Cog wrote:This surrounding that you refer to involves former eastern European countries who were under the boot of the former Soviet Union. They joined NATO because they didn't feel like being forced to rejoin a reborn evil empire under Putin. This sticks in Putin's craw and that is fine with me. Having buffer states works both ways.
I didn't say there weren't rationale for it.
I said own the result. As long as people own the inevitable result, I guess its ok.
It is part of defense policy, that you MUST assume your enemy is likely to do the most difficult things for you to respond to. You can't "trust". It is not possible for the US/NATO to trust Russia until it is destroyed; it is not possible for Russia to trust NATO until NATO is destroyed. It is possible for Russia to come to the conclusion that NATO has no intention of invading Russia or creating a pretext for an invasion of Russia. To do that, you have to send the right messages with your troop and weapon deployments. I give us a failing grade in that regard. Our current plan is to render Russia unable to respond to an attack by NATO on Russia; and our forces are configured to enable nibbling once Russia is unable to respond. Russia can not survive such nibbling. This leads them to the conclusion that NATO exists for the sole purpose of destroying and looting Russia.
It doesn't matter in the tiniest bit what you or I think NATO is for, or even what the West in general thinks. Russia has to act, before it is rendered unable to respond, because they must assume they will be destroyed or enslaved as soon as they are unable to respond.
Now, if we're all OK with Russia launching all their nukes, and us responding with all of ours, then I guess this is an ok plan of battle. I think its dumb to pursue this plan, and that there are better plans that could insure the security of former USSR Euros, while not pushing Russia into this "do nothing and die alone" or "do something and everyone dies equally" choice. And honestly, some of these better plans would involve MORE troops in Lithuania for instance, but less penetration capacity. I would involve the Russians in the European missile defense, though not give them control of course. Russia needs to be able to see that NATO is defensive, as opposed to just yet another German military pact design to conquer Russia. Right now, we're doing a really cruddy job of selling that idea.
If you want a deterant effect for NATO, you have to be willing to demonstrate that it is very poorly designed to invade or harm Russia.
perhaps a bit flippant but my point is that if two subs can wreck the whole country having eighteen of them plus land based missiles plus strategic bombers plus cruise missiles Plus stealth bombers plus ship launched missiles is a lot of over kill.