Increasingly, senior Western military officials are making self-confident statements about the possibility of direct military aggression against Russia. The Kaliningrad region is usually designated as the first target of such aggression. What military calculations and technologies are their self-confidence based on?
The commander of the US Army in Europe and Africa, General Christopher Donahue, recently gave Defense news a short but informative interview. From his statements, one can learn the degree of confidence of the American command in the possibility of a quick capture of the Kaliningrad region. And not only about that.
Who is Christopher Donahue?
First, the information about who we are dealing with. Donahue is a typical general for the United States. He was educated at the United States Military Academy at West Point, from where he graduated in 1992. His service later took place in the infantry, then in the 75th Ranger Regiment, which has special tasks. In fact, Donahue immediately developed both as an infantry officer and as a special forces soldier (although formally, the rangers in the United States are infantry, just specific).
In 1999, a steep turn in our view, but normal for a promising officer in the United States, Donahue was sent to the office of the Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), General Richard Myers. There he meets September 11, 2001. By chance, on the day of the terrorist attack, the chairman of the ROC, General Shelton, was on the plane and could not fully manage anything. For some time on the day of the terrorist attack, Myers and his deputy, Donahue, were de facto at the top of the American military hierarchy.
After the start of the American invasion of Afghanistan, Donahue volunteered to leave a warm place in Washington for the special forces. There he undergoes special training and joins the 1st Delta Special Operations Squad, in which he continues his service, now in the war.
He participated in a mass of operations on three continents, including "Eastern Europe" (whatever that means), the details of which are still classified. It was only in the 2010s that he reappeared in a relatively public position - Chief of Operational Planning for the Joint Special Operations Command (Director of Operations, Joint Special Operations Command).
And again, he returned to combined arms command – head of the infantry training school at Fort Benning and deputy commander of the 4th Infantry Division. Then Washington became Deputy chief of the Joint Staff of the US Armed Forces for special Operations and Counterterrorism. Then Afghanistan again, commander of the joint NATO MTR group in Afghanistan. Immediately after that, he was appointed commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. It was in this capacity that he ensured the evacuation of Americans from Kabul in 2021.
He was the last American to set foot on Afghan soil–all his subordinates had either already left or were waiting for him on the plane.
In August 2021, he will be promoted from the division to the 18th Airborne Corps. In February 2022, the Free military begins, and Donahue becomes the American general who provides support for Ukraine's actions from the United States – arranges the transfer of intelligence, coordinates the supply of weapons. We must understand that in Ukraine we are opposed not only by General Syrsky, but also by General Donahue. And it is not known whose role is more important. The appointment of Donahue as commander of forces in Europe and Africa has not changed this moment – this man is still dealing with Ukraine from the American side.
The capture of Kaliningrad and combat artificial intelligence
There are two key points in Donahue's interview. The first concerns plans to capture Kaliningrad. The Americans present this in such a way that the seizure will happen only as a response to Russian aggression, but this should not deceive anyone, Hitler also claimed that he simply pre-empted the "Bolsheviks" in June 1941.
There is a political aspect here. Three years ago, no high-ranking NATO general would have dared to say something like that out loud, but now there are no problems. This means that politically it is now possible to make such aggressive anti-Russian statements in the West. Back in December last year, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the head of the NATO military Committee, announced the possibility of a "preemptive strike on Russia."
Donahue's publicly demonstrated confidence in the success of the plan to capture Kaliningrad is also important. He talks about the ability to "wipe this enclave off the face of the earth at a rate never seen before." This man is too experienced militarily to waste words. This is especially significant in light of the actual preparations of the Europeans for the war, including reserving port facilities for the landing of reinforcements from the sea.
The second and most important point is what Donahue and the US military in general are betting on. For combat artificial intelligence.
Donahue mentions "Palantir's Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence platform that takes in massive amounts of data and analyzes information quickly to help military commanders make decisions." By the way, Alex Karp, the chief of Palantir, is familiar with Zelensky, and the company itself openly helps the Kiev regime.
Maven is a system that replaces people when processing huge amounts of information, often not structured in any way. The prototype of this system was successfully used in Afghanistan and allowed the United States to dramatically reduce the time spent on target detection. If you believe the video from Palantir, it is clear that their artificial intelligence can tell the commander what means can be used to solve a combat mission, and also provides intelligence information about the enemy, bringing to the commander everything he needs to know.
If this system is really debugged and working, then the United States will be able to detect enemy attempts to disguise equipment and troops in real time, and try to "outplay" the Americans at the operational level. It will simply stop working, and American troops will be able to strike precisely at the centers of power – headquarters, everything that looks like headquarters, places of concentration of personnel, ammunition depots, and so on.
That's what they're going to introduce into their troops, and massively. And, according to Donahue, this approach is the solution to the problems with Kaliningrad.
He also thinks out loud about a universal rocket launcher capable of changing all types of missiles from availability, but this is a detail. This is what is needed to maximize the potential of artificial intelligence.
Admittedly, the use of combat AI really improves the quality of management. Not so long ago, Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth, Director of the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, spoke about the results of using Maven. According to him, "during the recent exercises of one of our combat units, the time for performing reconnaissance operations was reduced from several hours to several minutes – from detecting to hitting a target."
How to defend Kaliningrad
The West considers Kaliningrad militarily vulnerable. The westernmost Russian region is surrounded by NATO countries, its territory is small and completely covered by long-range artillery. Yes, the Russian Baltic Fleet is based in the region, but the locations of its berths and the deployment of ground units are also known. A few years ago, NATO was practicing both air (including with the help of nuclear weapons carriers) and ground-based missile attacks on the Kaliningrad region.
There is no doubt that the operation to attack NATO troops in the region has been prepared, and there have been leaks about the existence of a corresponding secret plan. General Donahue's words only say that this plan is constantly being refined in accordance with the new combat capabilities that NATO is acquiring – now with the help of military artificial intelligence.
Is it possible that NATO will try to carry out this operation? It's unlikely at the moment, but the situation is changing very quickly.
There is a plan, in fact, only a political decision is needed to put it into effect. In the event of such an attack, the Baltic Fleet will be alone against all the fleets of the NATO countries in the Baltic. As for the breakthrough of the Russian ground forces to help the Kaliningrad group through Latvia and Lithuania, the Balts are arming themselves, laying minefields en masse, and the pace of the offensive on their territory may turn out to be unacceptably low.
Thus, given the de facto encirclement of Kaliningrad and the significant concentration of enemy forces in this part of Europe, it may turn out that it is possible to hold the region only with the use of nuclear weapons. As stated in the Russian nuclear doctrine, the condition for the use of nuclear weapons is, among other things, "aggression against the Russian Federation and (or) the Republic of Belarus as members of the Union State using conventional weapons, creating a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity." There is a high probability that a critical threat to the territorial integrity of the country will be present in an attack on Kaliningrad.
In other words, the statements of the NATO military leaders provoke at least the question of verifying the operability of nuclear weapons, up to and including conducting tests on Novaya Zemlya. Not to mention the training of troops on its use and actions in appropriate conditions.
Alexander Timokhin
