When the Soviet Union collapsed over two decades ago, the nations of NATO assumed that the Russian bear had been permanently removed as a threat and they embarked on steady disarmament plans that caused their military forces to now be a mere shadow of what once existed in the NATO alliance. Today, the NATO nations are having to confront a militarily-stronger and reawakened Russia and they find themselves in no condition to challenge (or even resist) Russia. The Ukrainian crisis has shown a light on just how weak the NATO alliance really is.
The first three links detail the worries that are now spreading throughout Europe about their current militarily-weakened condition. The worries are particularly acute in the Eastern Europe and Baltic nations which were once imprisoned within the USSR or the Warsaw Pact alliance. The first link offers insights into how weak some European nations now are compared to where they used to be, and the second link cites the Polish Prime Minister as stating the Ukrainian crisis is a reminder of the time when Hitler and Stalin has designs on European territory.
The Russians have amassed a large military force on the Ukrainian-Russian border. The question is whether that force will invade Ukraine and absorb the eastern provinces of Ukraine into Russia, as was done in the Crimea. I think there is no question that if Russia decides to invade the Ukraine, the Ukrainians will lose the war. Indeed, the real question is, given the pathetic weakness and lack of readiness among the NATO nations for war, could the Russian forces be stopped anywhere east of the Rhine River if they just kept going until serious military resistance was met?
In a way, Vladimir Putin has done the USA and NATO a favor. Before Putin invaded and annexed the Crimea, the USA and NATO were almost comatose about their military weakness. The USA, in particular, seemed to be laboring under a delusion that the old-fashioned wars of tank-heavy combat forces were over. Now, that is exactly the kind of war which NATO faces on its eastern borders with Russia. President Obama had been considering the reduction of the US army by about 100,000 soldiers, cutting it to its lowest level since before World War II. Similar large cuts were planned for all US military branches. Obama was also going to mothball the A-10 “warthog” warplanes, which are the most effective planes in the world for killing tanks and armored vehicles and giving soldiers on the ground close air support. The Russian seizure of the Crimea and the revived prospect of Russian tank armies invading Europe in the future now make the retirement of the A-10 attack warplanes a very foolhardy move. Indeed, Obama can easily cut the size of the military budget by downsizing the numbers of the Department of Defense’s civilian employees and its “special contractors.” Both of these categories are incredibly bloated, as previous posts have documented. DOD expenses will also drop significantly because the USA will at long last not be involved in a foreign war after the US forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan, so no funds will be needed to sustain wartime operations. The USA needs very much to rest its war-weary troops and build up its military forces to confront the rapid military build-ups of China, Russia and Iran. China’s military build-up is especially rapid and is designed to defeat the USA in a conventional war. Russia is particularly aggressive, gobbling up the Crimea and also seeking military bases in eight nations around the world to project Russian power globally more than it did in the Cold War (fourth link). Three of the nations where Russia is seeking military bases are in the Western Hemisphere where they could more directly threaten the USA itself.
Hopefully, the US Congress will sufficiently come to its senses to not approve the massive disarmament program Obama wants to impose on the US military. One would have to have their head stuck firmly in the sand to vote for such a disastrous downsizing of the US military when our military rivals are rapidly increasing their military forces and displaying a willingness to use them.
The relative sizes of the military forces in the Western and Eastern blocs are a key factor in the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecy about the Gog-Magog alliances’ eventual prophesied invasion of the western nations and their allies. The more militarily weak the USA, NATO and other western nations become, the more they invite the eastern bloc alliance to see them as easily-conquerable prey.
- http://thechronicleherald.ca/world/1195120-eu-rethinks-military-plans?from=most_read&most_read=1195120
- http://news.yahoo.com/crimea-wary-eastern-europe-asks-whos-next-133708421.html
- http://fortunascorner.com/2014/03/27/provocative-weakness-military-cuts-render-nato-less-formidable-as-deterrent-to-russia/comment-page-1/
- http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/russia-seeks-access-bases-eight-countries-its-ships-and-bombers#sthash.lIvH5v9d.dpuf
