ONE of the world’s most experienced military men has warned Trump’s comments about snubbing endangered allies may have “fatally undermined” NATO as Russia masses troops on its Baltic state borders.
General Sir Alexander Richard David Shirreff, ex-NATOs Deputy Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, said Trump’s comments could “fatally” crush the deterrence that has kept the peace for 70 years.
Already he warned Vladimir Putin was deploying troops and tanks next to the Baltic states – but NATO will not have any defences there until May of next year.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia face falling to Vladimir Putin’s crack troops within a few days, he predicts.
But worse still he said European capital such as Berlin could then be threatened with a nuclear destruction to scare off NATO from retaking the Baltic states.
All of this could happen, Sir Richard argues, because of motor mouth Trump casting doubt on whether America will back the key NATO principle – which is an attack on one member nation is an attack on ALL.
Speaking at Winchester Speakers’ Festival, he said: “What he [Trump] has done at a stroke I think is potentially undermined, potentially fatally I should say, NATO’s collective defence.
“My reading of the Russian psyche is that the Russians admire strength and despise weakness.
“Where they find weakness they will continue to probe. They find weakness in the Baltic states.”
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Tens of thousands of Russian troops are currently stationed near its border with the Baltic states, Sir Richard claimed.
But he said NATO – which has only recently woken up to the Russian threat – will not have deployed forces from Britain, Canada, Germany and the US until May next year.
He said: “NATO right now has nothing. A few staff officers, that is it.
“All that is there is the armed forces of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania which would probably generate about 10,000 including reservists on their own, each.
“So Russia could just bite off a chunk or bite off all tonight.
“And they could crack it in a couple of days before NATO was ever able to react.”
Currently Russian planes are blitzing rebel held sections of Aleppo in Syria.
This is part of a bloodthirsty bid to keep Bashar al-Assad in power.
About 200,000 civilians have been trapped amid the war zone with huge civilian casualties.
Sir Richard said: “He [Putin] wants to get Aleppo out of the way and turn the gas flame down in Syria and ensure that Assad is stabilised.
“And then where is he going to turn his attention to next?
“Maybe he’s going to turn his attention to the Baltic states before Nato gets its enhanced forward presence in place.”
Sir Richard said the Baltic States would face the same fate as Aleppo with a huge blitz from massed forces.
He said: “We have to recognise that if Putin decided, for whatever reason, to step across the frontiers of the Baltic States that means war because all three Baltic States are members of NATO.
“And it also, very potentially and very likely means nuclear war.
“Because one of the facts of life is that nuclear thinking is hard-wired into every aspect of Russian military thinking and doctrine.
“In other words ‘we take what we want and if NATO comes back at us we threaten to drop an Iskander missile on Berlin, on Copenhagen or on Warsaw and we reckon that NATO will back off because it would never risk nuclear armageddon’.”
In a bid to warn the world of the threat from Putin, Sir Richard has written a fictional account of a future conflict called 2017: War with Russia.
The book, a Sunday Times Top 10 Best Seller, simulates how war with Russia could erupt if western governments do not take the threat seriously.
Since its publication NATO has promised to beef if it presence in the Baltic.
Sir Richard commends the alliance on this but fears it could be too little, too late.
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