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You seem determined to find a path to recreating the threat of WWIII, by rebuilding the evil empire.

“Despite the smaller number of U.S. troops in Europe, the military balance there is far more favorable to NATO today than it was when nearly 10 times as many American soldiers, sailors and airmen were stationed on the continent. The reason for this is simple and obvious: the disastrous — from Moscow’s point of view — revision of the overall European security environment that began in the early 1990s.

With unrest continuing in Ukraine, the West can take some comfort in its modern day military advantage over Russia in Europe. And though numbers alone may not deter Russia from further adventurism, the shift in the balance of forces has been remarkable over the past two decades.

According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies’ “Military Balance” publication — a widely-used and well-respected unclassified compendium of information about the world’s armed forces — in 1989, just before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union deployed a total of 64 divisions in what was then known as its “Western Theater of Military Operations.” These are the Russian forces that would have been hurled at NATO in an attack on Western Europe. They would have been reinforced by another 700,000 troops from the USSR’s three frontline Warsaw Pact allies, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. In all, more than 100 divisions would have been available for a drive into West Germany and beyond. The six countries committed to defending NATO’s front lines — West Germany, the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands — meanwhile deployed only 21 or so divisions in Germany. While NATO divisions were generally somewhat larger than their Warsaw Pact counterparts and reinforcement would have been forthcoming from the United States, the disparity along the East-West frontier was nonetheless huge.

Consider the situation today. East Germany no longer exists, while Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and every one of Russia’s other erstwhile Warsaw Pact partners are now members of NATO. So are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which in 1989 were parts of the Soviet Union itself. In 1989, the Red Army had almost a half-million troops and 27 maneuver divisions (plus enormous quantities of artillery and other units) on the territory of its three main allies. Today, it has a total of seven divisions in its entire Western Military District, all of which are based on its own territory. Indeed, the entire Russian army today boasts about 25 divisions, fewer than it had forward deployed in its Eastern European allies during the waning days of the Cold War.

Today, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany alone field more divisions than Russia has in its Western Military District. These countries are backstopped by the rest of NATO, including, of course, the United States. And this raw count doesn’t take into account the general deterioration of Russian forces since 1991, a quarter-century that saw little equipment modernization. By the late 1980s, NATO already enjoyed a significant qualitative advantage over the Warsaw Pact, and that edge has only increased since then.

Yes, the United States has many fewer forces in Europe than it did in 1989. But Russia has none, its allies have all switched sides, and its military is but a shadow of what it was 25 years ago.”