By Scott Graber
It is Friday, early, and I’m in my dining room awaiting rain that has been promised by “weather radar” — a map on my computer showing a huge green and yellow blob coming out of south Georgia.
This morning we learn from NPR that talks are underway in Russia about a ceasefire in Ukraine. But at this point nobody knows what the over-arching, end-of-war settlement will look like.
When I was 17, I was living in West Germany, where my father ran the laboratory that was attached to the U.S. Army Hospital at Landstuhl.
The town itself was medieval, cobbled-stoned and featured several small gasthauses where one might sample the locally-brewed beer and the bratwurst. The utilitarian hospital was a sprawling series of connected, single-storied wards, spread across the top of a nearby mountain, filled-up with sick GIs.
Landstuhl was surrounded by U.S. Army bases at Kaiserslautern, Sembach, Baumholder, Bad Kreuznach, Pirmasens and there was (and is) a massive U.S. airbase at Ramstein. Nearby there were “Kasernes” in Mannheim, Heidelberg and Stuttgart. It was probably the largest concentration of infantry, artillery and fighter jets in Europe.
USAEUR’s (US Army Europe) strategy was straight-forward — it would slow down the Soviet advance. The troops around Kaiserslautern would not prevail, or survive the sloped-armored T-34s coming through the Fulda Gap; rather they would buy time to get reinforcements from the United States. We would, the theory went, fight this war in Westphalia or Saxony rather than in the United States.
That strategy remained in place for most of my adult life, although the U.S. Army began to close its German bases as our attention turned to Iraq and Afghanistan; away from a seriously diminished inventory of Soviet-era Russian tanks that were rusting away outside Moscow.
The notion that we should defend Europe against Russia — and fight a vast, Kursk-like tank battle in Europe — took a hit in 2016 when then President Trump announced that we would leave NATO unless the Europeans paid a larger share of NATO’s tab — more recently he insisted that the European slackers pay at least of 5% of their GNP on fighter jets and anti-tank missiles.
The next shoes to drop were Trump’s enduring bromance with Vladimir Putin; and, these days, his belief that Ukraine “started the war.”
And so we now come to Trump’s campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine.
It seems to me that Russia comes to this negotiation wanting two things — a chunk of eastern Ukraine that will serve as a buffer for it’s famously paranoid President. And they want a pledge (from the United States and Europe) that they won’t agree to take Ukraine under NATO’s protective umbrella. They recall and repeat James Baker’s (alleged) promise to Gorbachev not expand NATO “by one inch.”
Right now, a redrawing of boundary lines seems inevitable and some preliminary sketching of lines (on hotel cocktail napkins) is probably underway. What is harder is somehow “guaranteeing” Ukraine’s sovereignty in the future — guaranteeing that Russia won’t invade again.
At this point only a few European countries will commit to future NATO membership for Ukraine. But while they can’t seem to agree to membership — and Trump will not agree — perhaps the beleaguered Europeans will agree to rotate some of their 5,000 tanks, 2,800 self propelled artillery and 2,000 aircraft into Ukraine for annual exercises. Or maybe each would agree to maintain permanent depots — much like Kaiserslautern, Sembach, Baumholder and Ramstein — at various points along the newly redrawn boundary.
Maybe Latvia. Estonia, Lithuania and Finland would also agree to forward-deploy their own troops (and others) along their borders with Russia — a sort of NATO-lite deal that would not include the United States.
While the European countries enjoy numerical superiority over the Russians in troops, tanks and jets, they lack reliable air defenses; and rely on the U.S. for their surveillance.
Perhaps, as part of the deal, Trump will agree to continue providing what Europe does not now have.
Trump’s recent remarks — that Ukraine “started the war” — must be music to the Chinese. This is an unhappy wake-up call to the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Vietnam and South Korea who have come to believe the U.S. Navy will guarantee their territorial sovereignty indefinitely.
The next shoes to drop may be the complete removal of the Marine Corps from Okinawa; a stand-down of the U.S. Army in South Korea; the closing of the hospital in Landstuhl.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
