Which Conclusion Did Americans Not Draw From The Panic Of 1819?

Russian tanks

In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Government minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance. He said:

"Their [NATO's] principal task is to contain the evolution of Russian federation. Ukraine is simply a tool to attain this goal. They could draw u.s.a. into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked about in the The states today. Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, fix up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the consequence of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw us into an armed conflict."

Putin continued:

"Allow us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and in that location are state-of-the-fine art missile systems just similar in Poland and Romania. Who will terminate it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let lone Donbass? Allow us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO fellow member and ventures such a combat operation. Practise we accept to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not."

Only these words were dismissed by White Business firm spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox "screaming from the tiptop of the hen house that he's scared of the chickens," adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine "should not be reported as a statement of fact."

Psaki'south comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The principal goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the " de-occupation" of Crimea. While this goal has, in the by, been couched in terms of diplomacy - "[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula," Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea - the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified as a "armed forces antagonist", and the achievement of which can but exist accomplished through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would non initiate any offensive armed services action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine'southward membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO'south Article 5 - which relates to collective defense - when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine existence quickly brought under the 'umbrella' of NATO protection, with 'battlegroups' like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a 'trip-wire' forcefulness, and modernistic air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to brainstorm a hybrid conflict against what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing anarchistic warfare capability it has acquired since 2022 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to "kill Russians."

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was existence implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than probable apply its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would weep foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for commonage defence force under Commodity 5. In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.

This is non idle speculation. When explaining his recent decision to deploy some 3,000 Usa troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crunch, Usa President Joe Biden declared:

"As long as he's [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to make sure nosotros reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we're there and Article 5 is a sacred obligation."

Biden'southward comments echo those fabricated during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 terminal twelvemonth. At that fourth dimension, Biden sabbatum downwards with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America's commitment to Article five of the NATO charter. Biden said:

"Article five we have as a sacred obligation. I want NATO to know America is at that place."

Biden's view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2022, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Piece of work told reporters:

"As President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... be able to choose its own future. And nosotros reject any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this by September, the president made it articulate that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian assailment is unwavering. Equally he said it, in this brotherhood there are no old members and there are no new members. There are no junior partners and there are no senior partners. At that place are only allies, pure and simple. And we volition defend the territorial integrity of every unmarried ally."

Just what would this defense entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Regular army, I tin can attest that a war with Russia would exist unlike anything the US military has experienced - e'er. The US military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does information technology possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined arms conflict. If the US was to be drawn into a conventional ground war with Russian federation, it would notice itself facing defeat on a calibration unprecedented in American military history. In brusque, it would be a rout.

Don't take my give-and-take for it. In 2022, and then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking about the results of a study - the Russia New Generation Warfare - he had initiated in 2022 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, ameliorate gainsay vehicles, and have learned sophisticated apply of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.

"Should U.s. forces detect themselves in a state war with Russia, they would be in for a rude, common cold enkindling."

In short, they would get their asses kicked.

America'south 20-year Heart Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syrian arab republic produced a military that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a report conducted by the Usa Army'south 173rd Airborne Brigade, the fundamental American component of NATO's Rapid Deployment Strength, in 2022. The written report found that US military forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military machine assailment from Russia. The lack of viable air defense force and electronic warfare adequacy, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would result in the piecemeal devastation of the Us Army in rapid order should they confront off confronting a Russian armed services that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The outcome isn't just qualitative, but also quantitative - fifty-fifty if the United states of america armed forces could stand up toe-to-toe with a Russian antagonist (which it can't), it just lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The low-intensity disharmonize that the US armed services waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be fabricated to evacuate the wounded so that they tin can receive life-saving medical attending in as short a timeframe every bit possible. This concept may have been viable where the The states was in control of the surround in which fights were conducted. It is, however, pure fiction in large-calibration combined artillery warfare. There won't be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue - fifty-fifty if they launched, they would be shot down. At that place won't be field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in brusk order. In that location won't be field hospitals - even if they were established, they would exist captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is death and destruction, and lots of it. Ane of the events which triggered McMaster's study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined artillery brigade by Russian artillery in early 2022. This, of form, would be the fate of any similar Us combat formation. The superiority Russia enjoys in artillery fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of arms systems fielded and the lethality of the munitions employed.

While the US Air Force may be able to mount a fight in the airspace in a higher place any battlefield, there will be nothing like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American armed forces in its operations in Iraq and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian footing troops will be operating under an air defense force umbrella the likes of which neither the U.s. nor NATO has ever faced. There volition be no shut air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the basis volition be on their own.

This feeling of isolation volition be furthered past the reality that, because of Russia'south overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability , the U.s.a. forces on the ground will be deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons end to function.

Any state of war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in big numbers. Back in the 1980s, nosotros routinely trained to accept losses of 30-40 per centum and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat confronting a Soviet threat. Back then, we were able to effectively match the Soviets in terms of force size, construction, and capability - in short, we could requite as good, or better, than we got.

That wouldn't be the case in any European war against Russia. The US will lose virtually of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the reward the US enjoyed confronting Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a affair of the past. Our tactics are no longer upwardly to par - when in that location is close gainsay, information technology volition be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than not, come up out on the losing side.

But even if the The states manages to win the odd tactical date against peer-level infantry, it only has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to comport. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US basis troops were constructive against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will simply be overwhelmed past the mass of combat strength the Russians will confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style set on carried out past specially trained US Ground forces troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-mode Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morning. By five:30am it was over, with the United states Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. In that location'southward something about 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would wait like. It would not exist limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

This is what volition happen if the The states and NATO seek to attach the "sacred obligation" of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in brusque, a suicide pact.

Nigh the Author:
Scott Ritter is a former U.s. Marine Corps intelligence officer and writer of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in Full general Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a Un weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter