Friday, November 03, 2017

Preparing the Logistics to Resist Russia

NATO will eventually re-establish commands to improve the ability to defend the new eastern NATO states by bolstering logistics and to defend sea lines of communication across the Atlantic.

Sadly, this is necessary:

NATO defence ministers during a quarterly meeting in November will consider establishing new commands to improve logistics in Europe and for better securing the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

NATO officials are increasingly worried that Russia could complicate the alliance’s movements at sea with submarine warfare, and that infrastructure and policy issues in Europe could complicate movements on land.

Russia has been leaning forward in the west and pretending NATO is a threat. And since Russia invaded Ukraine, NATO has reacted.

Luckily, Russia has a number of military weaknesses, including getting the numbers that they've traditionally relied on to overcome quality:

Russia needs soldiers and they have become increasingly hard to obtain since the 1980s and got worse after 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Having tried just about everything else Russia is now appealing for Russian speaking foreigners to apply. If they have meet the psychological and physical standards, and especially if they have needed skills, good jobs are available. It is unlikely that enough qualified and willing foreigners are going to step forward.

So if NATO shores up its eastern flank and sea lines of communication, Russia will lose much of the advantage it has projecting military power across its border to weak NATO neighbors who require reinforcements across a logistics desert.