West Coast Midnight Run™'s Forums welcome you into posting any comment on any topic not displayed in the Blog & Kiosk. As the Forums grow discussions will be moved into sections with specific topic headings.
As usual you may want to first look up the Blog & Kiosk for published articles and so you can post direct comments on segments, revues and reports from the publication. Please observe our Terms and TOS. Also we strongly recommend reviewing our FAQs section. Welcome and have fun!
- This topic has 17 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 11 months ago by
.
-
-
NATO Tanks Sent To Ukraine – New Chapter By Pierre Maertin
The newswires are screaming headlines, France announced it would commit an unspecified number of tanks to Ukraine, not only reversing its policy of neutrality vis-a-vis the increasingly vociferous war heating up the border along the former Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) but becoming the first Western nation and member of NATO to commit battle tanks ahead of the United States, the UK, and Germany who soon followed suit. It is interesting to note that although Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed the Crimea, it was until 2018 that Ukraine formally abandoned its membership in the CIS.Remarkably Macron’s decision to send the AMX-RC10 “wheeled” tanks to the Ukraine appear to have caught his allies with their proverbial pants down who immediately, within hours, scrambled to join voices in unison declaring their intent to send American Bradley armored vehicles, Germany’s feared Leopard 2 tracked tanks and Britain’s Challenger 2 main battle tanks.
All of this coincided with news of the Kremlin’s decision to mobilize a new batch of 500,000 Russian infantry units to shore up a protracted war with their neighbor, which by all accounts from Western media sources appears to be leaning into the victory lane of the embattled Ukrainians. Recent developments show the Ukrainians are now on a winning streak to regain lost territories overrun by the Russians during the initial phase of the war. But it is far too early to tell who will come out on top given that this war is being waged on Russia’s front doors and by all accounts the Kremlin appears to have gone soft by holding back their deployment of cutting edge hardware. The same could be said about NATO, both sides of the conflict appear to have shown unusual restraint, perhaps out of fear that newest weapons systems could fall into the hands of the enemies and are being reserved for a more direct NATO-Russia conflict or a definitive global war.
France’s AMX-RC10 are far from being that country’s most lethal ground battlers and are viewed by some as nothing more than armored vehicles equipped with a 105 mm canon, which puts them on a footing with the big tanks. Most of the modern-day tracked tanks are equipped with 100 mm to 120 mm canons but the AMX tanks being on wheels can reach speeds of up to 50 mph making them very fast compared to heavier tanks on tracks. And the United States much vaunted Abrams M1 tanks are being held back while only Bradley armored vehicles with a high speed 25 mm Bushmaster cannons are on the dispatch board for Ukraine. Bradleys are famed for being “tank killers” in Iraq against much older Soviet-generation tanks but the Pentagon classifies them as primarily scouting vehicles with lethal power and armor.
The other problem with this unfolding scenario is that the Ukrainian war is turning slowly into an all-out NATO effort against Russia, sidestepping completely the notion of neutrality which NATO espoused at the start of the war, since Ukraine was not a NATO member and this was considered a Russian Ukrainian war that does not permit NATO to invoke Article 5 which says that any attack on a NATO member in Europe or North America “shall be considered an attack against them all.” Russia’s slow progress in Ukraine was initially viewed as primarily Ukrainian fighting skills and endurance matched with small donations of light assault rifles and a small trickle of pan European and worldwide fighters joining in under the banner of a “French Foreign Legion” albeit a Ukrainian Foreign Legion.
However in the most recent months, far bigger and heavier weapons systems have made their way to the war front including surface-to-surface HIMARS missile batteries, shoulder-fired Mach 3 Starstreak missiles (fastest guns from the West), jet fighters (on the board but held back by the US) and Patriot missiles batteries – all of which require ammunition supplies, maintenance parts and training as well as Ukrainian ability to operate these systems. The vast majority of the Ukrainian military forces are ill-equipped and unfamiliar with these weapons systems, another reason cutting edge systems are not being sent to them but older generation technology is considered easier for them to use and operate on the battlefield.
All of these developments point to a dangerous escalation of the war into an all-out unrestrained nuclear battlefield. Moscow does not need an excuse at this point not to deploy small yield atomic bombs which will “soften up” the enemy and cut their losses a la Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Russians can always justify their nuclear weapons use as already established by their American foes and the USA know full well this option is on the table. To make things worse, the war has closely drawn in Poland into the conflict and at some point Russia may call NATO’s bluff and use mid-range nukes in taking the Ukraine and Poland completely off the board. Should this happen, what exactly will be NATO’s response? Launch an all-out nuclear war with Russia? The response would burn the entire planet to ashes, and who exactly would come out on top?
This entire war and the coalition of Ukraine is hanging by a thread and only exists because Russia continues to show restraint. Once Russia plays the nuclear card, there is nothing for NATO to do except shut up and put up with their losses and ambitions to bring nukes and military bases on Russia’s borders inside of Poland, Finland and Ukraine. Unfortunately the war is far from over, should never been allowed to go the extra mile and it is primed like a powder keg for a global nuclear showdown. Macron should never have offered the tanks and his allies should not have caved in like a deck of dominoes.
-
-
-
-
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.