From Radio Free Europe, April 7:
A former top NATO commander has said Western fears "about nuclear weapons and World War III" have left it "fully deterred" and Vladimir Putin "completely undeterred" as the Russian leader pursues his increasingly brutal invasion of Ukraine.
"We have ceded the initiative to the enemy," Philip Breedlove told RFE/RL's Georgian Service in a recent interview.
Breedlove is a retired four-star U.S. Air Force general who led U.S. forces in Europe and served as NATO's supreme allied commander from 2013 to 2016.
RFE/RL: Has NATO done enough to help Ukraine? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked for more weapons.
Philip Breedlove: In my opinion, we have not. In warfare, you want to deter your enemy, you want to have the initiative and not give the enemy the initiative. And we have ceded the initiative to the enemy. There's a lot more we need to do in the role of being a provider. We have not gotten a medium- and high-altitude air defense there yet, we have not gotten coastal-defense cruise missiles there yet. I do not yet understand why we haven't gotten MiGs [fighter jets] there that other nations want to give them. So, there's a multitude of things even inside our restricted sort of format that we still need to do.
RFE/RL: Zelenskiy has told NATO leaders to never again tell him that Ukraine's military does not match NATO standards. Just how good is the Ukrainian Army?
Breedlove: Well, they're showing us just how good they are. They're magnificent. They have prepared a defensive depth. And they have thought very hard about how to fight with a smaller and less well-provided-for force against a larger and much heavier mechanical force. And it has worked so far like a charm and, of course, it means they use up a lot of ammunition and military weaponry and that's where the West now has to step up its game and give the Ukrainian military what it needs to fight.
RFE/RL: Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Libya are all places where NATO, a defensive alliance, intervened in the past to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe. Is the reason it has not done the same in Ukraine boil down to Moscow having nuclear weapons?
Breedlove: As I mentioned before, the bottom line is we in the West, certainly my nation, and NATO, are completely deterred in this matter. We have been so worried about nuclear weapons and World War III that we have allowed ourselves to be fully deterred. And [Putin], frankly, is completely undeterred. He has switched into the most horrific war against the citizens of Ukraine, it is beyond criminal at this point....
....MUCH MORE
Hopefully not related:
....The war game is notable because of the defence department’s highly unusual decision to brief journalists about the details and because it embodied the controversial notion that it might be possible to fight, and win, a battle with nuclear weapons, without the exchange leading to an all-out world-ending conflict....—US staged 'limited' nuclear battle against Russia in war game
The Guardian, February 24, 2020
