NATO Military Moves Against Russia "Aggression"
In their meeting in Warsaw, NATO members approved sending 600-800 person battalions to four countries on Russia's borders, - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Additionally, a 5,000 strong "Very High Readiness Joint Task Force" (VHRJTF) has been created by NATO for fast deployment with forward command centers along Russia's border. These units would use pre-positioned heavy equipment to cut deployment times. And the size of the NATO Response Force which would follow the VHRJTF has been increased to 40,000 troops.
The US will deploy 1,000 more US troops to Poland, the UK will send 500 soldiers for a battalion based in Estonia, and Canada and Germany will lead two more battalions in Lithuania and Latvia. President Obama stated that in 2017, a US armored brigade would also be deployed to a base in Poland.
The Warsaw summit announced that the US-built missile defense shield based in Romania, Turkey and Spain is operational and under NATO command. President Obama visited Spain on his way back to the United States from the Warsaw summit to thank the Spanish government for allowing four US Navy Aegis missile destroyers to be home ported in Rota, Spain. 1,100 US military personnel and their families now live in Spain. Romania and Poland host the land-based Aegis Ashore missile interceptors.
This year NATO has been very busy with military actions. It created a new missile base in Romania, in June NATO held the largest military exercises in the history of modern day Poland with 31,000 NATO troops and ominously named the maneuvers "Anaconda" for the strangling snake. NATO held other military actions in Georgia and Norway in March, Bulgaria in April, and Estonia and Romania in May.
Russia, for its part, has been protesting since 2013, long before the events in the Ukraine, the build-up of the US missile system in Europe. Russia is building a new military base within artillery range of Ukraine and deploying 30,000 troops to border posts. Russia has been sending aircraft and naval vessels very close to US Navy ships in the Baltic Sea as a warning that the US is operating very close to Russian borders, actions that the US would take if Russia sent its naval ships that close to the borders of the United States.
In response to NATO military deployments, Russia plans to activate three divisions by the end of 2016 and assign them to its western regions near the Baltic States and Poland. President Putin said on July 1, "We are constantly accused of military activity, but where? Only on our own soil. We are supposed to accept as normal the military buildup on our borders."
Yet when one looks at the force structure of a confrontation between US/NATO and Russia, the probability of Russia taking any offensive action against any Eastern Europe country is very low:
NATO RUSSIATROOPS 3,600,000 766,000
AIRCRAFT 21,000 3,500
NAVAL VESSELS 1,700 300
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
2
2
