Why Aren’t there NATO Troops Deploying En Masse to Ukraine?

So there is this idea, based on exactly nothing, that western troops are better than Ukrainian troops. There is also this idea that American logistics are the best in the world, “We can set up a Burger King anywhere in 24 hours.” So why would supplying 1 million NATO troops be different than supplying 1 million Ukrainian troops? Again, this idea is based on exactly nothing. And there is the third idea that NATO has huge stockpiles of Star Wars weapons. This is an interesting idea and when someone says it I always ask “Which weapons?” I have never gotten an answer back.

I repeat, what does an American stryker brigade have that a Ukrainian stryker brigade doesn’t have? If a NATO enthusiast can tell me in the comments I’d love to hear it.

To be clear, the problem here isn’t the quality of weapons and consumables, but the quantity. If you look at the core of active-duty US Army and Marine Corps infantry units you will see a consistent level of excellence in their equipment. But if you look outside of this small group of people and inspect, say, a National Guard or other reserve unit, the quality of their gear drops off noticeably. People don’t have the newest and fanciest optics, for example. They might not have optics at all. Of course when units go on a combat deployment it is ensured that they have the newest toys, but the USA typically doesn’t have to do that with more than a few people at a time and that’s the crucial detail. Equipping a million soldiers is different than equipping 100,000 soldiers, and NATO has not had to do such a thing since the Korean War.

Shortly before and after the Afghanistan withdrawal the US Army dedicated itself to “Back to the basics.” AKA, refit and retrain for conventional warfare. But did this actually happen, or did all of their orders for new equipment, training ammunition and other consumables get re-routed to Ukraine? Complaints I’ve seen on social media and various other message boards – such as new HIMARS crewmen arriving to their units without ever having fired a shot – suggest that the latter happened.

The bigger problem is that no one in western countries actually wants to fight and die for Ukraine.

After the Vietnam War there was something called the Army Total Force Policy, which took decades but more or less reached its logical conclusion during the Global War on Terror. Essentially, the US Army sought to hold all three of its subordinate components, the active-duty Army, the Army National Guard, and Army Reserve, to the same readiness standards. The main driver behind this was the shift away from a conscription-based force to an all-volunteer force. Without the ability to force an infinite number of Americans to go on deployments to East Asia, the Army had to lean much more heavily on its reserve components. Desert Storm and “Operation Iraqi Freedom” saw something like 30 to 40% of the deployed forces being from the reserves.

So what does this mean in a theoretical deployment to Ukraine now? Hundreds of thousands of American families would receive notifications that the man is being put on federal orders and sent to Eastern Europe. Everyone would understand this is for Ukraine. What would the reaction be? Would they gladly accept it, or hang Biden off the nearest tree? I suspect the public reaction would be more like the latter than the former.

On top of all that, there would be the need for conscription. Even if the Biden regime got away with mobilizing the reserves for a far-away war, he would not get away with conscription. And just to be clear, conscription would be absolutely necessary. Maybe not for the initial force, but for losses. The “surge” in Iraq was only possible with huge signing bonuses and waivers for various conditions that were otherwise disqualifying. And that was a war when casualties were measured in the dozens, not thousands or tens of thousands.

Ian Kummer

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7 thoughts on “Why Aren’t there NATO Troops Deploying En Masse to Ukraine?”

  1. Actually the Cold War got the use of the Reserves and National Guard right.

    Reserve components were originally developed, in both America and Europe, for a Great Power, World War I style conflict. In fact, they were literally developed for what became World War I, or in the USA, in light of World War I. It allowed for a quick mobilization of augmentation of the active forces, granted with lesser trained and equipped troops, but better than new conscripts that have to be trained and equipped from scratched. Brushfire and colonial wars, such as the expeditions in China, and the colonial wars the British and Germans waged at the southern end of the African continent, were fought by active forces.

    Cold War policy got this right, and the US Reserves were kept for the showdown with the USSR in Europe, and I think the National Guard was even reserved for stateside missions. They were kept out of Vietnam. This was a political decision, but not completely a political decision. Reserve forces should be reserved for a great power war. The problem with Vietnam was more the deployment of army and marine personnel at all (both because the national security interest wasn’t there, and it undermined the legitimacy of the South Vietnamese government to rely on foreign troops), and even more the use of conscripts. If ground forces were used at all, they should have been exclusively career soldiers.

    The problem with Total Force was the constant employment of the US army in CNN or low priority brushfire wars, which meant that the part timers were constantly deployed in these, and got tapped out. Now the United States government will have additional problems if it wants to fight a great power war.

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  2. Ian wrote an excellent overview of the Ukraine War up to now as a Quora essay:

    https://www.quora.com/How-much-longer-does-the-corrupt-Ukrainian-regime-have-until-total-collapse

    Right now, on December 5th, 2024, if you click on that link it takes you right to the essay on top. However, its possible that the Quora algorithm will bury it under future essays, so I recommend re-posting it on this site. The advantage of a dedicated webpage over Quora is that it is easier for users to link back to the content on other forums.

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    • One thing missing from the analysis of why the UA soldier keeps up such stubborn resistance, dying in place, is the degree to which they cannot escape. Myriad are the stories of conscripts that are immediately threatened by their commander (that he will kill them) if they dare to get out of their hole. Everywhere we hear about the role of the Nazi-gang brigades and mercenaries in the rear to shoot anybody who tries to retreat or escape, in fact, there are actually quite a few videos of such action.

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  3. One factor that I think is missing from all Ukraine war coverage:

    https://rumble.com/v5hhgol-what-the-cia-and-nato-dont-want-you-to-know.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

    The “collective West”/ NATO/ OSS were training stay behind insurgency cells, starting in the 1940s and using Nazis. This was called “Operation Gladio” and has been document. The concept expanded to using these teams within the Warsaw Pact and eventually elsewhere, the person in the Kim Iversen interview talks mostly about their use in Latin America.

    One “new” feature of the war that people miss is that these cells were still employed after 1990. The Russian government is certainly aware of this, so in every village they capture, they have to send teams in to locate and neutralize the Operation Gladio cells. That is why the advance has been so slow.

    Its also why I don’t think there will be a situation where the official Ukrainian Armed Forces are destroyed, and the “collective West” just throws in the towel and stops trying to destroy Russia. They have other weapons.

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  4. -In Europe they keep saying that Russia is unreliable, they turned the gas off.
    -Every week there is a scare about submarine infrastructure and other hybrid attacks, but the word Nord-Stream is unmentionable.
    -Exposés of what is happening to the economy in the Netherlands, France, and especially Germany, competitiveness, new Green plans — never mention the price of energy. All the gas subsidies are evaporating, and sports clubs and municipal libraries and swimming pools can not afford to continue. And yet they talk about how “all of us” will need to bear the costs of “inevitable” ecological and climate measures and the energy transition.

    So these people are deep deep into denial, continuing along the same path as previously, the MSM closing ranks.
    All their bleating is an articulation of their inborne supremacy — even their magnanimous integration of millions of foreign welfare recipients is an inverted form of supremacy, thinking themselves above the daily fray of existential survival. They continue still with the notion that we have superior technology, better weapons, better tactics, better education, winning industry, etc etc etc.

    Just as the Americans operate everywhere as though God has bestowed on them forever the role of the “good guy” in every scene, regardless their conduct or ignorance, one might ask why the Europeans are even more fanatical about Western hegemony than their masters. The answer to this can be observed in any classroom. If you are the teacher and have a rule about waiting until you say “start”, or not touching plants without permission — you will never have to police the rules. The children will among themselves make sure any infractions are brought to your attention. When people are forced to obey, the one thing they can’t stand is someone who does not go along with the program, highlighting how they have traded in their autonomy for subjection to authority.

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