Tomás Chlebecek Catch 2022: Cold War II By invading Georgia and, repeatedly, Ukraine, Putin has joined his predecessors – Stalin (1939-1940), Khrushchev (1956) and Brezhnev (1968, 1979) – in attacking twelve countries to occupy or seize their territories. He created one of the most dangerous crises in modern Europe by deploying a combined arms force of 190,000 troops and 500 combat aircraft in western Russia, including 30,000 in Belarus, and an unprecedented naval presence in the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas. The key question is – if this sharp escalation of Russia’s permanent war against its neighbours could have been prevented by the West? As past strategic failures carry heavy consequences, the answer is yes – in 2008 or 2014, but not 2022. The way to Crimea and Donbas went through the Obama administration’s ‚red lines‘ in Syria over the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against its own people (2012); the same applied to the Russian military intervention (2015). Had the planned US strike on Syrian military infrastructure taken place, Russian forces would have been left without potential operating bases, not to mention the deterrent effect. The way to Ukraine led through the evacuation of Kabul ast year. Western Score Card Allied response, spearheaded by the Biden administration and based on precise intelligence, was steadfast this time. It made clear in advance, both bilaterally and within the NATO framework, the consequences of any Russian military move would be devastating. NATO has maintained its transatlantic unity of purpose, in starkly difference manner to the Trump era. The EU – completely sidelined by Moscow – followed suit, despite traditional French, German or Italian understanding for Russian positions. Paris and Berlin also invested heavily in their failed joint efforts to revive the dysfunctional Minsk agreements. The US and NATO categorically rejected Russian demands for ‚security guarantees,‘ in effect turning back the geopolitical clock to before the last five rounds of NATO expansion (1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, 2020). They were intended as a calculated provocation, designed to create a pretext for ‚military-technical measures‘ and intervention. Such outrageous demands for a strategic surrender would have been warranted only in the event that NATO lost a major armed conflict. However, the US and NATO expressed their willingness to engage in negotiations on reciprocal transparency of military deployments and exercises, as well as additional risk reduction and arms control measures. Washington even offered mutual on-site inspections, including its not-yet operational AEGIS Ashore missile defence sites in Romania and Poland. Military Moves Several NATO allies took specific steps to strengthen their military posture in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Denmark contributed a frigate and F-16 fighters to the Baltic, Spain deployed an AEGIS frigate to the Black Sea and Eurofighters to Bulgaria, joined by Dutch F-35s. Britain and Germany boosted rotational Enhanced Forward Presence orces as lead nations in Estonia and Lithuania, and France offered an additional deployment to Romania. The US led the way by alerting 8,500 service members for possible contribution to the NATO Response Force (NRF), and subsequently doubling its CEE presence to increase operational flexibility of the 90,000-strong European Command. The Pentagon forward-deployed 300 troops to Germany (XVIIIth Airborne Corps) and 4,700 paratroopers (82nd Airborne Division) to Poland. Additional 1,000 troops (2nd Cavalry Regiment) redeployed from Germany to Romania. For the first time since the Cold War, the Harry S Truman Carrier Strike Group 8 was assigned to NATO, and conducted exercises with French and Italian aircraft carriers Charles de Gaulle and Cavour in the Adriatic, while the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean was boosted by four additional destroyers. The USAF deployed B-52 bombers to RAF Fairford, F-15 to Poland and F-16s to Romania. A Way Forward Too little, too late. Dreams of EU autonomy died, while NATO was slow to respond in an effort not to overreact. It activated defence plans – and, for the first time, the NRF – just after the invasion, limiting its conventional deterrence and crisis management options. A replay of the 1938 Sudeten crisis, this time without Munich, brought about the de facto occupation of satellite Belarus and the Donetsk and Luhansk protectorates, as well as the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. An extended NATO-Russian border and the Suwalki Gap became a stark reality. Enacted sanctions and additional deployments proved insufficient; these included moving 800 US troops, F-35 aircraft and AH-64 helicopter to the Baltic, Poland and Romania, plus 7,000 soldiers to Germany. To thwart unyielding attempts to alter the global status quo by brute force, the West must now wage coordinated, sustained and comprehensive campaigns of indefinite duration against Russia, Belarus, their allies and proxies. These totalitarian rogue states stand no chance against a long-term and united application of power across all domains – political, diplomatic, economic, criminal justice, information and military – and they know it. This colossal strategic blunder will be their undoing: they will share the fate of the Soviet Union. The world and China are watching. Our rules-based international order, or any semblance of order, is at stake. A national security, defence and naval analyst based in the Czech Republic, Tomás Chlebecek is a regular contributor to MilTech and Naval Forces. Strategic Focus MT 2/2022 · 43
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