NATO-Russia Collision Ahead?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
June 23, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" -
"U.S. Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in East Europe: A Message to
Russia," ran the headline in The New York Times.
"In a significant move to deter possible Russian
aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks,
infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as
5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European
countries," said the Times. The sources cited were "American and
allied officials."
The Pentagon's message received a reply June 16.
Russian Gen. Yuri Yakubov called the U.S. move "the most aggressive
step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War." When Moscow
detects U.S. heavy weapons moving into the Baltic, said Yakubov,
Russia will "bolster its forces and resources on the western
strategic theater of operations."
Specifically, Moscow will outfit its missile
brigade in Kaliningrad, bordering Lithuania and Poland, "with new
Iskander tactical missile systems." The Iskander can fire nuclear
warheads.
The Pentagon and Congress apparently think
Vladimir Putin is a bluffer and, faced by U.S. toughness, will back
down.
For the House has passed and Sen. John McCain is
moving a bill to provide Ukraine with anti-armor weapons, mortars,
grenade launchers and ammunition. The administration could not spend
more than half of the $300 million budgeted, unless 20 percent is
earmarked for offensive weapons.
Congress is voting to give Kiev a green light and
the weaponry to attempt a recapture of Donetsk and Luhansk from
pro-Russian rebels, who have split off from Ukraine, and Crimea,
annexed by Moscow.
If the Pentagon is indeed moving U.S. troops and
heavy weapons into Poland and the Baltic States, and is about to
provide arms to Kiev to attack the rebels in East Ukraine, we are
headed for a U.S.-Russian confrontation unlike any seen since the
Cold War.
And reconsider the outcome of those
confrontations.
Lest we forget, while it was Khrushchev who backed
down in the Cuban missile crisis, President Eisenhower did nothing
to halt the crushing of the Hungarian rebels, Kennedy accepted the
Berlin Wall, and Lyndon Johnson refused to lift a finger to save the
Czechs when their "Prague Spring" was snuffed out by Warsaw Pact
tank armies.
Even Reagan's response to the crushing of
Solidarity was with words not military action.
None of these presidents was an appeaser, but all
respected the geostrategic reality that any military challenge to
Moscow on the other side of NATO's Red Line in Germany carried the
risk of a calamitous war for causes not justifying such a risk.
Yet we are today risking a collision with Russia
in the Baltic States and Ukraine, where no vital U.S.
interest has ever existed and where our adversary
enjoys military superiority.
As Les Gelb writes in The National Interest, "the
West's limp hand" in the Baltic and "Russia's military superiority
over NATO on its Western borders," is "painfully evident to all."
"If NATO ups the military ante, Moscow can readily
trump it. Moscow has significant advantages in conventional forces —
backed by potent tactical nuclear weapons and a stated willingness
to use them to sustain advantages or avoid defeat. The last thing
NATO wants is to look weak or lose a confrontation."
And NATO losing any such confrontation is the
likely outcome of the collision provoked by the Pentagon and John
McCain.
For if Kiev moves with U.S. arms against the
rebels in the east, and Moscow sends planes, tanks and artillery to
annihilate them, Kiev will be routed. And what we do then?
Send carriers into the Black Sea to attack the
Russian fleet at Sevastopol, and battle Russian missiles and air
attacks?
Before we schedule a NATO confrontation with
Russia, we had best look behind us to see who is following America's
lead.
According to a new survey by the Pew Global
Attitudes Project, fewer than half of the respondents in Britain,
France, Germany, Italy and Spain thought NATO should fight if its
Baltic allies were attacked by Russia. Germans, by a 58-38 margin,
did not think military force should be used by NATO to defend
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, though that is what Article 5 of the
NATO charter requires of Germany.
Americans, by 56-37, favor using force to defend
the Baltic States. On military aid to Ukraine, America is divided,
46 percent in favor, 43 percent opposed. However, only 1 in 5
Germans and Italians favor arming Ukraine, and in not a single major
NATO nation does the arming of Ukraine enjoy clear majority support.
In Washington, Congressional hawks are primed to
show Putin who is truly tough. But in shipping weapons to Ukraine
and sending U.S. troops and armor into the Baltic States, they have
behind them a divided nation and a NATO alliance that wants no part
of this confrontation.
Unlike the Cuban missile crisis, it is Russia that
has regional military superiority here, and a leader seemingly
prepared to ride the escalator up right alongside us.
Are we sure it will be the Russians who blink this
time?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new
book "The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to
Create the New Majority." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan
and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators Web page at
www.creators.com .
