In the eternal quest to drive up the already preposterous level of US military spending, Pentagon officials are talking up the notion of Russia as an “existential threat” to the United States, and running tabletop war games which they say show the US military isn’t as “ready as we want to be” for a sustained ground war in Russia.
That the US and Russia each have enough nuclear weapons to annihilate most life on the planet has long made the war-gaming for a long US-Russia war ultimately pointless: no one would survive long enough to enjoy the “win” anyhow. That hasn’t stopped the Pentagon from envisioning protracted campaigns on Russian soil with conventional weaponry.
The conclusion: most Pentagon officials figure the US would almost certainly defeat Russia in this drawn-out war, but after drawn-out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it is “not a sure bet.” That’s a problem looking for a solution, and at the Pentagon, the solution is always only a few hundred billion dollars away.
Some US intelligence officers, speaking anonymously, say they believe such a war is an “unlikely scenario,” while analysts note the US outspends Russia on military forces ten to one. Russia would have home-field advantage in a ground war in Russia, of course, and that makes up for a lot of spending differences, but it’s also a good reason for the US to not invade Russia.
Russia survived Napoleon, at the cost of untold dead, and the cost of unborn generations. Then came another European import, communism. While Lenin was the visible head, he was surrounded by European communists, and the whole well planned and financed revolution was probably the most famous "color" revolution. Having no feelings for Russian people or their faith, those communists committed heinous crimes against civilians, including a very sick execution of the Tsar and his entire family. Not being content with that, sick European urge to steel what is not theirs, came up with a plan o annihilate millions of Russians for their "elbow room". Over 26million died, including millions of civilians. Now, why are American people chosen for this honor — to try again?
But there is no need to worry about ground forces. There will be no need. For a country that has not recovered yet from the slaughter of civilians — there will not be another time. I am afraid that just mentioning something as stupid as trying to invade Russia — must be a product of a very sick mind. We better be sure that all those shields they are talking about actually work. Because there will be some nervous fingers on al those thousands upon thousands nuke buttons
I suppose that the "point" of this is to peddle the neocon propaganda line that Russia is not a European country. That's not what the Russians think!
Or maybe there was a solution in search of a problem.
They wanted to "reset the force" after the Iraq War. They still do. This is just a different way of saying the same thing. They ran it down, and now they want to rebuild what they used up. Iraq, the war on which they never stop making a profit.
I'm sure the moment Warshington is turned into a sea of radioactive glass by Russian Topol M missiles, all that new expenditure will be instantly justified. But as far as I'm concerned, I strongly approve of the Imperialist States of Amerikastan spending all its resources on useless military equipment, while losing actual wars to tribesmen in turbans armed with fifty year old AK 47s.
Geee I would feel terrible if our politicians were nuked.
Nicely put.
The US has no intention of ever fighting Russia or any other country able to defend itself. This is all about making money by producing weapons to be sold to other countries or never be used. It's the same game that's been going on for the past 60+ years with no end in sight.
Exactly. Bullies don't test someone who's going to hit them back and hard. Much easier to beat up little weak kids. And even then the US loses every time.
Mr Ditz is desperately thrashing about for reasons why the US wouldn't win a ground war against Russia, which suggests that the pro-Putin camp fears precisely such an eventuality. First, he trots out the 1950s argument of a nuclear war that would destroy the planet. Then we get a false comparison with Afghanistan, which was not a state v state war, and which suggests the Putin's American supporters fear a "drawn-out" war. The later is, of course, the most likely scenario: an ex-Yugoslav-type air war, to which Russia's vast territory is far more vulnerable than to a ground war. Once Putin's rickety air force has been worn down by a long war, ground troops could be used to drive him out of territories being unlawfully occupied or to decolonise parts of Russia's empire. Indeed, the Afghan example shows that guerillas are extremely effective in such situations.
The casualness by which you envision a WW3 style drawn out conflict is rather breathtaking. An ultimate arm-chair warrior at work, fantasizing an "ex-Yugoslav-type air war", followed by a ground campaign which would all go smoothly you might suppose. All directed at "Putin", to free territories which "he" has occupied. What nonsense. You are casually describing what would amount to an utter catastrophe, which would destroy the lives of tens of millions of people and upend the entire planet.
There is no Russian "empire". The Soviet Union dissolved itself peacefully, and the former Eastern
bloc made an equally peaceful political transition. Those events were entirely unprecedented in history.
The reasons Russia is now portrayed as an "existential threat" are transparently material – to divert resources into the military/industrial sector where it will go to waste but enrich a few. That you don't understand that, and can't help but knock those that do ("desperately thrashing") reflects the poverty of your world-view.
It's official. You have lost your mind.
Nope. All just watercooler gametalk fantasy and blather. The US would never invade Russia or any other country that puts up anywhere near equal resistance, and its been that way since Viet Nam, at least. And the weak ones beat 'em anyway. Nobody is going to invade Russia. Somebody near the DC feed trough is about to get real rich fantasizing about it, though.
The US, which can't even defeat the lightly armed Taliban which doesn't even have an air force, is going to beat the Russian military on Russian territory? Wow, talk about delusional.
Russian bear like big mushroom cloud. Sure our planes fall out the sky but maybe they fall on americans. We shoot down mh17 and say it was cia with very convincing american accents on tape. We will win. But can someone give me a sandwich? Theres no food in russia.
Cute, anti-russian hasbara.
Can we have people who say these things committed as a danger to themselves and others? I'm not joking.
Living amongst the rabid causes thoughts and thinking which is a danger to all of life and even for the planet. Maybe Russia should send a message to Neocon Central that in such such aforementioned event, they will send a few presents to Neoconlandia.. Perhaps such a missive would save life as we know it….
Make those who preach war, pay for it and serve in it. Bring back the draft, no deferments. These chicken hawks who cheer war all had multiple deferments …… Make them fight now.
The U.S. Military (if you can believe this, and I do not) cannot even defeat decisively The Taliban in fourteen years. Who are they kidding? You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say 'give us more money should we need to fight Russia (or China or both)' and 'give us more money because The Taliban is resurgent after fourteen years of fighting the U.S.'
Russia is NOT The Taliban! The Taliban even before 9/11 was living in the Stone Age. Fourteen years and we are still fighting the Taliban? If after fourteen years we are STILL fighting the Taliban, I don't care how much money you flush down this toilet of lies and deceptions, you don't stand a prayer against Russia.
This is ether a joke or a fraud, but it does not have the ring of truth to it that after fourteen years the U.S. cannot defeat The Taliban.
The Taliban are an indigenous force operating as an insurgency against an occupying force.
A war between the US and Russia would likely be a conventional large-scale maneuver conflict. Any subsequent occupation operations would almost certainly be problematic, but absent the introduction of nuclear weapons to the mix, Russia wouldn't last a month.
Fourtunately you are not in charge
Well, I don't want to be in charge.
But for the record, if I WAS in charge, I would not go to war with Russia. There are no good reasons to do so and lots of good reasons not to do so.
I was just pointing out that the idea of Russia's current conventional military capabilities being anything like a match for those of the US is a fantasy.
"Russia wouldn't last a month"
This is a statement of a true American!! Bravo!! US did not actually win a war since they beat Japan (Germany was destroyed by Russia) and now Russia will not last one month!
What a good American patriot! More wars, US can win! Oh well…
BTW, can you (the American) tell me how US now sends humans into space?!
M
How many troops would we need for this cakewalk?
Zero of course, just the F-35!
So Russia wouldn't last a month. Really? Where's this optimism coming from? Not even the US military feels this confident.
Keep context: What I meant that inside of a month, Russia would lose any conventional large-scale maneuver conflict. I didn't mean that Russia could be conquered, occupied, etc. in a month (or in any other period of time).
"This optimism" isn't coming from anywhere. If that balloon goes up, I'm not rooting for the US. I've seen how well Russian equipment performs on the battlefield versus US gear. It's embarrassing.
Russia benefits from long conflicts. The geography is vast, the population can be conscripted and expected to hang tough, and of course winter eventually comes. The Russian strategy has always been to buy time when under attack. In a conventional modern maneuver conflict, time is the one thing they don't get.
Where did you get to see Russian equipment perform on the battlefield? And where did you get to see US gear?
So "losing" means exactly what to you?
Kuwait.
Thomas, this is 2015, not 1941 when the Wehrmacht still relied on horse drawn wagons, and managing Russian winters. Prospectively, today we have the luxury of dividing war between two nuclear powers as being conventional, nuclear, or both. If such an initial conventional war between the US and Russia takes place, it will be anyone's desperate guess a moment after the first shot is fired, what Russia and the US will throw at one another. If it's 50/50 that one side will preemptively launch nukes, then it will be 75/25 in favor of the unthinkable, and in response, don't count on any punches being pulled by anyone. Sanity will only be choosing the best choice from a set of only disastrous choices, like your racing car sliding downhill on an icy street and in a split second having to decide whether to trying to steer off cliff or into another vehicle coming your way.
Dominick,
Please keep two things in mind:
1) I've qualified my assessment of a conventional conflict two times with "unless it goes nuclear."
2) Some people seem to be imputing to me the position that the US SHOULD got to war with Russia. That's the opposite of my position.
I was just making a narrow technical point regarding some commenters' illusions as to the relative SHORT-TERM, CONVENTIONAL battle equation.
Russia is THINKING about modernizing its military. For example, they're hoping to start replacing their T-90 tanks, which are just T-72s with some upgrades, with the new T-14. Right now, they have 20 T-14s and are years away from completing that replacement regime. I've seen what a T-72 looks like after it tangles with a US M1 or M60 battle tank or a Warthog.
Ditto for the Russian air force and navy. Lots of old weapons and equipment. Lots of plans for future upgrades. And those plans have been on hold for years.
Russia cannot be beat in the sense of "invaded and indefinitely occupied." Russia can probably even put the US in some serious hurt in a conventional maneuver war. But it would lose such a war in short order. Those are just the facts. I don't have to like them. Personally, I'd rather the Russian armed forces were strong enough in the areas they'd need to be strong in to make the US think a LOT harder about its policies. But I don't get what I want. The facts are the facts whether I like them or not.
Okay, so let's assume their conventional forces are sub-par and won't hold the line. Let's also assume they don't see the necessary build-up of our own conventional forces in Europe necessary for such an attack. Let's also assume Europe goes all in with us instead of avoiding another devastating war in their backyard.
Now, let's assume US forces enter Russia and have their army and air force on the run. We already know our own combat forces require a huge logistical train to keep even a small amount of combat troops engaged….
Enter Russian nuclear weapons, used on their own soil, to destroy that logistical train leaving US forces at the front essentially cut off. Can we keep an army in the field supplied by air alone? Ask Field Marshall von Paulus about that; I'm sure Stalingrad taught him a few things about air supply.
And what if Moscow decides to sacrifice some of its own forces to get at our front-line troops with those nukes?
Oh there's plenty the Russians can do to stop any invasion in its tracks.
So you want me to assume that the war in question is an invasion of Russia, and/or that it goes nuclear, which are two assumptions which I have clearly and unambiguously excluded from my assessment multiple times?
No thanks. I made a very narrow and defensible claim, and I'm not going to turn it into a broad and indefensible claim just because some people would find that easier to carp about.
I'm not sure which part of "in conventional maneuver warfare, the US has an insuperable short-term advantage" is unclear.
Let's assume as you do, that Russia has no useful planes and tanks. Don't they have something to use for defense? Do they have something they can use to shoot F-35s out of the sky, and blow up US tanks? Or is Russia completely defenseless?
I never said that Russia has no useful planes or tanks.
I never said that Russia is completely defenseless.
Once again, I'm not going to defend claims I never made.
Where did I say you made those claims? I'm asking questions to give you a chance to explain your bizarre claim that Russia would "lose" in less than a month–a claim that you apparently expect us to accept based on…your self-perceived authority?
Since Russia would be the target of your "conventional large-scale maneuver conflict," a conflict that would entail offensive and defensive maneuvers, I take it there must be weapons more suited for defense aside from outdated and inferior tanks, air force, navy–the inferiority of which you said you have witnessed.
I don't need "a chance to explain" anything, nor do I "expect you to accept" anything. I said what I had to say by way of injecting some basic facts into a discussion. People who like basic facts will be OK with that. People who live in a fantasy world may not be OK with that.
Apparently you do because you're not willing to defend the outrageous claim that you do make. That's why it's always helpful to give reasoned arguments.
I made a reasonable claim.
When questioned as to the claim, I provided reasonable substantiation for the claim.
If you don't want to believe the claim, that's fine. But I'm not the one in the position of asserting a position without evidence here.
From the reaction to your post, it's clear that your audience disagrees.
I'm not a performer. There is no "audience." There's just some people talking.
Why some of them have a tendency to fetishize Russian military might and Chinese anti-ship missiles (e.g. "there is no defense against the Sunburn," which has in fact been intercepted and shot down in battle) in much the same way that idiots fetishize American military might or their favorite football team, I have no idea.
"Russia benefits from long conflicts.". ?? ????
—-
Yea Afghanistan was a bananza for them LOL
OK, clarification:
Russia benefits from long conflicts in which it is on the strategic defensive on or near its own territory. That territory is so vast and Russia's human and material potential once actuated to a wartime footing and running is so huge that if a conflict drags out, as e.g. World War II or Napoleon's invasion, things turn Russia's way.
My point was that in a short, sharp, conventional conflict Russia doesn't enjoy those advantages. Its existing weapons systems are aging and were non-competitive with US counterparts even 25 years ago; that differential is even bigger now because Russia has been on something resembling a peace footing for the most part since 1992.
I would not bet on the US to win a long war with Russia which required it to occupy any significant part of Russia for any significant length of time. An insurgency would tear at the occupation's heels in the west, while beyond the Urals the slumbering industrial beast would wake up and do exactly what it did in World War II — pop out about a gillion T-14s, just like Uncle Joe's communist workers popped out a gillion T-34s. And then the tide would turn.
I would not bet on Russia to win a short conventional war that didn't have those characteristics. In a 30-day conflict where its own territorial integrity was not at real stake, Russian armor, air and naval power would be eviscerated.
Happy now?
No threat to Russia – but an existential one to the American tax payier…
They should try wearing saffron robes and going barefoot carrying begging bowls to fill their coffers.
That works for religion so why not for the new faith of permanent and unending war?
Another cake walk. America's vastly superior technology and Rambo-like "warriors" will wipe the floor with those lowly Slavs in no time.
Take a hour to read a bit about the battle for Moscow or Stalingrad. Would it still seem like a good idea if the losses in a month were greater than the total losses of the Vietnam war?
The German war plan was a quick victory and arguably they had greater advantages than the US forces would have today. Beyond the act of invasion itself, Germany's greatest mistake was their failure to fully mobilize the country for war until it was tool late.
Any "on the cheap" plan that calls for less than full mobilization of America for war is a reckless gamble. Time to get the pampered and overfed kids out of their mom's basement and get to some real man's work of getting killed for no useful purpose. Not the wealthy kids thought, they have to stay safely at home and plan the next big adventure.
So predicable …
Since Trident-1 in 1970 the US has been aiming to achieve a Disarming First Strike Capability although it leads to Launch On Warning and thus Suicide by mistake according to missile engineer Bob Aldridge -www.plrc.org. Best info: Google Scott Horton interviews Ray McGovern: The New Cold War With Russia. And comments.
Russia might be outspent 10 to i but they out deliver 10 to i