US officials said Tuesday that only NATO will decide if troops will be deployed to Eastern Europe in response to the tensions surrounding Ukraine.
On Monday, the Pentagon said about 8,500 US troops have been put on “heightened alert” to prepare for a potential deployment to Eastern Europe. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday the “bulk” of the soldiers are meant to deploy with NATO’s Response Force if it is activated.
Deputy National Security Advisor Jonathan Finer told CNN that NATO will make all of the decisions when it comes to the potential deployment. “The alliance will make decisions about force posture adjustments, but they are ready to go at a moment’s notice when the alliance decides,” he said.
Finer said if NATO makes the decision to activate the force, troops would only be deployed to “allied territory” and wouldn’t be going to Ukraine. The troops would likely be sent to the area NATO describes as its “eastern flank,” which includes Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
In order to activate the 40,000 troops that make up the NATO Response Force, the alliance would need the consent of all 30 of its members, which could be hard to get. Some NATO allies seem more set on reducing tensions with Russia, most notably Germany, which is sticking to its new government policy of not sending weapons to potential conflict zones and isn’t arming Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, and both leaders called for diplomacy to de-escalate the situation. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s main gripe with the US and NATO is the presence of the military alliance near Russia’s borders, so sending more troops to the area would only serve to increase tensions.
As many have pointed out, actually sending those troops is likely to take weeks, and getting them deployed and set up on arrival and then integrated into an effective force scattered over their deployment locations could take more weeks or even months. If there is a conflict in Ukraine, it will all be over long before those forces could do anything anyway. And their subsequent presence is essentially meaningless compared to Russian forces. In other words, it’s just another Biden PR operation.
IMO any NATO country that puts fighting troops into ukraine is a legitimate target for Russia and the Europeans / americans know it hence Biden has said no NATO soldiers will take part in any forth comming war with Russia , the plan is to ram the ukraine with weapons and let the Nazi Ukrainian army do the fighting and dieing containing the conflict within the Ukriane , the Ukrainians ahve already killed 14 , 000 of their own people already but gets no mention in the Western corrupt MSM .
Does it concern people that a situation like this could potentially develop into a nuclear conflict?-donna
We already know your name, Donna – why repeat it at the bottom of your comment?
I do apologize Mr. Wells and I humbly beg your pardon for my human error…
So, how do you feel about a potential nuclear conflict or is that not in your realm of concerns?
lol. Human error? You mean a lapse in judgement?
That way they will say “It isn’t us, it’s ‘the world’ against Putin”, the same way they spun that yarn about Saddam.
It’s just an excuse to dump more money into the military industrial complex. I do realize atm it is only a “transfer of funds” but it will lead to replenishing soon. The troops aren’t going to win a war in the Ukraine. Russia can take it easily. The point is to force them to actually invade while they still can and then make it messier for them afterward and lead to endless guerrilla warfare.