen anytime soon.
Relinquishing elements of one's own military is also an issue of national prestige and sovereignty which is, of course, a struggle for all European countries, including Germany. It would make sense for Germany, for example, to eliminate its mountain infantry and instead rely on Austria or Slovenia, which are equally capable in this area.
The spirit of community, however, doesn't extend that far, not even in Berlin. In the case of mountain infantry, Horst Seehofer, the powerful governor of Bavaria, which is home to the largest stretch of the German Alps, stands in the way. And although it does make sense to have deeper political and military integration, that doesn't mean savings. For Germany, things would most likely get more expensive because, as the leading nation, it would have to provide a large share of the infrastructure that would then be shared with its NATO partners.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants to invest 130 billion euros over the next 13 years just to provide the Bundeswehr with the material and equipment it currently needs. The pledge to NATO to set up three deployable divisions by 2032 will cost even more...It is possible, however, that Germany will indeed ultimately spend 2 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) for these troops.
Trump and the Russians: Why the ‘leak of the leak’ is so damaging
Originally Posted by davidbfpo
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