[…] First, believe this: NATO is no more. The singular, powerful deterrent to Soviet aggression in the ’70s, ’80s and through the first decade of 2000 is factually gone. Clearly, the name is there. Thirty nations subscribe and meet regularly in Brussels, but their collective security — the very purpose of the alliance — was guaranteed by U.S. military power and U.S. military power alone. To believe otherwise is to believe fiction. That crucial underpinning is now gone.
In Europe, troop strengths under the Obama administration declined by 85 percent since the height of the Cold War, withdrawing combat-ready armor and infantry divisions poised instantly to battle Soviet forces. Anti-armor attack and assault helicopters were removed, to include U.S. Air Force A-10 attack aircraft embedded to counter the ever-increasing tank forces of Soviet armies.
Of equal importance, the key to rapid reinforcement of NATO was strategic airlift capable of inserting troops and weapons systems in a sequence, indisputably bolstering forward-based U.S. combat units. C-5 cargo aircraft, essential to that reinforcement, were halved in operational numbers, and some key C-17 units providing strategic airlift had been inactivated.
Even if we had necessary forces to deploy for NATO’s reinforcement, we now could not get them in sufficient strength to join the battle, were Russian President Vladimir Putin to move quickly. Läs artikel