President Biden is sending 3,000 US troops to Germany, Poland, and Romania amid heightened tensions in the region with Russia.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said 2,000 US-based troops will be headed to Germany and Poland, and another 1,000 Germany-based soldiers will deploy to Romania.
The US already has a military presence in each country, but the deployment will do little but escalate tensions since Russia is currently seeking guarantees on US and NATO deployments in the region. None of the countries border Russia, although Romania has a coast on the Black Sea.
Both Poland and Romania have requested for more US troops to be deployed into the region. In 2020, the US established a permanent military presence in Poland.
The deployment comes after the US put 8,5000 troops on “heightened alert” for potential deployment to Eastern Europe as part of NATO’s Response Force. But in order for the force to be activated, all 30 of NATO’s members would need to consent, and some allies are not as interested in escalating tensions with Moscow, most notably Germany.
While the USA claims to want diplomacy, it continues the troop buildup which only exacerbates the situation and makes the Ukraine more unstable.
Well said!
Not to mention that the numbers involved are ridiculous in terms of having any impact on any conflict in the region. Just a PR show for Biden to show he’s being “Presidential” – even while the numbers involved show he’s still just “mental.” The administration on the ignorance of the US and EU electorate about the military balance between Russia and NATO.
Hah! Just listened to Andrei Martyanov’s latest video on Wednesday. He mentions the US sending “another whole 2,000” (actually 3, but he’s not bothering to count them) to Europe. He then said, “In a real war, it’s an additional 2,000 corpses.” Andrei has, shall we say, a droll humor.
Who is the bloody porn queen?!
Andrei Martyanov. He’s a Russian now a US citizen who served in the Russian military and graduated from one of their Naval Academys. He’s an expert in military technology. Has written three books on essentially the decline of the West, specifically the US military, and is writing a fourth book.
Resume from his publisher:
ANDREI MARTYANOV is an expert on Russian military and naval issues. He was born in Baku, USSR in 1963. He graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on the ships and staff position
of Soviet Coast Guard through 1990. He took part in the events in the Caucasus which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In mid-1990s he moved to the United States where he currently works as Laboratory
Director in a commercial aerospace group. He is a frequent blogger on the US Naval Institute Blog. He is author of Losing Military Supremacy, The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs, and Disintegration:
Indicators of the Coming American Collapse.
I recommend following his blog:
Reminiscence of the Future…
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
And his Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/smoothieX12
He’s an irascible old cuss, but he’s sharp and minces no words. Worth listening to and reading. I have his books but haven’t gotten around to reading them yet.
Just listened to Scott Ritter on the Consortium News interview. He made the same point with regard to the Ukrainians getting all these Javelin antitank missiles and the notion of the Ukrainians fighting the Russians to the last Ukrainian. He said those troops are out there facing 170 tanks – and they’re going to die. Or surrender because that’s what you do when you’re facing 170 tanks.
Reminded me of the movie “Battle of the Bulge” which I just watched again a few weeks ago. In the initial part of the movie once the attack starts, a unit of US soldiers is confronted by the rolling Germany tank divisions. They fire bazookas at them (the old version of anti-tank weapons), but in the end, they surrender. You either surrender or die when faced with overwhelming forces.
For obvious reasons, I don’t want to see it — but at the same time I’d be interested in whether tanks would play any kind of decisive role. Depending on the anti-tank assets available, some people I know consider them obsolete.
For purposes of size comparison, 170 tanks doesn’t seem like very many for a large-scale war in which armor is expected to play a significant role. In the 1991 war, more than 3,000 US/allied tanks tangled with about 4,300 Iraqi tanks, mostly Russian T-72s but quite a few older T-54/55s.
We were taught to fear the T-72 — I was a mortar squad leader in a weapons company, which entailed some degree of cross-training with the anti-tank platoon (which at that time employed the Dragon anti-tank missile), but the people I talked with who actually went up against them said they came apart if you looked at them too sternly. Of course, most of the tank destruction (the Iraqis lost 3,700 of their 4,300) wasn’t accomplished by light infantry employing man-portable weapons. It was mostly done from the air prior to the ground offensive, and then some tank-to-tank (or, in one case I know of, depressed-barrel 155 artillery at short range versus an attacking Iraqi tank company) during that offensive.
I suspect that if I was a Ukrainian anticipating fighting the Russians, I’d be more worried about their air power, missile power, long-range artillery, and ability to move infantry in behind command/control takeout strikes by those other assets than I would be about the tanks.
Dissension is healthy…
Once again, Americans are being sent to solve other nations’ problems. They just never learn! All they are doing is tossing kerosene on a smoldering pile of buillshit.
“and another 1,000 Germany-based soldiers will deploy to Romania.”
Oh my, won’t that leave Germany vulnerable? /s