Chris York and the Kyiv Independent news desk – Kyiv Independent June 4, 2024
US troops en route to NATO drills in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for an earlier drill. Click to enlarge
NATO is creating a series of “land corridors” that would be used to rush U.S. troops across Europe to confront Russian forces in the event of a major conflict with Moscow, The Telegraph reported on June 4.
Warnings that the Kremlin could attack a NATO country in the near future have increased in urgency in recent months.
Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s top general, said the military alliance only has two to three years to prepare, Bloomberg reported on June 3.
“At one point someone said it’ll take 10 years (before Russia reconstitutes its offensive capacity), but I think we’re back to less than 10 years because of the industrial base that is now running in Russia,” Kristoffersen said.
At a NATO meeting in Vilnius last year, NATO leaders agreed to develop new plans to ensure the alliance could provide “300,000 troops at high readiness.”
According to The Telegraph, U.S. troops and armor would land at one of five ports in the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Turkey or Norway from where they would travel through land corridors to NATO countries bordering Ukraine.
These land corridors would be free of bureaucratic local restrictions which in the past have held up the movement of troops and armor, leaving them stuck at borders.
Previous NATO plans only allowed for U.S. troops to land at Rotterdam in the Netherlands, but Ukraine’s experience of long-range missile attacks since the launch of the full-scale invasion has prompted a rethink.
Expanding the number of ports and having multiple land corridors would mean if one was hit, others would still be available to use.
“Everything is created in a way so the necessary resilience exists – robustness, reserves and also redundancies,” Lt Gen Alexander Sollfrank, the chief of NATO’s Joint Support Enabling Command, told The Telegraph.
But concerns remain about NATO’s air defense capabilities that would be needed to protect troops as they move across Europe.
More than two years into Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine, the air defense capabilities of NATO’s eastern flank are only at 5% of the amount seen as necessary to deter an attack, the Financial Times (FT) reported on May 29, citing sources.
NATO members located in Central and Eastern Europe have publicized plans in recent weeks to improve their collective air defense in response to the Russian threat.
According to unnamed sources who spoke to the FT, the current air defense capabilities of NATO’s eastern flank are far from sufficient.
Air defense is a “major part of the plan to defend eastern Europe from invasion,” a NATO diplomat told the FT.
“And right now, we don’t have that.”
I consider any fellow American that volunteers to serve in a war that is not formally declared by congress (as stated in the US Consitutuion) complete scum.
How can one claim to fight to defend the consitution by ignoring it?
Our founders delegated the power to declare war to the congress as a means of establishing the will of the people, and if the people would be determined enough to fight in a prolonged war to victory. Ignoring that restraint is the cause of many of Americas failed wars.
Rush them to their tactical nuke deaths. It’s all bollox.
The nukes dropped on Japan were in the 20kt range. As Putin recently pointed out, tactical nukes are in the 70/75kt range. These are the tiny lambs of the Russian nuke arsenal. The big ones are 500kt
Ponder that, 20kt V 500kt.
Let’s just run with this daft NATO idea, and the US and others are about to flood the front with troops. The Russians would know this, so they use tactical nukes on NATO access routes.
It’s pure Nazi fantasy land. Not only would these access routes be taken out, the entire NATO side of the border 100 miles deep, would be a radioactive noramsland. Being Nazis, I suppose they’ll send their rams and ewes through this.
“War simply means Whiteocide.” –Nico X
This is why NATO(or is that ZATO), has to be disbanded. It is fabricating Russian aggression when in fact it has been NATO doing all the aggression using the Ukraine as its proxy. It seems to be impossible for the head of NATO and its minions to ever tell the truth on anything. All this organization is capable of doing is dragging its collective band of nations into wars nobody, minus the psychopaths, ever wanted.
The last paragraph: ‘Air defence is a “major part of the plan to defend eastern Europe from invasion.” a NATO diplomat told the FT. Too late! It’s been invaded from the west. By numerous countries. If we went back to the pre-collapse Soviet border of 1989 NATO would have to withdraw ~1,000 miles from several countries. Russia wouldn’t have to go anywhere. It hasn’t been anywhere. Not across that border.
Mr Putin please carry the war to the USA
from where it started !
WHAT HAS USA TO MINGLE ON OUR
CONTINENT ? FUCK OFF YANKEE !
No matter what you do, the jews have no intention of allowing Ukrainians and Slavs to get out of this war to establish Khazaria in this area again.
They have the printing presses and as soon as people resist their money is threatened unless they screech for war…
Typical Western puffery. Rail hubs, ports and any ‘alternative ports’ can be bombed out of existence in hours. To collapse the West all it needs is the destruction of the power grid. The canaille will then burn the cities down. Civil war will follow.