According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, there are once again conversations going among NATO diplomats and military leaders about planning to deploy even more troops along the Russian frontier, with some plans potentially including as many as 4,000 additional ground troops.
New announcements of deployments, particularly into Poland and the Baltic states, which are again the focus of today’s reports, are common enough, but have in recent months trickled out in much smaller amounts, allowing repeated announcements of “new” forces pretty much constantly.
The new plans are subject to rare debate, with the US as usual leading the push for ever more troops, and Germany leading the opposition, with German officials saying they don’t want to treat Moscow “as a permanent enemy” because of the dispute over Ukraine.
Indeed, with the Ukraine Civil War in a state of ceasefire for almost 9 months now, it seems a flimsy excuse for more NATO escalations in the region,and predictions of a Russian invasion of Europe have clearly not panned out. This has not shifted the goals of NATO’s hawks to get more troops into Eastern Europe, but may be wearing through the patience of everyone else.
This is a fantastic idea. Let's all surround and corner The Bear in October.
Reminds me of those idiot tourists that plague our national parks every year.
Is just another way of saying that NATO is a militarism regime and making its militaristic presence for people to be scared of, otherwise why aren't they fighting isis?
Because ISIS is unbeatable. Putin isn't. It's that simple!
Instead of gaining some guts for a final push, looks like Obama is completely losing control of "his" administration.
I don't think we need to worry near so much about when Russia might attack Europe . But maybe we should be more concerned about how we can prevent NATO from attacking other countries . NATO still has troops in Yugoslavia Iraq and Afghanistan .
I agree that, having burned his fingers in Ukraine, Putin is unlikely to attack another European country, although we have yet to see how badly he burns his fingers in Syria. As we can see from both Ukraine and Syria, he's clearly scared silly of using his military forces. The great speciality of the Soviet military was using tanks against unarmed civilians. The idea that the enemy might shoot back is new to them! Thus, between mass surrenders, desertion and a steady flow of body bags coming back to Mother Russia, Putin probably believes that if he went one-on-one with NATO, he'd provoke his own overthrow. That makes him immensely vulnerable.
The world's leading merchant of military violence.
Still pushing the "NATO split"! And the emphasis on the ceasefire in the "civil war" shows just how vulnerable Mr Ditz thinks Putin really is. It's obvious both from Ukraine and Syria that Putin is scared silly of using his military forces and if seriously confronted, he would cut and run. Sooner or later, he'll get so heavily bogged down in Syria that he'll be "ripe for the picking" in Ukraine. At that point, Russia, probably post-Putin, will return to the place in Europe that the facts of geography have given it and that it has not occupied since 1917. That, I think, is the Germans' point: Putin's position is unrealistic in the long term. Talk about more ground forces simply keeps the pressure up and provokes Putin into money-wasting tit-for-tat measures.
Interesting. Whenever Russia makes a positive contribution to solving conflict somehwere, a few days later NATO does something stupid on its borders.
Germany leading the opposition, with German officials saying they don’t want to treat Moscow “as a permanent enemy” because of the dispute over Ukraine.
Well – Isnt it about time you declared your independence? 70 years now?
I'm guessing there were at least 4,000 troops diagnosed with VD the week before Operation Barbarossa given that there were 3.8 million troops German and allied troops deployed on the border with Russia. Not too many Germans lining up to die on the same patch of dirt as their grandfathers
Hard to believe this drop in the bucket represents anything other than yet another juvenile show of a "force".
Whatever Putin's faults, he is pretty much immune to kids games and greasy lobbyists.