Posted on Mar 18, 2015
MAJ Senior Observer   Controller/Trainer
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Armor
With a nod to the large-scale maneuver exercises of the Cold War, the U.S. Army announced that it will be leading a NATO show-of-force exercise in the form of a 1,100-mile convoy through six nations en route to their home station in Vilseck, Germany. Intended to display NATO capability to rapidly concentrate manpower and equipment in the region, will this display have any impact on Putin's activity in the Ukraine?
Posted in these groups: NATO979a8ca4 Ukraine
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SFC Intelligence Sergeant
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I think that Putin is already achieving the results he desires, but quietly in the background rather than on the front page of international news. I think his aggressive cyber attack that crippled a NATO country (Estonia) in 2007 was the first test of NATO's resilience. The next years he attacked or invaded non-NATO countries under the guise of securing ethnic Russian populations (Georgia 2008, Kyrgyzstan 2009, and now Ukraine) which I believe was his plan to condition the world to the Russian cause. Since WWII, NATO has been the biggest deterrent to Russian/Soviet expansion. I think NATO is much weaker today than it has been since the Cold War and Putin is carefully establishing the opportune moment to move based on my last three years of working with NATO. I believe Putin will continue his cyber campaign and propaganda in Eastern block NATO countries before setting up a false flag operation to move in and "secure" ethnic Russians in a NATO country. This would violate Article six and Force NATO to respond in a war that no one wants, reduce the worldwide reputation of NATO as a legitimate military deterrent, or could bring the demise of NATO. Article six would require every NATO country to act to defend, and I don't see the majority of NATO being militarily or economically prepared to rise to that challenge. In conclusion, I don't think parading a Stryker unit through the eastern block is going to intimidate Russia's motivation to become a more significant world power, unchallenged in Europe.
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MAJ Senior Observer   Controller/Trainer
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SFC (Join to see), that is a beautiful piece of analysis. You must watch yourself carefully around Majors bound for ILE; they may be tempted to abduct you and exploit your skills! ;-)
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SFC Intelligence Sergeant
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MAJ Paul Hoiland thank you for your advice, I will try to keep an eye out. I just finished a paper on this topic in my Cyber Warfare class. I was interested to see how much of what I "knew" was supported by documentation on the open net stop chose this topic. I was happy to see the question here on Rallypoint.
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SSgt Geospatial Intelligence
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I say no, but I qualify the "other" response because I don't think Putin can be any more emboldened than he already is.  I think he has a plan in place & he will push forward with it no matter what we do.
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MAJ Senior Observer   Controller/Trainer
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SSgt (Join to see), I would be hard-pressed to argue against you on that point.
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SSgt Geospatial Intelligence
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I think they just reported that Russian jets were intercepted in the Balkans this afternoon.
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SFC Mark Merino
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I don't recall the Russians being too well known for bowing down to intimidation. I waved goodbye to the 12 A-10's that left here from Davis-Monthan. Watching them all train at once right over the house was AWESOME!
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SFC Charles S.
SFC Charles S.
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I don't think Putin will wince. He knows our Politics right now and we won't follow through.
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SSG(P) Casualty Operations Ncoic
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No, historically, Russians don't crack under pressure. Recall that Russians burned Moscow in order to deny it to Napolean's Grand Army. During WW II, Stalingrad held up under German siege during the winter.

No, I don't think a convoy is going to scare the Russians. They've been flying bombers everywhere they want-- over the English Channel, over Guam, over Alaska, etc. Don't forget Russia now has about 40,000 troops in the Arctic.
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