War? U.S. And Russian Tensions Ramp Up As The U.S. Military Doubles Down In Eastern Europe

Granted, the U.S. Military already had bases where all of these red dots are but now in coordination with NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) there’s even more troops and equipment inside those dots. This has been reported as it happens since last week on more niche websites. ABC News just caught up it seems and cable news, from what I can tell, is still looking for Malaysian Flight 370. I’ll try to put it where it’s at. According to the Military Times:

The first soldiers from the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team have arrived in Poland as part of military exercises that are meant to reassure NATO members that border Russia of the alliance’s commitment to defend them.

The U.S. is plussing up five bases in total to include the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania which sits on the Black Sea and within spitting distance of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet assets in Crimea. This is all very close stuff. Additionally, Air Force assets are being postured for “crisis response” which to the layman may sound like some sort of paramedic term for conducting triage on car accident victims. It’s not, there is functionally no difference between “crisis response” and “ready to attack Russia.” A total of 9 NATO airbases including the British RAF are now focused on, again, “crisis response” in Eastern Europe.

The U.S. is also sending four companies of infantry from the Army 173rd Airborne, about 600 soldiers, into Eastern Europe to be stationed at Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Oh, and we’re hurrying up our deployment of a land-based missile shield system that was a point of massive contention between the U.S. and Russia previously. With Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, that issue has become much less sensitive for U.S. policymakers.

The military could speed up deployment of a land-based missile defense shield in Europe to hem in a resurgent Russia, the Navy 3-star in charge of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said in early April.

Vice Adm. James Syring said it was possible to speed up the deployment of the second Aegis Ashore installation, planned for Poland in 2018, but such a move would require some help from Congress.

It would look basically like this and it’s designed to shoot down incoming missiles:

Why are all these U.S. military assets being redeployed? Well, to show Eastern European NATO members that Russia won’t be allowed to swoop in and take them over as they did in Crimea. Russian Special Forces are reportedly already in Eastern Ukraine and the word from Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is that Russia will use force if they feel the interests of Russian Ukrainians are being threatened there. Russia has tens of thousands of troops currently stationed along the Ukrainian border.

With all that happening I have no idea why NATO is mobilizing troops under the auspices of “training exercises” rather than the more traditional and accurate “battle drills.”