Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its second month, is forcing the U.S. national security establishment to reconsider its original defense plans. President Joe Biden’s trip to Belgium and Poland, where he participated in several summits and announced another package of economic sanctions against Russian officials and defense firms, is clear evidence that Europe is Washington’s main priority at the moment.
Today, there are approximately 100,000 U.S. troops stationed in Europe, an almost 20% increase since January. The surge is driven by Washington’s desire to enhance NATO deterrence and reassure NATO allies that any Russian aggression on NATO territory would be met with a forceful response. (This week, the alliance agreed to deploy four more battle groups to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia.)
Additional U.S. military assets have been sent to Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and the Baltics, including F-16 fighters, AH-64 Apache helicopters and P-8 surveillance aircraft. Senior Pentagon officials have talked about reevaluating the recently released Global Posture Review, which places a premium on regions like the Indo-Pacific.
The irony, however, is that Russia’s war in Ukraine demonstrates why a greater U.S. force presence in Europe is unnecessary. Instead of bolstering the number of troops, the U.S. should be thinning out and permitting European militaries to take the lead on safeguarding Europe’s defense.
While this recommendation may sound strange given the largest land war in Europe since World War II, Russia is exposing itself as a far weaker military power than conventional assessments first indicated. The conflict is also showing that Europe when under threat is willing to make the necessary investments to beef up its own military capacity.
Before Putin launched his war of choice in Ukraine, the Russian military was thought to be making strides toward becoming a world-class fighting force. The bumbling Russian army that battled Chechen insurgents in the 1990s was gone, replaced by a group of experienced military personnel with a procession of highly sophisticated weapons systems.
Putin’s modernization of Russia’s armed forces poured $150 billion to $180 billion per year into the military’s coffers from 2014 to 2019, with special emphasis on improving its missile capability, air defense, armor and fighter aircraft. Moscow’s bloodless capture of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 solidified the idea that Putin’s Russia was a capable military power.
But if the first month of Russian operations in Ukraine tells us anything, it’s that those projections turned out to be way off the mark.
Yes, the Russian military has a large pool of reservists, more than 2,900 battle tanks, nearly 5,000 pieces of artillery and over 1,100 combat aircraft. But the war in Ukraine reveals that numbers on a spreadsheet don’t automatically translate into success on the battlefield. At least 7,000 Russian troops have died, according to U.S. defense assessments, and Moscow has lost about 10% of its combat power due to fierce Ukrainian resistance. Russian forces have been stuck in the north of the country for weeks.
While it’s possible Russia could eventually grind the much smaller Ukrainian army into submission by isolating Ukraine’s major cities and methodically destroying residential neighborhoods, the Russian military’s overall performance is somewhere between clumsy and incompetent.
It appears many Russian troops had no idea they would be deploying into combat until the last minute. The Russian conscripts on the ground are demoralized, and U.S. defense officials have alleged some Russian ground personnel have sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting. Russian commanders are using poor tactics, traveling along widely used routes that are easily defended.
The Russian army’s logistics trail has been horrific. Tanks are often out of gas, giving Ukrainian soldiers the opportunity to target stationary armored columns. Troops on the front lines are hungry and breaking into stores; reports that Moscow has asked China to donate food rations is indicative of systemic problems.
If before the invasion European leaders were worried about a Russian-style blitzkrieg enveloping the Baltics, they need not be so worried. Even if Moscow does capture Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv and replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a pro-Kremlin surrogate, Russia will find its military power degraded and its geopolitical position compromised. The Russian army could eventually face a situation in which hundreds of thousands of troops are forced to conduct an endless occupation of a highly hostile population.
Calls for the U.S. to enhance its troop presence in Europe are understandable. But they aren’t necessary for U.S. security or Europe’s own stability. In contrast, European governments across the continent should exploit Russia’s pitiful performance to wean itself off U.S. protection. Washington should encourage this trend, not undermine it.
European powers, typically content with sheltering under America’s security umbrella, have had a revelation of sorts. Russia’s invasion of a neighboring country is revitalizing an oftentimes theoretical debate about European strategic autonomy, the notion that Europe must develop its military capabilities independent of Washington to turn into a serious geopolitical player.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has essentially reformed its post-Cold War security policy in less than a month, injecting more than $100 billion into the German military and committing itself to spending 2% of its $3.8 trillion gross domestic product on defense. Italy is stepping up its role policing Baltic air space. The Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and the United Kingdom have all enhanced their own deployments to NATO’s eastern front. And the European Union is now aiming to establish a 5,000-strong expeditionary force that can deploy in crises.
But this progress will be wasted if Europe snaps back to its normal purgatory once the crisis in Ukraine dissipates. NATO-Europe spends nearly five times what Russia does on defense, has twice the number of active-duty personnel and 12 times the GDP.
Europe’s most reliable security guarantee is itself.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for Newsweek.
