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In a contempo press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance. He said:

"Their [NATO'south] master job is to contain the development of Russian federation. Ukraine is only a tool to attain this goal. They could draw united states of america into some kind of armed disharmonize and forcefulness their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are existence talked about in the United States today. Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, fix up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw us into an armed conflict."

Putin continued:

"Allow u.s.a. imagine that Ukraine is a NATO fellow member and is stuffed with weapons and at that place are state-of-the-art missile systems simply like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, permit alone Donbass? Permit u.s. imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a gainsay operation. Practice we take to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone idea annihilation well-nigh it? It seems non."

Only these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox "screaming from the peak of the hen firm that he's scared of the chickens," adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine "should not be reported as a argument of fact."

Psaki'southward comments, yet, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The main goal of the authorities of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the " de-occupation" of Crimea. While this goal has, in the by, been couched in terms of diplomacy - "[t]he synergy of our efforts must forcefulness 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 render is a purely armed services one, in which Russia has been identified as a "military adversary", and the accomplishment of which can only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military ways has not been spelled out. Equally an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine's membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO'southward Article 5 - which relates to collective defence force - when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a land of war would de facto be upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being apace 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 modern air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in identify to secure Ukrainian airspace.

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

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was beingness implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than probable use its own anarchistic capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would weep foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for commonage defense under Article 5. In short, NATO would exist at war with Russia.

This is non idle speculation. When explaining his recent decision to deploy some 3,000 US troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, United states President Joe Biden declared:

"Every bit long equally he's [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to brand sure we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we're there and Article v is a sacred obligation."

Biden's comments echo those fabricated during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June fifteen last year. At that time, Biden sat downwardly with NATO Secretary-Full general Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America's commitment to Article v of the NATO charter. Biden said:

"Article five we have as a sacred obligation. I want NATO to know America is there."

Biden's view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, so-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Piece of work told reporters:

"Every bit President Obama has said, Ukraine should ... be able to choose its own future. And nosotros reject whatsoever talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made it clear that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering. Every bit he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and in that location are no new members. In that location are no inferior partners and there are no senior partners. At that place are just allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single ally."

Only what would this defense force entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I tin adjure that a war with Russia would exist unlike anything the U.s.a. armed services has experienced - always. The US armed forces 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 Usa was to be fatigued into a conventional basis war with Russian federation, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American armed forces history. In short, it would be a rout.

Don't take my give-and-take for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant Full general H.R. McMaster, when speaking almost the results of a study - the Russia New Generation Warfare - he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Middle for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians take superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated apply of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.

"Should Us forces find themselves in a land state of war with Russian federation, they would be in for a rude, common cold awakening."

In short, they would get their asses kicked.

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

The effect isn't just qualitative, simply likewise quantitative - even if the U.s. military could stand up toe-to-toe with a Russian antagonist (which it can't), it simply lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The depression-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Republic of iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built effectually the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be made to evacuate the wounded and then that they can receive life-saving medical attention in as short a timeframe as possible. This concept may take been viable where the U.s. was in control of the surroundings in which fights were conducted. Information technology is, however, pure fiction in big-scale combined arms warfare. There won't exist medical evacuation helicopters flight to the rescue - even if they launched, they would be shot down. There won't be field ambulances - even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in curt social club. There won't be field hospitals - even if they were established, they would be captured past Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is expiry and destruction, and lots of information technology. One of the events which triggered McMaster's study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade past Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar US combat germination. 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 US Air Forcefulness may exist able to mountain a fight in the airspace above whatever battlefield, in that location will be nothing like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops will be operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has e'er faced. There volition be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground will be on their own.

This feeling of isolation volition be furthered by the reality that, considering of Russia'south overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability , the US forces on the ground volition be deaf, impaired, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and fifty-fifty operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease to function.

Whatever war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Dorsum in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-40 per centum and continue the fight, considering that was the reality of modernistic combat against a Soviet threat. Dorsum and so, nosotros were able to finer match the Soviets in terms of force size, construction, and capability - in brusque, we could give equally adept, or better, than nosotros got.

That wouldn't be the case in any European war against Russia. The United states of america will lose about of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed confronting Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the past. Our tactics are no longer up to par - when in that location is shut combat, information technology will be extraordinarily violent, and the U.s. will, more times than not, come out on the losing side.

But even if the US manages to win the odd tactical date confronting peer-level infantry, it just has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russian federation will bring to bear. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US ground troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops volition merely be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians volition confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style attack carried out past specially trained US Ground forces troops - the 'OPFOR' - at the National Preparation Eye in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-mode Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morn. By 5:30am it was over, with the Usa Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. At that place'due south something near 170 armored vehicles begetting down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would look like. It would not exist limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. Information technology would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

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

About the Author:
Scott Ritter is a former The states Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION King: America'southward Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a United nations weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter