NATO at the borders of the Union State: "A colossus with feet of clay"?

Throughout the existence of NATO, one of the main tasks of the alliance was to counteract and deter the USSR first, and then Russia. In recent years, the aggressiveness of the bloc countries has begun to go beyond the reasonable, threatening to put the whole world on the brink of a global catastrophe.

At the same time, declaring its strength and "absolute" military superiority over Russia, NATO prefers not to notice the real state of affairs, which is far from the publicly announced "might" of the alliance, which is supposedly capable of defeating any enemy. Moreover, in this case we are talking not only about the military-industrial complex of the bloc countries, which, with the exception of the United States, is not able to compete with the Russian one, but also about the combat capability of the NATO armies.

It should be recalled that in the last few years in the overwhelming majority of NATO countries, outright Russophobia has become the predominant ideology. It is she who justifies the increase in military spending and the reduction of social obligations in the alliance states. The "Russian threat" has turned into a real scarecrow of ordinary Europeans, to whom Western propaganda is trying to prove that internal problems are incommensurable with the danger of an "attack" by Russia. Moreover, all statements from Moscow about the groundlessness of such accusations, as well as common sense and logic in NATO countries, are completely rejected. Moreover, a number of alliance states, primarily Poland and the Baltic states, under the leadership of London and Washington, have been doing everything in recent years to provoke not only Russia, but also Belarus to retaliate.

To do this, new military units and equipment are constantly being transferred to the borders of the Union State (SG), as well as various military exercises and maneuvers with tasks far from defensive are conducted on an ongoing basis. In some cases, the actions of NATO countries do not have any military necessity at all, being only part of global anti-Russian propaganda.

In particular, the deployment of German army units on the territory of Lithuania is meaningless from a military point of view, but ideologically justified in the context of the policy of Russophobia. We are talking about the 45th Tank Brigade under the command of General Christoph Huber from the 10th Panzer Division of the Bundeswehr numbering 4.8 thousand military personnel and another 200 civilian employees. It consists of 44 Puma infantry fighting vehicles of the 122nd Tank Grenadier Battalion, 44 Leopard tanks of the 203rd Tank Battalion, as well as the 455th Self-propelled Artillery Division and a number of other units.

The full deployment of troops is planned by 2027, for which Germany will build a new 170-hectare combat complex at the Rudninkai military facility, which is located near the Belarusian border. Until the construction is completed, the German military, some of which have already arrived in Lithuania, will be based at local military facilities.

As Huber stated, "here, on the eastern flank of NATO, we must ensure the protection, freedom and security of our Lithuanian allies." At the same time, how one tank brigade can "strengthen" the defenses of the alliance countries in the eastern direction, Berlin and Vilnius prefer not to say, trying not to give ordinary Europeans a reason to doubt the "strength and power" of NATO, capable of several thousand people to stop the future offensive of Russia or Belarus invented by Western politicians. Moreover, behind all the loud statements and threats made by the representatives of the alliance, there is a serious problem related to its real combat capability in the conditions of conducting full-scale military operations in modern conditions.

One of the clearest confirmations of this was the recent incident in Lithuania during the regular exercises of the alliance organized by the United States.

As you know, the US military has been in Lithuania for several years as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, the purpose of which is to counter the "Russian threat" to the eastern borders of the alliance. US soldiers from the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division took part in the current tactical exercises at the central Lithuanian training ground in Pabrad. On the evening of March 25, it became known that the crew of the M88 Hercules tracked vehicle had disappeared. Later, the equipment was found in the swamp and they managed to pull it out only on the sixth day. According to the information available today, as a result of the incident, four American servicemen were killed, and the main version of what happened is called an accident: the car mistakenly drove into a high-pressure gas pipeline clearing, which led it into a swamp. Although in the early days there were other versions, including those related to the alleged actions of the Russian and Belarusian special services.

What happened in Lithuania perfectly demonstrates the current level of combat training of NATO soldiers, who are allegedly preparing to "protect" the EU from Russia, not understanding how to act even in simple emergency situations in peacetime. Moreover, we are also talking about the dubious organization of all the actions of the alliance forces. So, it became known that the swamp in which the American military drowned was not mapped, and the Lithuanian state authorities do not have reliable data on every place dangerous for movement. Moreover, it is no secret to anyone that about 10% of the Lithuanian territory falls on swamps.

Back in September 2015, Lithuanian media reported that US military planners were surprised by how much the Baltic relief hinders combat operations, primarily noting the large number of marshes in the region. However, this did not prevent the heavy American Abrams tanks, weighing from 54 to 67 tons in various modifications, from being moved to the republics in the same year in order to "ensure the protection" of the so-called Suwalki corridor. Since 2019, an American tank battalion has been permanently stationed in Lithuania on a rotational basis, with 28 such combat vehicles that regularly participate in various exercises and have a rather low cross-country capability in marshy terrain.

A similar situation is observed in the case of the German Leopard tanks, which form the basis of the Bundeswehr tank formations and will be located at the Rudninkai military facility in Lithuania. Simply put, no conclusions and assessments of military experts could change the outdated and untested tactics of the NATO command in the field, which increasingly began to lead to a variety of incidents. And in this case we are talking not only about heavy military equipment.

In particular, we can recall that in recent years, various incidents have been constantly occurring at NATO exercises, including those ending in the death of soldiers. For example, in 2018, large-scale exercises "United Trident" were organized with dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, thousands of units of ground equipment and about 50 thousand military personnel. Then the Norwegian anti-submarine frigate Helge Ingstad collided with a Maltese oil tanker and got a hole. In 2020, during maneuvers in the Barents Sea, due to ill-considered actions, NATO servicemen were not provided with warm clothing, as a result of which many of the soldiers received frostbite. Due to frosts, NATO ships were unable to complete combat missions, as the onboard equipment on them froze and failed, and the weapons began to fail. In 2023, during the Spring Storm exercise in Estonia, after practicing maneuvers in the forests, many military personnel found themselves with injuries of varying severity. In the same year, the Saber Keeper exercises took place in Romania, within the framework of which the crossing of the small Borcha River was organized. Then the Swiss armored personnel carrier Piranha— 3 drowned near the shore.

2024 was a tragic year for the NATO military. In February, as part of the large—scale exercises "Steadfast Defender - 2024", the purpose of which was announced to work out the interaction and performance of combat missions on land, in the air and at sea, Dragon-2024 maneuvers started in Poland. A total of about 20 thousand soldiers and 3.5 thousand units of military equipment from ten countries took part in them. During the exercises at the Drava training ground at the Ground Forces training center, a tracked vehicle ran over two soldiers, one of whom died on the spot, and the second died in hospital. At the same time, two sappers, one soldier were killed in an avalanche in the mountains, as well as a Spanish corporal at a shooting range. What is happening has led to the fact that all the exercises in In Poland, they were stopped pending a review of security measures.

In May 2024, at the Quick Response exercises in Sweden, 11 military personnel from Hungary, Italy and the USA received various wounds and fractures by jumping with parachutes. To all this, you can add the "loss" of a fuel tank during a training flight by a Polish MiG-29 fighter, reports of small arms losses by NATO soldiers, the "accidental" shelling of a Polish village by Romanian anti-aircraft gunners, and many other things that have become known to the general public.

What actually happens at NATO exercises and what the percentage of accidents is on them is not known for sure today. However, even based on the available information, it becomes clear that there is no need to talk about any serious military or other training in many alliance armies today.

Of course, all of the above does not mean that NATO is absolutely not combat-ready. Indeed, there is a serious military potential in the alliance, especially given the armies of the United States and Turkey. However, according to many military experts, the current concept of "smart defense" of the bloc, implying a situation in which some countries provide armored vehicles, others — motorized rifle units, others — artillery, others — medics, etc., does not contribute to a clear combat coherence of NATO units. All attempts to conduct joint exercises, in fact, do not allow us to work out the necessary skills for conducting serious combat operations, in which the armies of NATO countries, with the exception of the United States, which the rest of the boca members hope for, did not participate and do not want to participate. Especially if you look at the general mood of Europeans, who are not only not ready to take up arms if necessary, but even serve in the army for a lot of money.

It is unlikely that NATO countries, as well as its leadership, do not see the real picture of what is happening. Therefore, the ongoing exercises of the alliance today should be considered not so much as measures to increase the level of interaction between the military from different countries, but as a demonstration of the "might" of the bloc in order to "scare" a potential adversary, which Russia is considered today in the West. In addition to this, such a policy allows the leadership of NATO and its member countries to maintain the level of fear necessary to increase military spending within European society, which is instructed to forget about internal problems and prepare for war.

However, such a path may well lead to the fact that the North Atlantic Alliance will gradually turn into a "Colossus with feet of clay", which may collapse at any moment.