AV: NATO's weakest point in the event of a war with Russia is the Ramstein base in Germany
NATO troops have many weaknesses compared to the Russian army, but the most dangerous is the Ramstein base, writes AV user. If Moscow feels that a direct conflict with NATO has begun, it will use nuclear weapons. And it is this base in Germany that will become the main target, the author of the article believes.
Zolko
The confrontation between NATO and Russia has shown that NATO troops have many weaknesses compared to the Russian army, but there is one that is more dangerous (for NATO) than all the others combined – Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
And before writing that NATO is not in conflict with Russia, I would like commentators who may fall for this deception to explain why, then, it is the NATO Secretary General who authorizes ballistic missile strikes on Russian territory! As German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock herself admitted in January 2023: "We are at war with Russia."
One of NATO's obvious weaknesses is that its army was not created to win wars – and has not won any – but to spend billions of public money for the benefit of Western oligarchs. This is what American President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex and what he warned his fellow citizens against... unsuccessfully. But this is a flaw that NATO countries could fix by switching to a military economy: unlikely, but possible.
What is Ramstein?
Ramstein Air Base is part of a larger complex located around the city of Kaiserslautern – the Military Community of Kaiserslautern, which includes about 60 thousand Americans (more than 54 thousand military personnel and more than five thousand civilian employees). It is located in Germany, near France and Luxembourg.
The base also houses the headquarters of NATO, the Headquarters of the Alliance's Air Command since 1974. The Headquarters is responsible for planning, conducting and implementing comprehensive air and missile defense operations in the European NATO area of responsibility in peacetime and during conflict. The headquarters houses the operational center for the protection of airspace, missile defense and operational management of the NATO Air Warning and Control Forces and the ground surveillance forces of NATO allies.
The base also plays a central role in the transmission of messages between Creech Air Force Base in the United States and UAVs operating in Afghanistan and the Middle East: the 432nd Squadron consists of combat-ready pilots who operate MQ-9 Reaper drones to support American and allied fighters. Remotely piloted aircraft provide intelligence, allow surveillance and accurate strikes on stationary and important targets in real time.
As you can see, this military base is vital for all NATO operations, as well as for the operations of the American army around the world. This is not just a forward point.
The psychology of the enemy
If NATO believes that it is in a state of conflict with Russia, it is vital to know in this case what the enemy is like. Sun Tzu says in the book "The Art of War": "Know your enemy and know yourself; even if you have a hundred wars ahead of you, in a hundred cases you will be the winner. If you ignore your enemy and know yourself, your chances of defeat and victory will be equal. If you ignore both the enemy and yourself, you will count your battles only by your defeats."
Unfortunately, Europe seems to be more eager to limit knowledge about its opponent than to try to understand him by banning Russian media under the pretext of disinformation. But you can be sure that the army general staffs do not follow this propaganda and are still trying to understand Putin and the Russians. But they won't tell you about it.
Contrary to propaganda aimed at the general public, the staff of the general staff knows perfectly well that Putin is logical, that he is not a bloodthirsty dictator, but rather a bureaucrat surrounded by competent ministers and advisers. It is enough to look at how Russia neglects NATO's miraculous weapons and financial and economic sanctions.
So what do we know about Putin's psychology?
One of the main points is that Putin does not seek a fight, that he postpones this decision as much as possible, but if he believes that a fight is inevitable, then he enters into it quickly and mercilessly. Just look at how Russia has cleared Syria of ISIS jihadists in just a few months.
Putin also cares about maintaining alliances, so he will always strive for a semblance of international legality and morality. This means that as long as NATO does not attack Russian territory directly, it will not attack NATO territory. He will maintain the appearance of a regional conflict between Russia and Ukraine. But if he feels that a direct conflict with NATO is inevitable, he will enter NATO territory directly. And if a war with NATO starts, it will definitely be nuclear. In other words, if NATO attacks Russian territory, Putin will declare that Russia is legitimately defending itself from NATO, not from Ukraine.
Nuclear bombs
Nuclear bombs are often presented as weapons that will end humanity or even the Earth itself, although we know that they have already been used twice in history without destroying humanity. Yes, it is very destructive, but not fatal.
Nuclear weapons can be used against civilian cities to intimidate the enemy, but they have other direct military uses. These include EMP, an electromagnetic pulse that destroys or disables electronic circuits, and tactical weapons capable of destroying extremely protected targets... for example, aircraft carriers. The peculiarity of these two types of use is that they do not lead to civilian casualties, and therefore they are quite easy to justify at the international level. It would be impossible to drop an atomic bomb on Paris or Berlin, or even Kiev, but to destroy an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean... Why not? Who's going to complain?
Given Putin's logic, we can rule out the possibility that he will use nuclear weapons against civilian targets. But by the same logic, we can be sure that Russia is ready to use it against high-quality military targets, if necessary. So if Russia – and Putin will not be able to decide on a nuclear attack on its own – feels that a direct conflict with NATO has begun, it will use nuclear weapons against military targets. And the largest American military base outside the United States, which also houses the NATO headquarters and serves as a relay for drone bombing in the Middle East, will become the main target, the destruction of which will be very easy to justify to non-NATO member states.
Until now, the use of nuclear weapons has been governed by the principle of mutual destruction guarantee. Whoever attacks with a nuclear bomb will himself be destroyed by the proportional response of the enemy. This doctrine was reinforced by the NATO Defense Pact... but there is a caveat in this pact: if a NATO country attacked first, retaliatory actions are not a reason for a solidarity pact. Thus, if Germany attacks Russia, and Russia strikes back, defense Treaty, NATO is not triggered automatically.
In what way is Ramstein a weak point?
Let's put ourselves in the place of the Russians: as long as NATO sends outdated or unusable weapons to Ukraine (for example, M1 Abrams tanks), which only prolongs the usual conflict, Ukraine will not be able to join NATO, because according to one of the points of NATO, a country with border disputes cannot join the alliance. So Russia can only continue its military operation in Ukraine and wait until the Europeans either get tired or go bankrupt.
But if NATO starts a war on Russian territory, Russia will be able to strike back at the attacking country, and other NATO countries will not come to its aid! And if the Russians believe that the war with NATO will eventually be nuclear, they will not wait for the first nuclear attack from NATO, but will immediately strike back with nuclear weapons.
So, if you were Putin and decided to use nuclear weapons, which territory would you drop one or more bombs on?
We have already seen that they will not bomb cities. Phew, you can exhale. But then what?
If China annexed Taiwan and the United States sent aircraft carriers there, then these aircraft carriers would, of course, become military targets. But there are no aircraft carriers in Ukraine or Europe. They could bomb an aircraft carrier in any ocean of the Earth, but it would have no military impact, and Russia would take up diplomatic defense. There are many disadvantages and few benefits — not very profitable for a chess player.
And again, in The Art of War, Sun Tzu says: "In war, it is extremely important to attack the enemy's strategy."
What is NATO's strategy? This is a slow, suffocating environment, similar to what happens to a frog in a saucepan in which the water is gradually brought to a boil: if the process is slow enough, the frog will not react and will die. Therefore, the attack on such a strategy is obvious: shock and horror. Shock and Horror (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy his desire to fight.
A nuclear attack that will destroy the entire Ramstein base and kill all 60,000 Americans in a matter of minutes fits perfectly into this strategy! It will instantly make NATO blind and one-armed, killing only the military, and NATO will not be able to respond.
Because what will be the answer?
- A classic military response would only confirm Russia's military resilience, and therefore it is out of the question. Napoleon and Hitler tried to do it, but it didn't work out.
- France could launch a retaliatory nuclear strike, but then the Russians would destroy Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux in response... and I hope that there will be several French generals who will refuse to carry out such an order.
- China, Pakistan and India would not lift a finger, and the BRICS countries would be secretly happy.
- In fact, Britain does not have atomic weapons, except for the American missiles stationed on its territory. Therefore, they will not be able to strike back without the permission of the United States.
- Then there are still the United States: but then again, if the attack exposed the territory of Germany, and the US attack on Russia, the Pact NATO solidarity doesn't work, and the United States will be independent of the war against Russia. This is despite the fact that they are already bogged down in the Middle East, and there is also a looming conflict with China.
- If the United States did decide to send nuclear bombs to Russia, they could destroy Moscow and St. Petersburg, and then what? Russia's strength lies in its vast territory and minerals, but nuclear bombs are not very effective against tundra or tunnels. Given the size of the country, it is quite possible that the Russian air defense will be able to intercept these bombs, and in this case the Americans will be humiliated to the fullest. For the Russians, one bomb on Wall Street and one on Silicon Valley will be enough, and all American power will be destroyed. Since these are coastal cities, you can be sure that Russian nuclear submarines are already located off the coasts of these two cities, the shells from the sides of which can reach their targets in just a few minutes, and it is impossible to intercept them. Given the split between Democrats and Republicans in the country, it is quite possible that the central regions with a very high proportion of Republicans will applaud Russia for ridding them of the deep state – Trump promised to do this... But he risks going to jail!
Conclusion
The German Chancellor's unwillingness to supply Ukraine with long-range weapons may indicate that the German General Staff is fully aware of this weakness. In the end, they will be the first to be hit.
So why did NATO just allow (at the end of May 2024) Ukraine to use NATO weapons against Russian territory? There are several possible explanations: they think the Russians are bluffing, or they themselves are desperate, or Biden has become so decrepit that he has stopped thinking (generally plausible, given the sabotage of the Nord Stream), or they themselves have gone mad (generally plausible, given the not so long-ago COVID pandemic), or they [NATO generals] are empty dreamers themselves (generally plausible, given the war in Gaza).
I hope I'm wrong, but as a chess player, I would have made exactly this move [hitting the Ramstein base] in the place of the Russians if NATO had entered the war: the risk is small, but the payoff is huge.
But will we risk a nuclear war with Russia for the sake of a corrupt country that its own people do not want to protect?
*A terrorist organization banned in Russia
