Ignoring Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning about deploying military hardware near Russia’s western border, 60-year-old U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter answered pleas of Poland the Baltic States to have military reinforcements. Fearful that Putin could do to Poland and Baltics what he did March 1, 2014 annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Aug. 12, 2008 annexing Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Carter, the U.S. has re-upped the Cold War, stationing military hardware near Russia’s border. “We will temporarily stage one armored brigade combat team’s vehicles and associated equipment in countries in central and eastern Europe,” said Carter, responding to demands to establish a credible deterrent to a possible Russian invasion. Putin’s warned that deploying more NATO military equipment would be met with a strong Russian response.
Just last week, Putin threatened to deploy 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles at NATO targets. Defying Putin’s warnings, President Barack Obama decided to call the Russian strongman’s bluff. After seizing Crimea, Putin’s faced a series of punitive economic and travel sanctions that have driven the Russian economy into recession. Putin’s March 1, 2014 Crimea invasion cost Russia membership in the G8, resulting in Moscow’s March 24. 2014 eviction from the world’s most powerful economic club. Since then, Putin’s been running to-and-fro to every third world state to make energy deals. Now out of the mainstream, Putin formed the Eurasian Union May 29, 2014 with Belarus, Kazakhastan, Krygzstan and Armenia two months after getting tossed from the G8. Putin blames the CIA for the April 22, 2014 pro-Western coup that toppled Ukraine’s puppet, Viktor Yanukovich.
Flexing his muscle since invading Crimea and supplying pro-Russian forces and military hardware to split off Ukraine’s Eastern Donbass region, Putin’s been threatening the U.S. and EU with more conventional and nuclear weapons. “The pre-positioned European activity set includes tanks, infantry, fighting vehicles, artillery,” said Carter, confirming that Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland “agreed to host company-to-battalion-sized elements of this equipment,” said Carter. Deploying the equipment to the former Soviet states would no doubt stick it to Putin. Kremlin-controlled media will no doubt sell Carter’s move as a prelude to a possible U.S. invasion. Putting U.S. military hardware in Eastern and Central Europe is designed to tell the Kremlin that NATO continues to be a credible deterrent against a possible Russian invasion.
Unwilling to meet obligations under the Sept. 5, 2014 Minsk II protocol that calls on Russia to end support of Aleksandr Zakharchenko’s pro-Russian separatist movement in Eastern Ukraine. “Without a ceasefire, all the other factors won’t come together,” warned German Foreign Minister Frank-Walater Steinmeier, referring to Putin’s demands that U.S. and EU sanctions end. Admitting NATO was “implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defenses since the end of the Cold War,” NATO head Jens Stoltenberg signaled that the U.S. or NATO wouldn’t be intimidated by Putin. Pushing Russia’s relations to the West to the breaking point, Putin underestimated the Western alliance’s resolve to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Putin’s refusal to get out of Crimea and stop its military domination of Eastern Ukaine forced the alliance to take action.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has shown no signs to buckling under Putin’s threats. While Germany has a unique relationship with Russia because of WW II, Merkel refuses to cede Putin more territory in Europe. Questioning whether or not the U.S. move to station more troops in Eastern and Central Europe violated the 1997 agreement between Russia and NATO. With Putin invading Ukraine, NATO has found ample reason for beefing up its defenses in Eastern and Central Europe. U.S. officials have reminded NATO that the tanks and armored personnel carriers don’t come with troops, adhering to the letter of the 1997 NATO agreement. Meeting in Brussels on June 24, 28 NATO members are set to discuss the latest U.S. deployment and what must be done to protect sovereignty and territorial integrity. No one in the U.S. or NATO seeks a new Cold War or confrontation with Moscow
Pushing Putin into a corner, the new U.S. strategy aims to send Moscow a loud message that NATO refuses to be bullied by the Kremlin in Central and Eastern Europe. As long a Putin hangs onto Crimea and backs Zakharchenko in Eastern Ukraine, NATO intends to keep the pressure on the Kremlin to change policy. “The tanks are empty, the . . .vehicles are empty, a will be parked, stored and maintained in training areas across the six Eastern most allies for training purposes,” said NATO Amb. Douglas Lute, refuting the idea that the latest U.S. move violates any existing treaties. Putin’s aggressive moves in Ukraine prompted NATO to put-up-or-shut-up about its role of keeping former Soviet satellites independent of the Kremlin. Watching Putin’s aggression seizing Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 and last year annexing Crimea forced NATO to take more bold action.
