Friday, June 10, 2016

Let's Talk Being Outside of a Defensive Perimeter

The Russians like to threaten our Baltic NATO allies because they are so far from the mass of NATO's military power. Russia has their own Baltic problem as NATO's Anaconda 2016 exercise demonstrates.

Yeah, it's not so funny anymore, is it, Moscow?

The U.S. Army Europe map of Anaconda 2016 is very likely an act of information war that supports NATO political goals. Note phase three on the U.S. Army Europe exercise map. Phase three is scheduled for execution on June 10. Alliance troops and vehicles will cross the Vistula River and enter Lithuania. Come one, come all. Lithuania is a NATO member.

However, the maneuver explicitly cuts off Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast. Kaliningrad was once the Prussian city of Konigsberg. Russia kept the city and its environs as a special Kremlin reward for winning World War II.

Anaconda 2016’s conclusive fictional thrust isolates and surrounds Kaliningrad.

Which is what I've been arguing for:

I don't understand the hand wringing over the Russian enclave at Kaliningrad. General Grant would have disapproved of this attitude.

If the Russians invade the NATO Baltic states, NATO should overrun Kaliningrad as the first order of business.

Sucks to have territory vulnerable to a potential enemy, doesn't it?

But Putin has been treating NATO as an enemy for so long that NATO is finally getting around to being capable of being a Russian enemy if the Russians persist.

Strategery.