NATO: debating and defending Europe

[novelist]

There have been a considerable number of base closures in Germany. The 8th I.D., (Mech), 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Armored Divisions are no longer there. The only combat units left are the 12th CAB, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, and the 173rd Airborne BCT in Caserma Ederle, Italy. Is this a sufficient state of U.S. readiness? Consider the facts that: (1) Putin is ex-KGB with a strong desire to reestablish the Soviet Union,the fall of which he has called the worst political tragedy of the 20th Century; (2) Putin was strongly opposed to the deployment of an ABM system in Poland; and (3) Putin's support of Russian Separatists in the Ukraine has to do with Ukraine having gravitated toward NATO. The Warsaw Pact was established to create a buffer between East & West Europe. It is fair to say that Putin and Russian general officers consider Ukraine' s gravitation toward NATO as an encroachment on the former Soviet Bloc. Although a Russian motor rifle regiment/division is not the same organizationally as it was in 1980, Russia still has over 90 active divisions. The U.S. has only has 10 infantry divisions, an armored division, and an armored cavalry division. Can the U.S. depend on other NATO allies to pick up our slack in manpower and material? Russia controls gas and electric power used by Western Europe, and countries like Germany aren't willing to challenge Putin. With the current state of affairs in the Ukraine, and Putin's continued support for the Separatists coupled with sanctions to be imposed on the Russian economy, will this lead to open conflict? If it does, what is the state of readiness of U.S. 7th Army? Can that Army face down 90 Russian divisions without an expansion of the U.S. Armed Forces to World War II proportions? In its current state, U.S. 7th Army, quite frankly, doesn't have the combat power to close with the enemy by land, sea, air, or air assault to capture, kill, repel, or destroy him by means of sustained fire and maneuver. If the balloon goes up, how reliable will the NATO allies be if Putin turns off their gas and electricity as a means of economic warfare? Will they continue to fight with us, or will they turn against us??? Where would that leave us? The military fiction novel entitled "The Ten Thousand" by Harold Coyle comes to mind, without the atomic weapons possessed by a unified Germany.