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It's time to stop hugging the Russian bear
Some days you hug the bear. Some days the bear hugs you.WASHINGTON — In little-noticed remarks this week, NATO’s supreme allied commander, US Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, said that for too long, the United States has “hugged the bear” of Russia. But now, he said, it’s time to get tough. This toughness should come in the form of more US troops to Europe, he said, and more “high end” training to prepare American forces for a potential battle against the former cold war foe. The remarks, made while Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was visiting Europe this week, have struck some as a bit alarmist. True, Russia has invaded Crimea and used agents provocateurs, covert operations, and even some of its own Red Army forces in Ukraine. Defense officials do not believe, however, that Russia is poised to run its tanks through the Fulda Gap – the lowland corridor in Germany where the US military was prepared to intercept a surprise attack from the Warsaw Pact during the 4-1/2 decades of the cold war. Still, the comments of General Breedlove and others mark a shift in thinking, argues John Herbst, ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006 and former director of the Center for Complex Operations at National Defense University in Washington. “I think it’s fair to say that six to eight months ago, if Breedlove had headed off in this direction he would have been walked back by the White House,” and told to tone down his rhetoric. “But not now,” says Mr. Herbst, who briefs US military commanders, “there’s been an evolution in attitudes, among our military but within the administration as well.” Much of this is due to Russia's recent intervention in Syria, as well as its aggression in Crimea and Ukraine, in which it made use of undercover Russian soldiers in unmarked army fatigues, known as "little green men," to wreak destruction on the ground. This marks a notable shift since the end of the cold war, when the US quickly began operating on the assumption that European security was solved. “We thought we could check that box, focus on other things – that Europe would become a provider of security, rather than a consumer of it,” says Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The US view of Russia has changed dramatically – and quickly. “We went from that to ‘Russia is a defeated enemy,’ and not only that, but they’re in total collapse,” says Christopher Harmer, who served on the Pentagon staff developing strategic plans for Europe, NATO, and Russia from 2005 to 2008. “We thought we could love them into the NATO alliance, and hug them into being responsible state actors,” adds Mr. Harmer, who is now a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. Posted by: badanov 2016-01-10 |
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