Gen. Keith Kellogg: 'Putin has the world off-balance'
Fox News contributor Gen. Keith Kellogg on Russia's next steps as the world awaits a potential invasion into Ukraine
I adhere to an American First doctrine. While that does not mean American alone, it certainly entails a prioritization of issues, policies, and efforts that best serve the American people.
There are many conservatives who disagree and are far more apt to champion an interventionist stance viewing America as the world’s police. The last two weeks have made it increasingly clear who belongs to which camp.
It is my belief the Ukraine crisis should be, fundamentally, a European issue, and we should roundly reject the drumbeat of war, and all that escalation entails. Those who believe otherwise, and champion American involvement, cite an encroachment upon democracy and invoke NATO. More specifically, they narrowly focus on the ominous words of the Treaty’s Article 5, "An attack on one is an attack on all."
BIDEN IS LEADING FROM BEHIND IN RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT
The West is pushing hard to make the current standoff a Russia-NATO issue. This would make sense if Ukraine were a NATO member.
It is not.
Originally formed more than 70 years ago as a purely defensive alliance against the Soviet Union with just 12 nations, NATO has evolved to a too-large, amorphous group committed to a vision espoused by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright. She explained the purposes of NATO to not only "protect against Europe’s next war" but also "to defend Europe’s gains towards democracy, peace and integration."
George Kennan, the architect of America’s policy during the Cold War, called the expansion of NATO in the late 1990s "a fateful error" and in an interview with Thomas Friedman, explained his concerns as follows:
"I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely, and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs."
The Europeans are failing on multiple fronts, militarily, economically and politically.
Standing now at 30 members, the NATO alliance roundly embraces Article 5 commitments but now applies that defensive umbrella to countries such as Albania and North Macedonia, which are no military powerhouses. It is now, more than ever, a fellowship of new or growing democracies.
This is a noble endeavor, and NATO’s effectiveness and reliability depend on all members contributing their share to the alliance, both militarily and monetarily. Although the most common article of the NATO Treaty is Article 5, Article 3 cannot be marginalized. The "funding article" requires members to contribute equitably to the alliance.
In fact, Article 3 is what makes Article 5 possible. If all member nations, particularly those who can afford to do so, do not make the same contributions to the military alliance, it says something about member alliance, perception of threats, and the urgency of meeting them.
To date, only a third of NATO members have programmed 2% of their GDP into defense, which they committed to at the Wales Declaration in 2014. The biggest laggard, Germany, spends a bit more than 1% of its GDP on defense. Our NATO contribution is close to 3.5%.
It also just so happens that Germany depends economically for much of its energy needs on Russia. In a time of European crisis, they have contributed just 5,000 used military helmets to Ukraine. In other words, the conflict we are not speaking about is the ongoing conflict of interest within NATO itself.
There is a concentrated effort by many in the West to make the current Ukrainian crisis a NATO-Russia issue, hoping most Americans are too distracted or ill-informed to know the difference. They are wrong. In a recent Trafalgar poll, fewer than one in six Americans want our soldiers deployed to defend Ukraine in the event of an invasion.
Ukraine is a sovereign nation, and its borders should be inviolate, but as we saw in 2014 with Crimea and the fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region, they are vulnerable. Just as miscalculations lead to war, so can misperceptions. Today that probability seems particularly high. Just the last week, we watched in real time President Biden get publicly reprimanded by the president of Ukraine about misconstruing and representing the situation on the ground.
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Without an Article 5 requirement, there is no justification for the United States to send troops into a shooting war. However good it makes politicians feel, no amount of lethal aid to Ukraine or visits to the country will matter if European nations cannot rise to the challenge. The Europeans are failing on multiple fronts, militarily, economically and politically.
After seven years of discussions, Europeans have failed in bringing peace to the Donbas region. They have failed to meet their commitments under the Wales Declaration universally. In a time of crisis, some European nations send lethal aid while Germany blocks the use of their airspace and recommends that their neighbors not sanction Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Again, the United States moves into a European issue which Europeans should be solving. All of this is a distraction as we should be focusing on the emergent and most significant threat, China. Instead, we are on a collision course with Russia.
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I question the lack of strategic planning by the United States. Again, like so many issues, we are reacting to events.
The issue of Ukraine and Russia is not new. With President Donald J. Trump, we blended presidential dialogue and action. We did not have an emergent Ukrainian security issue with Russia in four years – timing matters. Part of a solid battle strategy is picking the who and when. It’s clear Putin’s made that call.
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