In a recent press briefing held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow past Hungarian Prime number Government minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke near continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance.

"Their [NATO's] primary task is to comprise the development of Russian federation," Putin said. "Ukraine is only a tool to achieve this goal. They could depict us into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked about in the United States today," he noted. "Or they could depict Ukraine into NATO, gear up upwardly strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by forcefulness, and however draw u.s. into an armed disharmonize."

Putin continued, "Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are land-of-the-art missile systems simply similar in Poland and Romania. Who volition cease it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Permit us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought annihilation most information technology? It seems not."

But these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox "screaming from the top of the hen house that he's scared of the chickens," adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine "should not be reported every bit a statement of fact."

Ukraine's Zelensky approves strategy for 'return' of Crimea from 'military adversary' Russia & names NATO membership as key goal

Psaki's comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the state of affairs. The master goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the "de-occupation" of Crimea. While this goal has, in the past, been couched in terms of affairs – "[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula," Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea – the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified equally a "military antagonist", and the achievement of which can only be accomplished through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has non been spelled out. Every bit an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive armed forces action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine's membership, if granted, would need to include some linguistic communication regarding the limits of NATO's Article five – which relates to collective defense – when addressing the Crimea state of affairs, or else a country of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accretion.

The most probable scenario would involve Ukraine beingness rapidly brought under the 'umbrella' of NATO protection, with 'battlegroups' like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a 'trip-wire' force, and modernistic air defenses combined with forwards-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

One time this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict confronting what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing unconventional warfare capability it has acquired since 2015 at the easily of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to "kill Russians."

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than than likely utilise its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of form, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Commodity 5. In curt, NATO would exist at state of war with Russia.

This is not idle speculation. When explaining his recent decision to deploy some 3,000 US troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crunch, United states of america President Joe Biden declared, "As long as he's [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to brand sure nosotros reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we're in that location and Article 5 is a sacred obligation."

Biden'southward comments echo those fabricated during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 last year. At that fourth dimension, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America's delivery to Commodity v of the NATO charter. "Article 5 we take as a sacred obligation," Biden said. "I desire NATO to know America is at that place."

Biden's view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, and then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work told reporters, "As President Obama has said, Ukraine should … be able to choose its ain future. And nosotros reject whatever talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made information technology articulate that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian assailment is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and there are no new members. There are no junior partners and there are no senior partners. There are but allies, pure and simple. And we volition defend the territorial integrity of every unmarried ally."

Just what would this defense entail? Equally someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can adjure that a war with Russian federation would exist unlike annihilation the US military machine has experienced – ever. The United states of america military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined arms conflict. If the United states was to exist fatigued into a conventional ground war with Russia, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In curt, information technology would exist a rout.

Russian troop buildup 'largest since cold war' – NATO

Don't take my give-and-take for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking most the results of a report – the Russian federation New Generation Warfare – he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior arms firepower, better gainsay vehicles, and have learned sophisticated employ of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical issue. "Should The states forces detect themselves in a land state of war with Russia," McMaster said, "they would exist in for a rude, cold awakening."

In short, they would get their asses kicked.

America's 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria produced a military that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the United states Regular army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO's Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The report found that US armed services forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront armed services assailment from Russia. The lack of feasible air defense and electronic warfare capability, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would result in the piecemeal devastation of the The states Army in rapid society should they face off against a Russian military machine that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a U.s.a./NATO threat.

The issue isn't only qualitative, but too quantitative – even if the Us military could stand up toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which information technology can't), it simply lacks the size to survive in whatsoever sustained boxing or campaign. The depression-intensity conflict that the US armed services waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will exist made to evacuate the wounded so that they tin can receive life-saving medical attention in equally curt a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been feasible where the US was in control of the environs in which fights were conducted. It is, notwithstanding, pure fiction in large-scale combined artillery warfare. There won't be medical evacuation helicopters flight to the rescue – even if they launched, they would be shot downward. There won't be field ambulances – fifty-fifty if they arrived on the scene, they would exist destroyed in short order. There won't exist field hospitals – even if they were established, they would exist captured past Russian mobile forces.

What at that place will be is decease and devastation, and lots of it. Ane of the events which triggered McMaster'south written report of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian arms in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar US gainsay formation. The superiority Russia enjoys in artillery fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of arms systems fielded and the lethality of the munitions employed.

While the Usa Air Force may be able to mount a fight in the airspace above any battlefield, there will exist zilch like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American armed forces in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will exist contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian footing troops volition exist operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the United states nor NATO has ever faced. There will be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground will exist on their own.

This feeling of isolation will be furthered past the reality that, considering of Russia's overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare adequacy, the US forces on the ground will be deafened, impaired, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate equally radios, electronic systems, and weapons stop to function.

Whatsoever war with Russia would notice American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Dorsum in the 1980s, we routinely trained to have losses of thirty-twoscore per centum and continue the fight, considering that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Dorsum and then, we were able to finer match the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability – in brusque, we could give as good, or better, than we got.

That wouldn't be the case in whatever European war against Russia. The United states will lose almost of its forces before they are able to shut with any Russian adversary, due to deep arms fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a matter of the past. Our tactics are no longer upwardly to par – when in that location is close gainsay, it will be extraordinarily trigger-happy, and the Usa will, more times than non, come up out on the losing side.

But fifty-fifty if the Us manages to win the odd tactical date against peer-level infantry, it simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russian federation will bring to carry. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of United states ground troops were effective against mod Russian tanks (and feel suggests they are probably non), American troops will just be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians volition face up them with.

Failure of American 'disinformation' revealed

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-fashion attack carried out by specially trained US Army troops – the 'OPFOR' – at the National Preparation Center in Fort Irwin, California, where 2 Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morning. Past 5:30am it was over, with the Us Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. At that place'due south something about 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would look similar. It would not be express to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes confronting NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

This is what will happen if the US and NATO seek to attach the "sacred obligation" of Article five of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. Information technology is, in short, a suicide pact.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and exercise not necessarily stand for those of RT.