The United States and NATO are working together to counter the biggest threats to European security — violent extremism and Russian destabilisation efforts, Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the commander of U.S. European Command, has said.
Scaparrotti, who is dual-hatted as NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to provide testimony on the state of the command and its future needs.
“Together with NATO, the U.S. has made significant progress,” he said, “but we have much work to do as we execute our National Defense Strategy, fielding an increasingly lethal, agile and resilient joint force in long-term strategic competition with Russia and ready to counter violent extremists organisations.”
The US and its allies have enhanced their presence in Europe to counter what Scaparrotti described as Russian activities aimed at exerting influence, spreading disinformation and diminishing confidence in NATO.
“Russia is carrying out a campaign of destabilization to change the international order, fracture NATO and undermine U.S. leadership around the world,” he said.
“To this end, Russia is advancing asymmetric capabilities in accordance with its concept of warfare, which envisions the employment of the full spectrum of military and nonmilitary power.”
The general said Russia’s increasingly modernized military is operating in every domain at levels not seen since the Cold War.
The United States has responded to the threat by deploying rotation forces to Europe, to include an armored brigade combat team and a combat aviation brigade.
Other actions include doubling the maritime deployments to the Black Sea, as well as theater anti-submarine warfare operations and bomber assurance and deterrence missions. Fifth generation fighters have been deployed to Europe for the first time, he said.
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Interesting, but not surprising, to see no mention of China.
Folks are ignoring China’s increasing role in the world and its links to Russia.
Geo-politically China and Russia now have lifelong dictatorships in all but name. Between them they have half the Eurasian landmass and 20+% of the world’s population .
In both China and Russia state media and apparatus operate on grudge politics, grudges against the West. Both are playing aggressive near border spheres of influence policies, from SCS to Ukraine.
There are more men under arms in China & Russia than pretty much the RoW combined. They have more nukes than the world combined. China is building the equivalent above and below water hulls in the RN every few years.
China & Russia recently announced a joint military pact to ‘jointly safeguard regional peace and stability’.
Geo-political power politics has well and truly returned.
Students of history might suggest that this combination of factors is unlikely to end well – power corrupts, absolute power and all that.
Wakey wakey UK
It seems that someone has been willing and able to use both radiological and biological weapons against civilian targets in the UK. Should we be concerned?
It is a chemical warfare attack on the streets of Britain if this doesn’t wake parliament up and start being serious about defense then we might as well give up and become a province of Russia.
Seriously enough is enough time to man up (literally) and start attacking them in whatever way hurts most sanctions cyber SF sabotage I don’t care. Time to put the fucking boot in.
Why would russia attempt to assasinate someone so obviously?
Wow. False Flag? We do it ourselves to get the HMG to finally wake up and increase defence spending against a non existent threat?
Yeah I’m all for that.
In answer to your question, maybe –
Threat.
Power.
Intimidation.
Intent.
Just bumping someone off on the quiet does not send quite the same message, to traitors or to the west, as quite clearly the Russians are good at mind games and alternative forms of warfare.
A sort of Maskirovka if you like.
Scaparroti is right- Russia is a massive threat- they do not play by the old cold war rules any more- now we face asymmetrical warfare and undermining cyber attacks, incursions into sovereign states and any and all methods to undermine NATO cohesion and solidarity, whilst utilising state sponsored terrorism to spread fear and worry throughout Europe and NATO
The chemical weapon attack in Salisbury was the first ever deliberate release of a chemical weapon within the UK home territories and for this we really do need to wake up – the left-leaning Corbyn pacifists need to be put back in their mental health soft padded cells and injected with some cold hard realism- this is a return to the cold war, be in no doubt about that. I agree with some posts on the internet today that Russia Today needs to be shut down, its broadcasting license revoked and this needs to happen with immediate effect.
Brexit has not helped as Putin senses the European divide- not helped by Europe trying to play hard ball and punish the UK for a democratic vote brought about by their own pig headed inconsistency and unwillingness to reform or meet decent governance standards- demanding a massive Brexit bill despite the fact the UK owes the EU precisely nothing- in fact as one of only 2 countries that ever paid in more than we got out- it can easily be argued “we want our money back”
The EU is toothless and will neither back us up as NATO allies or man up to Russia- until they themselves are attacked and then they will call out for UK military aid.
It is time the defence budget was ramped up massively to well over 3% GDP to defence expenditure- the military need to invest in CBRN kit urgently and public bodies need to dust off and update civil defence contingency plans- Russia is a threat and we need to meet this threat head on.
It is time the UK woke up- I agree entirely with Ian- “Wakey Wakey” guaranteeing our defence and safeguarding our way of life, freedom of speech and self-determination costs money and takes iron will- it remains to be seen whether the UK parliament and Teresa May’s government have that will.
I do worry for the UK and Europe- we seem to be sleep walking into a disaster- as we talk about austerity and cutting back to live within our means Russia is investing all it can into niche areas of military to outdo and circumvent NATO capabilities- hence area denial S400 and S500 missile systems, profusion of ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles and delivery systems- it is now within Russian capabilities to launch a saturation missile attack and knock out a major EU or NATO power like the UK, France or Germany/ Holland within a very short period of time.
Putin will not back down- he is a street brawling Russian tough guy – he will only respect military hard power and a firm foreign policy to undermine him, isolate him and weaken Russia and take from him all the finances he needs to build a strong military capability.
Sanction the hell out of Russia- confiscate all financial funds held in western banks from him and his oligarch cronies.
Remove all diplomatic staff from the Russian Embassy in the UK and withdraw, before they are evicted, all British diplomatic staff- that gives a firm sign of intent if we are removing them before the Russians can even say we are evicting you.
World cup- send no football team, officials or supporters to the event- tell the Russians quite clearly we want nothing to do with you as you are hostile and spread terrorism- the use of a chemical weapon within a foreign sovereign democratic state is utterly unforgiveable. the perpetrators and their handlers and political masters- Putin and the Kremlin did not give any 2nd thoughts to the collateral damage involved- they did not stop for 2 seconds to consider UK citizens might be harmed. they simply do not care- you can see their actions in Syria, allowing and tolerating the Assad regimen using chemical weapons against his own people.
Yes that covers it all.
Its funny how Russia is developing unstoppable missiles seeing as we base ABMs in Poland. We are responsible for this just as much as them. Former Warpac countries should have been a neutral, weapons free buffer zone with assurances. The ABM treaty was allowed to lapse in 2004. We have destabilised the middle east with a war that legitimated Russia’s invasion of the Crimea Russia’s only warm water port is in the med in Syria. Add into the mix the deeply held memory of the horrors of the 2nd World War and the countless millions of Russian dead and we are where we are now.
We will now be in another arms race that in the end will see us the average citizen worse off to pay for it.
I don’t see Russia doing anything but responding to a world situation as it sees it doing things we in the west have long done too.
Dialog and trade are the only way forward unless we want to live in a world of cold war paranoia and danger again.