Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s commander in Europe, presented the strategy at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday. He said alliance ground forces would first dominate an attack at the point of contact and stop the enemy seizing NATO territory. They would then blunt the assault and the forces that support, supply and command it.
Deputy Secretary General Radmila Szekerinska told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) the message was aimed at both Moscow and NATO citizens.
“It is a reassuring message, but also a message for Russia. The main message is very clear: NATO will retain its advantage”, she said. “We will continue to deter, but if we are put to the test, we will use all available means to defend our billion citizens and every ally”.
She said the alliance could deter Russia and support Ukraine at once. “We can and we will do both, because these matters are linked”, she said. European allies and Canada have spent an extra USD 59 billion since agreeing to devote 5% of GDP to defence, she said.
Szekerinska said Russia’s growing aggression stemmed from failure in Ukraine. “Putin is not winning. On the contrary, in some places he has even lost territory”, she said, adding that Russia was losing 40,000 soldiers a month.
“We must stay calm. We are stronger than Russia in every possible respect”, she said.
Philip Wasielewski, a Foreign Policy Research Institute analyst and retired US Marine officer, was less convinced. He told PAP the speech was too cautious and the consequences it set out for an aggressor too mild.
He noted that Grynkewich had said NATO’s aim would be to repel an invasion, not to inflict “strategic defeat” on the enemy. “That would mean the war would be fought mainly on NATO territory”, Wasielewski said.
He said the speech read like a text “written by a cautious committee”, and argued the general was constrained by the White House and the North Atlantic Council, which must approve his addresses. The pledge to hit supporting forces covered only military targets and, at most, hinted at strikes inside Russia “in the faintest way”, he said.
Wasielewski warned that Russia could overrun the Baltic states and part of Poland, devastate them and withdraw to rebuild, paying no price beyond soldiers’ lives. “It would be like a modern Mongol invasion that destroys a country”, he said.
He said NATO could instead promise to do to Russia’s military-industrial and oil complex what Ukraine is doing, “ten times more effectively”.
On possible US troop cuts in Europe, he said he expected no quick decisions. “I would wait until I see removal lorries outside American bases”, he said, noting Congress has banned such moves and its make-up could change after the November elections.
The two-day forum, organised by the Kazimierz Pulaski Foundation, began on 12 October.
(jh)
Source: PAP