President Joe Biden has dispatched another round of U.S. troops and aircraft to Eastern Europe, including Apache attack helicopters and F-35s. The move is a response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize the separatist republics in Ukraine as independent nations, a decision that has allowed him to openly move Russian forces into the area. The latest American arrivals will join a small but steadily growing presence in Poland and the Baltic countries.
U.S. reinforcing Baltic allies
NATO forces, including the Americans, have been placed in a state of heightened alert in Eastern Europe and are trickling into NATO countries that neighbor Ukraine.
The buildup was intended to reassure NATO allies in the region in response to Russia’s large military buildup in Belarus and along its border with Ukraine.
The emphasis on aircraft in the latest mobilization shows that the United States is attempting to play to its strengths in assembling its deterrence force; it also highlights just how unprepared the U.S. currently is for a fight with Russia.
Russia lags far behind the United States in terms of air power as a whole, though as with all American military resources, the U.S. Air Force faces more potential distractions worldwide while the Russians can concentrate their forces more easily.
The F-35 has also been far from reliable since it emerged from its ruinously expensive development process and it would be difficult for NATO to move large numbers of them into the region anyway.
Russian jet fighters are not as technologically advanced or expensive as the F-35 , but they are reliable enough and suitable for what Russia needs from them.
No chance of conflict with Russia, hopefully
While the U.S. military has spent the last 20 years learning how to fight against insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Russian military has been readying itself for the kind of conventional warfare it currently faces in Ukraine; Putin isn’t likely to be intimidated by Biden’s mobilizations so far.
Russia places a very heavy emphasis on tanks and other ground forces, including armored air defense units which might negate American air superiority.
Large, well integrated combined arms forces have become a prominent feature of the Russian military under Putin. These forces are fully trained and equipped to carry out a large-scale invasion of any neighboring country.
Like China, Russia has developed and produced hypersonic ballistic missiles that could sink an aircraft carrier with relative ease; the United States has no equivalent weapons.
Biden is, of course, still saying that there is no chance of these newly mobilized American and NATO forces being sent into direct combat against the Russian military.
Hopefully he doesn’t change his mind about that, and hopefully someone in the White House is aware of how catastrophic any conflict with Russia would be for the West.