NATO Buildup in Poland Portends Catastrophic Consequences – Vice Admiral

Source : http://www.strategic-culture.org

 

Commenting on the continuing buildup of NATO forces on Russia's borders, including a decision to beef up the rapid response force, and the announcement that the US would deploy heavy equipment in six Eastern European states, including Poland, Vice Admiral Marek Toczek told Sputnik that the dangerous escalation could have catastrophic consequences.

"I consider this to be another step in the escalation of tensions in the situation which has developed around [the conflict in] eastern Ukraine, Toczek stated. "I have always considered that such situations must be resolved exclusively via diplomatic talks," he added.

The Polish Navy veteran turned-politician stated that "this conflict cannot be resolved by military means, especially given the scale being considered. Either this is saber rattling, or a harbinger of something that can affect the people of Eastern and Central Europe, and not only them, –a harbinger of extreme catastrophe of a kind humanity has never known. In Poland there are many people –their numbers difficult to estimate in percentage terms, but very likely a majority, who are against these sorts of political decisions."

Toczek noted that Polish officials' enthusiastic approval of the initiatives to station equipment on Polish soil is aimed in part as a pre-election measure ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections this fall. "I do not believe that this is the way to resolve the conflict, and, by and large, I am very concerned that the leadership of my country is resolved to take such steps and such actions," the official noted.

Asked to comment on the contradictions between NATO's recent announcements and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's statements earlier this month that Russia does not pose an "immediate threat" to any NATO country and that "our aim is to cooperate" with Moscow, Toczek responded by noting that he is convinced "that we are dealing here with a manifestation of a kind of schizophrenia. Not in relation to the politician who uttered these words –it's difficult to disagree with him. However, pressures from various lobbies, which operate surreptitiously, and which are difficult to identify, result in informational chaos, and this also results in a poor understanding of what is truly going on by a significant portion of society."

Marek Toczek served in the Polish Navy between 1965 and 1996, rising to the rank of Vice Admiral in 1994. In the mid-1990s, he left the navy and became the president of the Polish Front, running for a seat in parliament during the 2001 parliamentary elections on the party list of the Alternative Social Movement. Since then, he has been a vice president of the social democratic Polish Labour Party — August 80.

US deploying 250 military vehicles 'incl. Abrams tanks' near Russian border

Source : http://www.strategic-culture.org

 

RT - Washington plans to station hardware, including tanks and armored vehicles, in a number of European countries, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on Tuesday. Nukes withdrawn in the 1980s will not return to Europe.

Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania will be hosting the new hardware, and it will be possible to move it around for exercises, Carter said as he stood with his Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts on a visit to Tallinn.

The hardware will include Abrams battle tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers."Their purpose is to enable richer training and more mobility to forces in Europe," Carter told a news conference.

However, his colleagues made it clear that putting more American hardware close to Russia's borders is a message to Moscow. "In global terms Russia is no match conventionally to US or to NATO, but here in our corner of the world, Putin believes that he enjoys regional superiority," Estonian Defense Minister Sven Mikser said, adding that his country is ready and willing to host the vehicles immediately.

Romanian lawmakers have also approved the construction of two new NATO centers in the country's capital in a unanimous vote on Tuesday.

US and NATO allies have repeatedly slammed Russia for what they call "aggression," accusing it of being involved in the war in Ukraine. NATO recently announced plans to bolster its rapid response force in Europe to 40,000.

Last week Russia's President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would respond to NATO encroaching on its territories "accordingly."

“If someone threatens our territories, it means that we will have to aim our armed forces accordingly at the territories from where the threat is coming. How else could it be? It is NATO that is approaching our borders, it’s not like we are moving anywhere,” he said at a media conference.

However, Putin added, at the moment he could "see nothing that might prompt us" to take retaliatory measures. Moscow "will analyze everything" and stay alert.

Douglas E. Lute, the US Ambassador to NATO, believes American heavy weapons in Europe are not going to violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act, because military hardware will “only” be stored in Europe to facilitate military training and make them more effective, while also cutting back on logistics spending, RIA Novosti reports.

Lute also said the hardware will be placed in Europe without crews. Personnel will be rotated in and out as needed.

Washington is not considering re-deployment of nuclear weapons to Europe. They used to be stationed there some 30 years ago, the US permanent representative to NATO stressed. Nevertheless, Russia's Defense Ministry is worried that conventional heavy weapons will cause an escalation.

“If America’s heavy arms, be it tanks, artillery systems or other heavy military hardware are deployed to Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, it will be the Pentagon’s and NATO’s most aggressive step since the end of the Cold War a quarter of a century ago,” General Yury Yakubov, a senior Defense Ministry official, was quoted by Interfax as saying last week.

US-Russia military lineup raises fears of war: Experts

Source : http://www.presstv.ir

The lineup of powerful military forces by the United States and Russia so close to each other has raised fears that a potential miscalculation could spark a major conflict between the two nuclear powers, according to a report.

The rhetoric and actions from Washington and Moscow have intensified in recent days amid the worst tensions since the Cold War, which both sides blame on each other.

"Given the tempo of Russian military operations over the last year," said Steven Pifer of the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank and a former US ambassador to Ukraine, according to CNN.  "You have more interactions, more possibilities for things to go wrong."

The Pentagon has announced it is ready to store heavy military equipment in East Europe to counter “Russian aggression” in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine.

The US Navy is among those participating in a NATO landing exercise in Sweden and the US Air Force has declared it could be sending some of its most advanced warplanes to Europe.

The US has already sent B-2 and B-52 nuclear-capable bombers, F-15Cs and A-10 attack planes as well as Army and Navy assets to Europe for a show of force, according to CNN.

"I could easily see the day -- though I couldn't tell you the day exactly -- when the F-22, for example, rotates in is a possibility. I don't see why that couldn't happen in the future," Air Force Secretary Deborah James said this week, describing Russia as “the biggest threat” in the region.

In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country would add intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal this year.

“More than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles, able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems, will be added to the make-up of the nuclear arsenal this year,” Putin said on Tuesday.

“If someone threatens our territories, it means that we will have to aim our armed forces accordingly at the territories from where the threat is coming,” he added. "It is NATO that is coming to our borders, it's not like we are moving anywhere." 

Moreover, the number of flights by Russian strategic bombers over the US Air Defense Identification Zone doubled last year from their norm, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, known as NORAD.

In the latest provocative incident, Russian military aircraft had to be scrambled to ward off a US destroyer, USS Ross, in the Black Sea after it was found heading into Russia’s territorial waters late last month.

US officials and observers point to the Ukrainian conflict as the underlying issue for the increased tensions. 

Washington has so far bolstered the Ukrainian military through non-lethal aid and training. It has also imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia in coordination with European partners.

US senators are pressing President Barack Obama to provide lethal aid to Ukraine.

Russia says will retaliate if US weapons stationed on its borders

Source : http://mobile.reuters.com

A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia's border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said on Monday.

The United States is offering to store military equipment on allies' territory in eastern Europe, a proposal aimed at reassuring governments worried that after the conflict in Ukraine, they could be the Kremlin's next target.

Poland and the Baltic states, where officials say privately they have been frustrated the NATO alliance has not taken more decisive steps to deter Russia, welcomed the decision by Washington to take the lead.

But others in the region were more cautious, fearing their countries could be caught in the middle of a new arms race between Russia and the United States.

"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," Russian defense ministry official General Yuri Yakubov said.

"Russia will have no option but to build up its forces and resources on the Western strategic front," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

He said the Russian response was likely to include speeding up the deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave bordered by Poland and Lithuania, and beefing up Russian forces in ex-Soviet Belarus.

"Our hands are completely free to organize retaliatory steps to strengthen our Western frontiers," Yakubov said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said: "We hope that reason will prevail and the situation in Europe will be prevented from sliding into a new military confrontation which may have dangerous consequences."

ALLIED ARMY

The Pentagon said on Monday the U.S. military was in the process of deciding where to store a battalion's worth of military equipment in Europe. The decision is part of a long-term effort to maintain equipment for a heavy brigade in the region to facilitate U.S. rotational training with NATO allies.

"This is purely positioning of equipment to better facilitate our ability to conduct training," said Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, noting that two battalions of equipment already was stored there.

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, told Reuters in December the equipment set for the full brigade would be about 160 M-1 tanks plus M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers. A Pentagon official said on Monday the total number of vehicles would be about 220.

U.S. officials said a proposal under review envisages storing a company's worth of equipment, enough for 150 soldiers, in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Enough equipment for a company or possibly a battalion, or about 750 soldiers, would also be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary.

The idea was that, in the event of an attack on NATO's eastern border, the United States could quickly fly in troops who would use the equipment, cutting out the weeks or months it would take to transport convoys of gear overland across Europe.

However, the U.S. proposal could cause tensions within NATO, an alliance that often struggles to accommodate more hawkish members such as Poland or Lithuania alongside other states that want to avoid a military stand-off with Russia at any cost.

Speaking after talks in Warsaw with the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, Polish Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said he expected a final U.S. decision on the equipment within a few weeks.

"They know how important this is to us, because we want to build a permanent U.S. presence, the allied army here on the Polish territory," Siemoniak told reporters.

"It seems to me that such enterprises, that is equipment warehouses, are a very crucial step when it comes to building such a presence."

A spokesman for Lithuania's foreign ministry, Kestutis Vaskelevicius, said any increased NATO presence was intended to improve the security of the Baltic states. "(It) is not directed against anyone, and it does not threaten anyone," he said.

 

TWO-SPEED NATO

Since Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and a rebellion by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states - countries with a history of Russian occupation - have pushed NATO for a muscular response.

But proposals for a permanent NATO combat presence in eastern Europe were blocked by Germany and some other alliance members. Instead, NATO intensified exercises, rotating troops through the region and set up a command headquarters for a rapid reaction force in north-west Poland.

Sources close to the government in Poland, and other states in the region, said that response persuaded them they could not fully rely on NATO, and that their best bet in the event of an attack was that the U.S. military would come to their aid.

At a NATO summit in Wales last year, agreement was reached on "pre-positioning" military equipment in eastern Europe, but the Pentagon's plan appeared to go further and faster than measures envisaged by the alliance.

The initiative could force some former Warsaw Pact countries now in NATO to make uncomfortable choices.

Bulgaria and Hungary both say they are committed members of the alliance, but they have maintained close cultural and commercial ties to Moscow, and may not want to jeopardize those links by storing U.S. military equipment on their soil.

Rosen Plevneliev, the Bulgarian President, said it was too early to say if his country would join the Pentagon's initiative.

"At the current moment there is no proposal whatsoever to the Bulgarian government upon which we can start discussions," he said.

Poland, Lithuania discussing plans with Washington to harbor US army equipment

Via : http://www.strategic-culture.org

Warsaw and Vilnius are in talks with Washington about the permanent stationing of US army equipment warehouses, officials from the two countries said. Heavy weapons may be stored in the Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary.

The Polish Defense Ministry tweeted that during his recent visit to Washington Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak was given assurances that a final decision on stationing the warehouses would be taken shortly.

Citing US and allied officials, the New York Times reported on Saturday that heavy equipment would be stored in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, plus some Eastern European countries - Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary.

The Pentagon's far-reaching proposal requires approval from Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and the White House. Should the move be given the go-ahead, it would be the first deployment of military hardware in Europe since the end of the Cold War 25 years ago. The plan falls short of a permanent boots-on-the-ground presence.

When NATO initially expanded into the Baltic States in 2004, permanent stationing of equipment and troops in these countries wasn’t undertaken - a mark of respect to Russia’s interests. But with the unfolding Ukraine crisis, NATO and Washington began to bolster forces in the region, openly sending a message to Moscow that NATO will defend its alliance members.

“This is a very meaningful shift in policy. It provides a reasonable level of reassurance to jittery allies, although nothing is as good as troops stationed full-time on the ground, of course,” James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former supreme allied commander of NATO, now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, told the New York Times.

According to the newspaper, the Pentagon is "poised to store" battle tanks, infantry vehicles and other heavy weapons for 5,000 American troops in the Baltic and Eastern European states. The stocks, planned to be stored on allied bases, would be reportedly the same as the Pentagon kept in Kuwait for over a decade after the 1990 US invasion of Iraq.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Juozas Olekas also told Reuters on Sunday that Vilnius is getting ready to host heavy US military equipment. Talks are underway with Washington on a permanent location for the arms.

"We think that at least part of it [Abrams and Bradleys] will be in Lithuania and we are in the process of preparing our military infrastructure, so it can be used for such pre-positioning. It is almost ready," Olekas said.

"We have been in talks with our American allies about locating equipment here on a permanent basis, in order to increase our security and support the soldiers stationed here," he added.

"If the decision is taken, it will be very positive for our security," Olekas concluded.

Estonia’s Defense Minister Sven Mikser has said the US proposal will be discussed with NATO countries on June 24-25, the Delfi news portal reports.

Since Crimea’s reunion with Russia, concerns have been growing in Moscow over a sharp increase in the intensity of the training of NATO troops along Russia’s border. Since the outbreak of the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, NATO forces have stepped up military drills in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe.

Around 50 vessels from 17 countries, involving some 5,600 troops, are currently taking part in the US-led BALTOPS exercise in the Baltic Sea. NATO member states, such as Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Turkey, the UK and the US have sent naval forces to take part in the drill. They were also joined by three NATO partners – Finland and Sweden, which both have access to the Baltic Sea, and also Georgia. The show-off of anti-submarine warfare, air defense, interception of suspect vessels and amphibious landings runs through June 20.

The head of the Main Operation Directorate of General Staff, Lieutenant General Andrey Kartapolov, said in April that the intensity of NATO’s operational and combat training activities grew by as much as 80 percent in 2014, with bombers from the US Air Force performing strategic tasks during their military exercises. Russia has also increased the number of flights of its long-range ‘Bear’ Tupolev-95 bombers near NATO members’ air space, as well as carrying out large-scale drills on its own territory.

US Deploys Heavy Weaponry in Europe; Russia to 'Answer Adequately'

Source : http://sputniknews.com

Russia will provide an ‘adequate answer’ to the deployment of the US heavy weaponry in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, a senior Defense Ministry official said on Monday, commenting on earlier claims that the Pentagon is poised to station battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weaponry in several Eastern European countries.

“In case the US heavy weaponry, including battle tanks, artillery systems and other combat weaponry is going to be deployed in a number of Eastern European countries and the Baltics, it is going to be the most aggressive step of Pentagon and NATO since the end of the last century's Cold War,” the Russian media quoted Yuri Yakubov, the Coordinator of the Department of the General Inspectors of the Russian Defense Ministry, as saying.

“And there will be nothing left for Russia but to build up its might and means at strategic western locations,” added the senior Defense Ministry official.

Russia will commence by reinforcing its military along the perimeter of its Western border, including new tank, artillery and aviation units.

The Russian Ground Forces’ guided missile brigade stationed in the westernmost Kaliningrad region will be promptly reequipped with the Iskander-M ballistic missile systems, Yakubov added, and Russia’s combined forces in Belarus will also be considerably reequipped.

The announcement comes as a comment following US media speculation that “the Pentagon is poised to deploy battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for up to 5,000 US troops in Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries.”

As the media put it, "a company's worth of equipment — enough for about 150 soldiers — would be stored in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Enough for a company or possibly a battalion — about 750 soldiers — would be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary".

The senior Defense Ministry official however stressed that Russia has completely withdrawn from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and won’t be bound by any lateral restrictions, as it was earlier, on the number of tanks, aircraft or artillery systems it was allowed to have in its near-border territories.

“We have completely withdrawn from this treaty which many European countries have not stuck to and we have a free hand in organizing responsive measures and strengthening our western borders,” he said.

The Kremlin so far has not commented on the issue.

“There was no official announcement from the US, therefore I have nothing to say. We will comment when there is any,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday