From Foreign Policy
magazine…
Continental drift. Deterring Vladimir Putin is job No. 1 in U.S.
European Command (Eucom), according
to its latest theater strategy, but the combatant command says it’s having a
few resource problems in the meantime. In the 12-page document, commander of
Eucom and NATO forces Gen. Philip Breedlove laments that the 65,000 U.S. troops
in Europe just aren’t enough to counter Russian aggression, and rotating more
units in on a temporary basis to make up the shortfall doesn’t quite cut it.
“The size of the military presence
requires difficult decisions on how best to use limited resources to assure,
stabilize, and support the...mission in the new European security environment,”
the paper says. Breedlove also calls for a “reformulation of the U.S. strategic
calculus” on the continent.
Translated: NATO members are spending
less and less (presumably the reduced spending is to use instead on
domestic social programs). If the
US cannot carry the load should hostilities erupt, then do not bet on NATO as a
whole to charge to the rescue.
Russia is not what it once was during the Cold War. And with the current Russian operations
in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, and now Syria, combined with the economic distress
from revenue fall off from lowered oil prices, I think Russia is not likely to
start something - now.
My concern is that the bar is so incredibly low with
conventional forces that the decision point to use nuclear forces (to counter a
Russian campaign into NATO countries) is pulled too far forward in any
potential conflict, for example
should Russia decide to move on the Baltics or Poland.
And current US political ‘leadership’ would not use nuclear
forces to defend the Baltics (who are part of NATO). With Poland however, this calculus is not so clear in this
regard.
During the Cold War, the Union
of Concerned Scientists (UCS) kept a metaphorical ‘doomsday clock' with the
minute hand just a hair away from midnight, signifying Nuclear Armageddon. When the Berlin wall came down, they
should have moved the clock hands to 8:45 pm, but instead, have pivoted, and
moved the clock back to three minutes to midnight because of… "Concerns
amid continued lack of global political action to address global climate change…”
among other “things” (I’m sure cisgendered heteronormative white privilege and
rampant microagressions and hate speech are also indicated here).
While I don't think the clock has any use today, it is moving closer to midnight, albeit not like the UCS say it is.