I just don’t see anything good coming out of this. On the positive side....as miserable as guys were in Iraq and Afghanistan....Lithuania will be paradise, which invites trouble via alcohol and hookers.
Exactly how “reassuring” are 150 paratroopers?
Also have a really hard time imagining Americans accepting a huge war over a country such as Lithuania, NATO or no.
For the moment, Lithuania is on the free side of the ledger. One way or another, that is likely to change drastically. Also immediately endangered are temporarily free countries: Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc. For our part, we will continue the dismantling of our military while giving lip service to international leadership. Reagan’s freedom through strength concept is long gone.
Lithuania welcomes our homosexual forces, no doubt.
Something only the idiot Obama administration would do.
Two guys who played football with my son in HS have been or are currently in the 173rd. One friend was in Chosin Battalion and saw combat in Afghanistan. He’s currently in college and in Army ROTC and will get his commission in two years. The other friend is currently on active duty with the 173rd and could very well be a part of this deployment to the Baltic States.
Wait for the fallout. When these troops get involved with the locals and get in trouble. They will be asked to leave. Its the nature of the beast.
150 guys won’t be able to defend against a massive Soviet tank attack. We have taken hundreds of thousands of troops out of Europe, Germany, etc. since the First Gulf War. We no longer are on the border’s to defend the Fulda Gap. The Soviets now have a short trip across the borders and no massive US Army tanks, troops and US Air Force fighters to defend Western Europe from a Soviet attack. The Cold War ended and we came home. The Soviets have built back up. All that gas and oil money is giving Czar Putin plenty of cash to build back up his military. Russia and the Red Chinese are building up and Czar Obama is cutting US forces back to pre-WWII levels. That means there is no way we have the forces to stop either of them from doing what they want to do.
This is all hat and no cattle, and Vlad knows it.
Obama is working for Putin, that is why there has been such a pitifully weak response by the US to date to Russia.
Eastern Ukraine will fold back into Russia with ease in the near future, as the folks there are mostly pro-Russian. Besides, having the eastern part guarantees Russia the ability to possess and to protect all the pipelines heading out of Russia to the west.
Obama and Kerry are merely doing a kabuki dance while Vlad applauds in private.
bkmk
150 paratroopers. Wow! I hope they don’t end up being 150 “sacrificed” paratroopers.
There is a blog on the Foreign Policy website and one of its posts from last month had this heading: Putin’s Playing Risk, While Obama’s Playing Candy Land. Kind of sums up who has the upper hand in this current geopolitical struggle.
Anyone remember a time when we fought wars to protect our Country? This is getting so old...