General Philip Breedlove: Putin Cannot Defeat NATO, West Must Show Hard Belly

NATO's Enduring Success and Evolving Threats

• 🌍 NATO has been a remarkably successful military alliance for 75 years, maintaining world peace after two world wars.
• 💡 The alliance is arguably more crucial in the next 75 years due to increasingly indistinct enemies employing hybrid or gray zone warfare below the threshold of conventional bombs and missiles.
• 🇺🇸 Despite tough talk and abrasive policies during a previous administration, US troop numbers, investment, and large-scale exercises in Europe actually increased, demonstrating America's continued commitment.

The Indivisibility of Global Theaters

• 🌐 The Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theaters are interconnected; competition in one can spill over into others, requiring integrated intelligence and force sharing.
• 🚢 US military presence in the Pacific historically focused on trade flow and North Korea, but is now shifting towards China, with potential complications from North Korea.
• 🌍 The concept of fighting selectively in one theater while ignoring another is a false premise that never existed and certainly does not now, given the global nature of modern security challenges.

Putin's Decimated Military and Strategic Miscalculations

• 🇷🇺 Vladimir Putin knows he cannot defeat NATO because his military is decimated and incapable of taking NATO territory.
• ⏳ Putin is waiting for the West to "cave" and give him what he cannot take militarily, a strategy rooted in a perceived "soft underbelly" of Western resolve since 2008.
• 🎯 The war in Ukraine has been ongoing for 11 years, not 3.5, with Russia having subjugated Crimea and the Donbas before the full-scale invasion.

Western Policy Failures and the Path to Victory

• ⚠️ A major policy failure has been enabling Russia by allowing it to fire into Ukraine from sanctuaries while forbidding Ukraine from retaliating with Western-supplied weapons.
• 💡 The theory of victory is not about overwhelming Ukrainian military capability, but about convincing Putin he will not win, forcing him to reconsider his actions.
• 📢 Western leaders, including the US President, must be declaratory and loud, unequivocally stating that Russia will not win this war and ensuring Putin sees a "hard belly."
• ✈️ The air war in Ukraine has been a significant failure; Ukraine needs the ability to "kill the archer" and target Russian production capabilities, not just defend against incoming missiles.

The Dangers of Reflexive Control and Nuclear Threats

• 🧠 Russia employs a "reflexive control" campaign, using nuclear threats to deter Western action and leadership.
• 🇺🇸 Western nations need to demonstrate they can handle threats of nuclear use without being deterred, preventing rogue states from using nuclear weapons as leverage.
• 🤝 The Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which assured Ukraine's sovereign borders, is a binding agreement that the West must uphold.