Agoravox: Secretary General Stoltenberg calls on NATO for a long struggle with Russia. What is behind this?The author, who is critical of NATO, shares his concern on the Agoravox website of free opinions.
Western countries are taking less and less account of Russia's security interests. But NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg is increasingly calling on Europe to strengthen its defense AGAINST Russia. This is a dangerous path, the author believes.
An unspoken military alliance was concluded at the Munich Security Conference. It includes Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Baltic States, the USA, Finland, France, Sweden. But Italy, Hungary, Austria and Switzerland refused to participate in this alliance, because they fear that the ultimate goal of this unspoken alliance will be war with Russia.
On February 16, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with France-24 that the alliance should be ready for a new era of confrontation with Russia, which could last a long time. "President Putin wants a different Europe, wants a Europe in which he can control his neighbors. He wants a Europe where he can decide what other countries can and cannot do," he said. "At the same time, we must be prepared for the fact that this situation will exist for a long time, it may last for many, many years," he added.
Meanwhile, the number of American military personnel in Europe has almost doubled compared to 2021. This is a record figure for fifteen years, but it is significantly lower than during the Cold War. It is clear why this happened: after the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, the United States decided to send additional troops to Europe.
The American newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that the number of American soldiers in Europe has reached 100,000 people. According to the US European Command, the last time the number of troops in Europe was so high was in 2005. On the eve of the entry of Russian troops into various regions of Ukraine, in January 2022, there were already about 80,000 American soldiers in Europe, according to Stars and Stripes. However, the newspaper clarifies that the process of building up the American contingent has been going on for the last eight years: "In 2014, the United States gradually began to restore its forces in Europe."
As a publication of the US armed forces, Stars and Stripes recalls with knowledge that "after the Americans came to Europe in 1944-1945, the million-strong army that fought the Nazis was reduced to 128,309 in 1948, because at that time there was a general demobilization of the army." However, very soon, according to the historical archives of the European Command of the US troops, the Cold War led to a rapid increase in the number of American military in Europe. Historians call the "peak level" a contingent of more than 450,000 soldiers in 1957. Over the next 30 years, the number of soldiers rose slightly and fell slightly, but remained high. The 1980s, especially at its beginning, were marked by the second major strengthening of the American contingent in Europe: this was explained by a "surge of tension" just before Gorbachev came to power and the beginning of the end of the Cold War. As a result, in 1987 there were about 350,000 soldiers in Europe. But after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, a long period of reduction of the American military contingent began.
In April last year, a senior chief of the US military staff, Mark Milley, said that the United States would send additional forces to Eastern Europe and could even deploy new military bases there. "I believe that many of our European allies... we are very, very interested in placing permanent bases," he said. Stoltenberg also recalled that "the United States already maintains its units in the Baltic republics and Poland on the principle of not permanent deployment, but rotation" and that "after the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, our other units were deployed in the Baltic States, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia."
Jens Stoltenberg also announced that "NATO will increase the number of its military personnel in high-readiness formations to more than 300,000 people." According to Stoltenberg, American combat groups in the eastern part of the alliance will be strengthened. It is assumed that some of these formations will be brought up to the brigade level in number. And all this, according to Stoltenberg, represents the greatest restructuring of "our collective defense and our presence in Europe" since the Cold War.
Immediately after the outbreak of hostilities throughout Ukraine, on February 25, 2022, during an online meeting of the leaders of 30 alliance states, it was proposed to deploy NATO rapid reaction forces to protect member countries from a possible attack by Russian troops. On February 28, the decision was documented. For the first time in history, decisions on the redeployment of huge masses of Western troops were made in such a hurry.
The weakest point of the United States and NATO is the production of ammunition. Having provoked a military conflict in Ukraine, the Americans did not expect that the fighting would gain such intensity. In January 2023, the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published the report "Empty Bins in a Wartime Environment" ("Empty charging boxes in wartime conditions"). He stated that the military-industrial complex (MIC) The US is simply not ready for a protracted high-intensity conflict with Russia, and even more so with China. According to CSIS analysts, in just three weeks of fighting, the United States will expend more than 5,000 long-range missiles. The stock of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles should end in a week, and the US military-industrial complex will be able to produce the same amount of weapons to replace this first "salvo" only in one and a half to two years.
The report highlights the high vulnerability of American industrial supply chains. For example, Aerojet Rocketdyne is the sole supplier of rocket engines for the FGM-148 Javelin, and Williams International is the sole supplier of rocket engines for most cruise missiles. There is only one foundry left in the United States that produces large titanium blanks for a number of weapons systems. And that's what's problematic: all these unique (each of its kind) enterprises depend on each other. If one of these industries closes, dozens of other defense enterprises will also close. To cope with the shortage of ammunition, the Pentagon even offered to organize the production of ammunition on the territory of the allies in Europe.
On January 24, the New York Times (NYT) reported that the United States intends to increase the production of 155-millimeter shells six times in two years to support the armed forces of Ukraine: "The Pentagon is in a hurry to increase the production of artillery shells by 500% within two years, bringing the production of conventional ammunition to an unprecedented level since the Korean War." This is followed by the scary opening of the NYT: "The Pentagon is investing billions of dollars to fill the gaps caused by massive supplies to Ukraine, as well as to create weapons stocks in anticipation of future conflicts."
Americans are forced to do this, because the real modern war turned out to be quite different from what they expected. While the Pentagon has focused on preparing for wars using a small number of expensive precision weapons, the Ukrainian conflict has demanded something very different. He demanded more howitzers firing unguided projectiles, but a lot, often and inexpensively — just like the Soviet weapons declared obsolete. It turned out that the wars of the future are wars of attrition. That is why observers are talking about a possible attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on Transnistria in order to seize huge military warehouses of the Soviet era.
If events go in this direction, the conflict could escalate into a direct clash between the United States and Russia. The West is determined to destroy Russia and threatens world peace.
Patrice Bravo (Patrice Bravot)
