U.S. Readying Plan to Put Tanks on Putin’s Doorstep

NATO Meeting File Photo

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – David Lerman, Marta Waldoch – June 14, 2015)

The U.S. may announce agreements later this month to station tanks and fighting vehicles in eastern European and Baltic countries, a U.S. defense official said.

The Pentagon is trying to finalize plans to station equipment for as many as 5,000 soldiers in about a half-dozen countries as the U.S. attempts to reassure allies worried about Russia’s intentions.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is expected to announce the plans in Brussels, where NATO defense ministers will meet on June 24 and 25, although details remain to be negotiated with some countries, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

The positioning of U.S. heavy equipment in the easternmost countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be a significant step aimed at countering Russian aggression, said Angela Stent, director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Washington.

“Deterrence, as we conventionally understand it, hasn’t worked,” Stent said. “It probably is time to do something to try to reinforce the credibility of deterrence against further violence.”

Carter told reporters this month that U.S. and European sanctions aren’t enough to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to back down in Ukraine, where Russian fighters are aiding separatists against the Kiev government.

Strategy Mapping

“There are other things we need to be doing in recognition of the fact that, at the moment at least, Vladimir Putin does not seem to be reversing course, nor does he give any sign in what he says of an intention to do so,” the Pentagon chief said on June 5, while returning from a conference in Germany where he mapped strategy on the Ukraine crisis.

If approved, the plan would provide enough equipment for a full brigade, or 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers, the official said. A brigade-sized force would include more than 200 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Army leaders have said.

“I think it is a necessary move, forced upon the alliance because of new Russian aggression in Europe,” Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014 and is now a professor of political science at Stanford University, said in an e-mailed statement.

While the defense official declined to name the countries that would receive equipment, they could include Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary, according to the New York Times, which reported on the plan on Saturday.

Unabating Crisis

“Over the last few years, the United States military has increased the prepositioning of equipment for training and exercises with our NATO allies and partners,” Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. “At this time, we have made no decision about if or when to move to this equipment.”

Military officials have discussed prepositioning equipment closer to Russia’s border for months as the crisis in Ukraine showed no signs of abating.

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, told the Army Times in February that he had survey teams in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria to determine where additional equipment should be stationed.

Long-Debated Moves

NATO has been debating the moves since at least the start of this year, two other U.S. officials, who also asked not to be named, said on Sunday. Baltic officials began discussing it publicly, they said, to ratchet up pressure on the U.S. and other NATO members and to ensure that Russian officials couldn’t complain that it took them by surprise. Allied intelligence officials are confident that their Russian counterparts have been aware of the discussions from the start, one of the officials said.

Carter met at the Pentagon with Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak in May and discussed how European Reassurance Initiative funds “may eventually be used to temporarily preposition training equipment in Europe,” according to a Defense Department statement.

Poland expects a decision on deployment of U.S. heavy weaponry such as battle tanks “soon,” Siemoniak said in a Twitter post Sunday.

“Talks on placing storehouses for the American army’s equipment in Poland are ongoing,” Siemoniak, who is also deputy prime minister, said. “This is the next step to increase the United States’ presence in Poland and the region.”

‘Combat Forces’

Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in the Clinton administration, said stationing equipment on the terrain of NATO’s newer members, which include most of eastern Europe and the Baltics, would be useful.

“It puts down a marker that the United States is prepared to defend NATO territory,” said Pifer, a career diplomat who is now an analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It makes sense to deploy some American hard power in that part of NATO territory. If there is a crisis, you would only have to move people,” not equipment, he said.

A 1997 agreement between NATO and Russia aimed at strengthening military and political cooperation included an “internal NATO understanding” against placing “substantial combat forces” close to Russia’s borders, Pifer said.

While Russia is sure to object to U.S. tanks near its borders, such a move wouldn’t violate the agreement because the numbers being considered fall below that threshold, he said.

‘Insane Person’

NATO officials will watch to see how Putin responds, the two U.S. officials said. The worst outcome would be an abrupt redeployment of Russian tank, infantry and air forces close to NATO’s eastern border based on a claim that the 1997 agreement had been violated, they said.

Another worrisome possibility would be stepped-up Russian cyberattacks similar to one against Estonia in 2007, one of the officials said. One possible target would be NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia, the official said.

Putin denied any intention of trying to invade NATO countries in an interview this month with Italy’s Il Corriere della Sera.

“Only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO,” Putin was quoted as saying. “I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regards to Russia.”

Article ©2015 Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved. Article also appeared at bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-14/poland-expects-decision-soon-on-u-s-weapons-adds

 

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