The case for US troops in Ukraine
Chief Tango sends us a link from the Washington Post written by James Jeffrey, a former ambassador for the Clinton and Obama Administrations who thinks that NATO ad the UN haven’t been fierce enough in the face of aggression in the Ukraine, so he figures that we need to put boots on the ground;
The best way to send Putin a tough message and possibly deflect a Russian campaign against more vulnerable NATO states is to back up our commitment to the sanctity of NATO territory with ground troops, the only military deployment that can make such commitments unequivocal. To its credit, the administration has dispatched fighter aircraft to Poland and the Baltic states to reinforce NATO fighter patrols and exercises. But these deployments, like ships temporarily in the Black Sea, have inherent weaknesses as political signals. They cannot hold terrain — the ultimate arbiter of any military calculus — and can be easily withdrawn if trouble brews. Troops, even limited in number, send a much more powerful message. More difficult to rapidly withdraw once deployed, they can make the point that the United States is serious about defending NATO’s eastern borders.
Yeah, no. We’ve gone past the point of sending a “powerful message”. That time was five years ago. Putin’s biggest fear is a missile shield in eastern Europe. Everyone on the planet knows that. Putting some Joe Rucksack in the western Ukraine as a minor speed bump on Vlad’s way to the Adriatic Sea will do nothing except make the US look weaker. the last I heard, the US pulled it’s last tanks from Europe last year. I guess that didn’t send a message to Putin, did it? And when you talk about “boots on the ground” you must mean tank treads on the ground, too. So which armored division are we going to reactivate to face the tank-heavy Russians, or would that be too strong of the message?
These navel-gazing egg heads would make me laugh if they weren’t giving dangerous advice without a thought to the consequences and without considering the resources we’ll have left when the liberals get done slashing the shit out of the Pentagon. The troops aren’t mannequins to propped up in front of Russian divisions to scare them off – they won’t be scared off. The Russians don’t scare with piddly-assed think tank mental masturbation.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Military issues
Sadly the most formidable deterrent to the “tank-heavy” Russian divisions is being permanently retired.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II
I should add that A-10s would be/could be deployed a lot faster than our own tank-heavy divisions.
Gravel…excellent point. No tanks in Europe and getting rid of the best tank killer ever in the arsenal. I just doesn’t add up. Jonn is right, the Russians may be a lot of things but easily scared, they are not. Troops are just targets to them as to any well trained military. Again, those brainiacs contemplating their bell buttons are the idiots the White House likes to listen to. Why? Because they can’t get better solid, information out of their own Pentagon.
Send US combat troops to the Ukraine? Oh, that’s just a f**king brilliant idea.
The Russians would react to that just like we’d react to them sending combat troops to Mexico.
Dear me. I looked at the calendar this morning and saw that I’m still in 2014, not 1964.
So this author James is covering his lap in fear that – what? He thinks Vlad might invade something? Why is he acting so surprised? Abd so worried?
I’m just trying to understand here. Because I don’t. There are some very confrontational times coming up between now and 2015, and there is no one in charge any more.
And you’re right: the time to take a firm stance was 5 years ago, not now. Had a chance, blew it. Move on.
To me, it was a flashback to 1994. After gutting the military, the Clinton administration decided to commit US forces to the Balkans and Somalia. Talk about doing more with less.
I’m thinking more like 1999, LebbenB.
Pristina Airport, specifically. Where NATO and Russian forced damn near ended up shooting at each other.
Tense times, indeed.
We are approaching the pre-cultural times of Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers”, where the Gubbment was so messed up the veterans took over.
Not a bad thing to hope for.
So should we start asking people if they are a citizen, or a civilian? When you have placed the well being of the success of the nation over your own, then you have the right to vote on its outcome. The left would swallow their tongues at that one.
No, they would call you a racist, whether it applied or not. It seems to be their default response.
If you’ve read more Heinlein than ST, it’s more like the FutureHistory’s “Crazy Years”. Pray we don’t get a real-live Nehemiah Scudder – we have a plethora of candidates.
One less now that Phelps has passed.
My sister had a colostomy last week… I tried toget her to visit Phelps’ grave during the prep but she wasn’t cooperative at all. I’m really disappointed in her.
Argh! That was “colonoscopy”…what a way to ruin a line…..
29 tanks came back to Grafenwöhr to support training earlier this year.
http://www.stripes.com/news/american-tanks-return-to-europe-after-brief-leave-1.264910#
The left hasn’t found their unpopular war that will kill +40,000 of our draftees yet. You know — their Vietnam.
But they’re trying really hard.
And yet, they’ll be crying in their beer and clutching at those who serve to protect them, if there is ever the remotest hint of an invasion on US soil.
These navel-gazing egg heads would make me laugh if they weren’t giving dangerous advice without a thought to the consequences and without considering the resources we’ll have left when the liberals get done slashing the shit out of the Pentagon.
I would submit that they have thought about the consequences and they don’t give a rat’s ass about them. There is no concern on their part about getting people killed because they are safe in the knowledge they, personally, will not be killed.
If I’ve learned nothing else watching liberal hypocrisy since the late ’60s I have learned that when it comes to keeping power a liberal will lie, cheat, steal, and get other folks killed to do so.
To a liberal “accepting responsibility” means mouthing the words and nothing more.
I don’t think Vlad really wants a shooting war. He’d lose the money we give him to ferry US astronauts to the space station, because it would go to SpaceX. And that may not be too far off, anyway.
I think this is mostly a show for him. He wants control of Crimea and if he has that and eastern Ukraine, he’s got a cold-weather seaport and doesn’t have to go west to Vladivostok, on the coast of Siberia. This way, neither the Norks nor China will be monitoring him quite so closely, he can move his Navy/Air Force, etc. freely, and he can have his fun intimidating eastern Europeans while he’s at it.
I will try to disagree without be disagreeable.
Sevastopol is a port on the Black Sea. Vlad can sail around to his hearts content but it is really just a big salty lake. In order to get to the Med, he has to go through the Bosphorus. Narrow places are 1,000 yards wide. That may not be EASY to close but it can be made very expensive to penetrate. Once through the Bosphorus, his ships are in the Aegean Sea. Limited maneuvering room, limited channels, easy to be attacked. Now in the Med. There are two ways out of the Med, Suez and Gibraltar — both narrow and pretty shallow. He can threaten Europe from the Med but it is more like the Sea of Okhotsk — an enclosed area that is deep enough to hide submarines. If that was my Navy I would assume that the Med was wired like a pinball machine.
Maybe I just don’t understand Naval operations. What is the naval value of Sevastopol?
By the way, is there any value is setting up radio listening posts on the Turkish Black Sea coast? It is about 185 miles from Sevastopol to Turkey.
The need of a true warm water port with direct access to the Atlantic has driven Russian naval thought and strategy since the time of Peter the Great.
Sevastopol is only a partial answer, as you correctly wrote the Russian Black Sea Fleet can be bottled up by blockading the Bosphorous.
Not sure the 300 million or so we spend every year sending astronauts up in space is much compared to the increased border buffer and income of the Ukraine etc. When it coems to Russian border insecurity, more space is ALWAYS better. They feel about distance the way we feel about the Atlantic and Pacific – essential parts of the over-all strategy.
“They cannot hold terrain”
No shit. That’s what we’ve said after every egghead endorses ground forces drawdown in favor of “smart weapons” or airpower. I would be willing to bet the jerk who wrote that sentiment was in favor of slashing the Army and Marines end strength no less than two months ago, but like all good reactionists they love to tell us rain is wet after we’ve been soaked. If these aholes weren’t so dangerous they might be humorous.
I respectfully submit the following:
1. Sell 50 A10 Warthogs to Ukraine for $1 ea. (cheaper than watching them rot in the desert as the air force wants to get rid of them.)
2. Train 50 or so Ukrainian pilots intensely for 30 days as well as maint personnel.
3. Provide 30 days combat load as a good will gesture.
I don’t think it will stop Putin, but might provide a speed bump which will give him pause.
I’d chip in enough to triple the amount of actual A-10s. $150.00
Pathetic. What world do these people live in?
How do they not understand the basic truth which is: It doesn’t matter how big the gun on your hip is – if you’ve demonstrated at every turn that you’re never willing to use it.
Is there even one world leader who thinks of Obama as a strong leader, in a military sense? Oh, sure, he’ll order a commando raid or an air strike or a drone hit. Those things are easy because they put minimal US lives at risk, and they’re over and done with (whether successful or not) before anybody even knows about them.
But Obama has ZERO credibility in terms of threatening military force. ZERO. Hell, if he even tried, his hippie enablers would desert him in a heartbeat, and the hawks would just fold their arms, sit back and laugh.
Obama’s only hope would be to assemble an army of his hippie supporters to march on Russia. Actually, that might work because the Russians would probably just piss themselves laughing so hard they would die of hysteria.
So the same “experts” who want to guy the military because there will never be another large-scale land war against a major conventional army want to start a large-scale land war against a major conventional army. See? Smart power! Wow, that makes a lot of sense!
Christ Almighty…
That’s supposed to say “gut the military.”
Fucking iPhone