Threatened by Russia’s March 1, 2014 annexation of Crimea and supplying arms and unmarked soldiers in Southeastern Ukraine, the U.S. responded to requests of Poland and former Soviet satellites to beef up defenses in the region. Lithuania President Dalia Grybauskaite begged NATO’s Supreme Allied Military Commander Philip M Breedlove for more reinforcements in the Baltics, concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions go beyond seizing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Despite facing continued U.S. and European Union economic sanctions, Putin shows no signs of returning Crimea to Ukraine or, for that matter, withdrawing Russian forces and military hardware from pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine. Responding to NATO’s limitations, President Barack Obama agreed to store heavy U.S. military hardware in Poland.
With strong trading relationships with Russia, some NATO members have difficulty reconciling strong business ties with current national security interests. Whether Putin would ever reoccupying the Baltic States or any other former Soviet territory is anyone’s guess. If history’s any guide, Putin had no qualms about invading Georgia in 2008, seizing Russian-speaking enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia over objections in the U.S and U.N. When Putin seized Crimea March 1, 2014, it threw Eastern European leaders from a loop, concerned that Putin could capriciously take back any former Soviet territory. Poland and Baltic states have witnessed NATO’s limitations providing security to former Warsaw Pact nations no longer within the Soviet orbit. Russian officials warned of certain retaliation if the U.S. moves ahead to storing heavy weapons in Eastern Europe.
After Moscow seized Crimea, all bets were off with the U.S. showing military restraint in former Soviet satellites. Putin claims he only seized Crime because of an unlawful U.S.-backed coup in Kiev that toppled the Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovich. Once Yanukovich was ousted Feb. 22, 2014 by pro-Western forces, Putin took defensive countermeasures to protect Russia’s national security. “If heavy U.S. military equipment, including tanks, artillery batteries and other equipment really does turn up in countries in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, that will be the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War,” said Russian Defense Ministry General Yuri Yakubov. Accused of a timid foreign policy, President Barack Obama is trying to show more spine. Russia threatens to build up forces on its borders, something it’s already done.
Accused of isolationism and a strategic retreat, Obama was ripped today by newly minted GOP presidential candidate former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush sounded familiar GOP themes, accusing Democrats of being weak on national defense. When you consider the foreign policy mess left by Jeb’s brother, former President George W. Bush, it’s disingenuous to criticize the Obama White House for the world’s political instability. “Russia will have no option but to build up its forces and resources on the Western strategic front,” said Russia’s Interfax news agency, making more idle threats when the U.S. and NATO should do what’s needed to secure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eastern Europe and former Soviet satellites. Promising to put more Russian missiles in Kalingrad on the Polish and Lithuanian borders changes nothing with regard to Eastern Europe’s national security.
Worried more about Russian troop build up along Russia’s western borders, the U.S. and NATO can tolerate a Russian missile build-up, especially with new anti-missile defense systems. “Our hands are completely free to organize retaliatory steps to strengthen our Western frontiers,” said Yabubov, saying nothing to discourage the U.S. from stockpiling heaving equipment in Poland and Baltic States. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spewed more propaganda: “We hope that reason will prevail and the situation Europe will be prevented from sliding into a new military confrontation which may have dangerous consequences.” Russia talks about a war in Europe when concerned former Soviet satellites and client-states only want the Kremlin to respect others’ post-Soviet borders. Threatening to deploy more missiles or heavy equipment in retaliation misses the point behind more security in Eastern Europe.
Former Soviet satellites and client-states like Poland or Finland want the Kremlin to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of U.N.-recognized independent states. Refusing to exit Crimea, the Kremlin under Putin faces endless economic sanctions damaging the Russian economy. At some point, the Kremlin must ask itself whether it’s adventure in Crimea was worth the price of alienating world powers. “This is purely positioning of equipment to better facilitate our ability to conduct training,” said Pentagon spokesman Army Colonel Steven Warren. Storing more M-1 tanks and M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and self-propelled howitzers in Poland and Baltic States doesn’t qualify for only training purposes. “They know how important this is to us, because we want to build a permanent U.S. presence, the allied army here in Polish territory,” said Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Seimoniak.
