Russia's aggression in 2008 and 2014 began the resumption of history supposedly ended when the West won the Cold War. Russia's full invasion of Ukraine this year has accelerated it.
Russia is pushing in to Europe, Germany is standing up, and America decided to come back in:
The U.S. will add air defenses in Germany and Italy, increase the number of F-35 squadrons in the United Kingdom and put additional warships in Spain, President Joe Biden announced Wednesday as NATO’s summit in Madrid got underway.
Biden also said the U.S. Army’s V Corps headquarters in Poland will become permanent and a new rotational brigade will operate out of Romania, giving the military a boost in the strategic Black Sea region.
Some of Biden’s announcements could have referred to plans that were already in the works, but the addition of air defenses in Germany and Italy appears to be a new measure.
The Department of Defense outlined what America has been doing to reinforce NATO, including ground forces:
[An] Amphibious Readiness Group and Marine Expeditionary Force [they meant to write a Marine Expeditionary Unit]. DoD added a Corps Headquarters, Division Headquarters, Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT), Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT), High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) battalion, and multiple enablers to the existing Corps Forward Command Post, Division Headquarters, and three BCTs already stationed in or deployed to Europe.
And even more countries are seeing the value of NATO as history returns:
Late on June 28, the leaders of Finland, Sweden, and Turkey signed a trilateral memorandum on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid, paving the way for the Nordic duo to join the military alliance.
The United States began hedging as Russia revived its imperial ambitions by preparing to return to Europe in case of war. And America decided to add Army unit sets in Europe to speed that up. Russia has shown that NATO can't wait that long. So America is getting that corps in NATO I've long wanted (starting on page 15). The headquarters, at least. That will help.
UPDATE: Putting V Corps headquarters in Poland was enabled by establishing logistics in the east, which was a logistics desert until NATO worked on it after having the problem exposed in the first Ukraine crisis.
NOTE: War coverage continues here.
