3,000 US troops arrive in Europe. Will it make a difference?

Some 3,000 U.S. troops began arriving in Poland and Romania this week, in an effort to drive home the message to Moscow that invading Ukraine is a risky proposition.

“These [U.S. troop] movements are unmistakable signals to the world that we stand ready to reassure our NATO allies and deter and defend against any aggression,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a briefing with reporters last Thursday.

In addition to massing soldiers on Ukraine’s borders, Russia’s aggressions have, to date, ranged from cyber attacks to reported plans for an elaborately faked video depicting Ukrainian troops killing Russian-speaking civilians, handily creating a pretext for President Vladimir Putin to save the day through an invasion. 

Given that Mr. Putin has made clear he wants to push back against Western forces and weaponry in his backyard – and extract a promise from NATO that Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, will never, ever be allowed to join the Western military alliance – the American troop movements represent the most significant response yet to the strong-arm tactics. 

“Maybe what we’re doing is sending a message that [Mr. Putin’s] intransigence – this completely contrived crisis that you’ve put forward – is now going to cause the very thing you’re trying to correct, by us moving more forces into the forward area,” retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, posited in a virtual chat hosted by the Atlantic Council last week.

But beyond sending a pointed message, it’s unclear what, exactly, U.S. troops in the region might accomplish – and what the measure of success will be. The relatively small size of this deployment limits the potential scope of the mission, though analysts have speculated about the extent to which the troops could be involved in any spillover fighting should Russian tanks start rolling. Nor have endpoints been defined: Barring unforeseen hostilities in the wider region, what will allow American forces to come home again?

“A diplomatic statement”

To this latter question, Mr. Kirby endeavored to lay out some rough parameters. “The measure of success is that NATO’s eastern flank is appropriately postured and prepared to defend itself. And that we are part of that defense – that’s the measure of success here.” 

Pentagon officials have also been careful to stress that they do not believe conflict is inevitable, and that the U.S. has no intention of sending troops to fight in Ukraine. 

Indeed, they have shown little interest in ratcheting up tensions. When pressed, for example, about whether the U.S. troop deployment signals that the Biden administration has come into possession of some alarming new information indicating Russia was on the brink of invading Ukraine, Mr. Kirby suggested this was not the case. 

“This isn’t about an intel assessment about what Mr. Putin will or won’t do,” he said. “We still don’t believe he’s made a decision to further invade Ukraine.”

There were excited questions, too, about whether 82nd Airborne Division troops would be parachuting into their new bases in a dramatic show of force. “I don’t anticipate it will be a tactical operation in that regard,” Mr. Kirby said.

This is not to say U.S. military officials haven’t taken note of some troubling developments in recent weeks. 

When Russian soldiers first began massing on Ukraine’s border, for example, troop formations were “big, non-tactical,” and “easy to see from space, easy for reporters to see,” Mr. Breedlove noted – in other words, a plausible bluff. 

Yet in recent weeks they have morphed into “more tactical formations,” including field hospitals, fuel depots, and logistics trains, prompting questions about what precisely the Russians have planned.

Pentagon officials acknowledge that they’re not sure, either. Mr. Putin “is providing himself many options, lots more capabilities,” Mr. Kirby said. “For exactly what purpose? We don’t know right now.”

Even so, U.S. officials don’t seem particularly alarmed, judging by the number of troops headed to eastern Europe. “In terms of combat capabilities, it’s fairly minimal given what they would be up against,” says retired Col. Peter Mansoor, executive officer to Gen. David Petraeus during the Iraq War and now professor of history at The Ohio State University. “In that sense, the deployment is a diplomatic statement.” 

Lessons from the Korean War

That the troops are intended to send a message of solidarity to NATO partners, however, doesn’t prevent them from doing “practical things” like training with allied militaries, tracking down intelligence, helping with border patrols, and “coordinating with civilian authorities to plan for restoring power or other essential services,” notes Kori Schake, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

And if the Biden administration was interested in “really changing the Russian calculus,” it could also bring in fighter jets, said retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO who also took part in the Atlantic Council discussion.

In the event that Russia decided to launch a “massive air offensive, you can be sure they wouldn’t hesitate” to “waggle their wings and beat their chests” in the air space of other eastern European countries as well, General Clark said – in which case NATO allies might need additional reassurance from the U.S. “The Russian military is arrogant and full of itself because it’s got new equipment, it’s been successful in Syria, and it knows how the U.S. Air Force operates.” 

Yet despite this apparent hubris, the lessons of the 20th century should serve as a warning to Russia, Mr. Clark added, invoking the example of the Korean War. 

America had declared that South Korea wasn’t part of its “defensive perimeter,” and, hearing this, North Korean leaders had approached China with their plans for overrunning Seoul. Beijing warned them against it, saying: “‘You better be careful because the Americans are unpredictable, and they might still intervene,’” Mr. Clark said. North Korea proceeded nonetheless, and “sure enough, President Truman ordered the invasion.”

In other words, though U.S. troops almost certainly won’t be fighting Russians in Ukraine, their arrival in the region could plant a small seed of doubt in Mr. Putin’s mind that that could change, should things get particularly ugly.

The Pentagon, for its part, did not rule out the possibility that U.S. forces could go into Ukraine to conduct “noncombatant evacuations” if needed. 

Beyond all this messaging to Moscow, sending U.S. troops into eastern Europe is a move designed for domestic consumption as well, notes Rajan Menon, director of the Grand Strategy program at the Defense Priorities think tank. 

“It’s showing that the Biden administration has done everything humanly possible to demonstrate resolve, short of sending American troops to fight in Ukraine,” he adds.

“If there’s a deal struck with Putin, [Mr. Biden] will be criticized for sure, but he’ll be able to say that diplomacy averted a war and that he delivered a clear message of deterrence.”

As the geopolitics play out, U.S. troops are likely to stay in place. “Our forces don’t need to be held hostage to Russian deployments, but troops in Romania and Poland could very well stay there for quite some time,” Professor Mansoor says. 

These rotational deployments are usually on the order of nine months, and, after that, these units could be replaced by others. “To deploy 3,000 additional troops to eastern Europe,” he adds, “is not a heavy lift for the U.S. Army.”