An American colonel predicted the collapse of NATO as a result of a Russian strike

Retired US Air Force Colonel Mark Gunzinger explained why NATO will suffer a crushing defeat in the war with Russia and China. He wrote about this in a column for Defense News.

According to the officer, the United States Department of Defense has chosen the wrong course of development of the armed forces. The Pentagon, guided by the phrase “quality over quantity,” is reducing the size of the army and hopes that new technologies will increase its combat capability. For 30 years, the US military department “destroyed to build.”

Now the United States will not have enough forces to repel an attack of an equal rival on the distant approaches, deter a nuclear strike and protect the territory of the state, the expert believes.

To succeed in the war with Russia and China, the country will need an army capable of delivering large-scale precision strikes and developing an offensive deep into the enemy’s territory. All this should happen in a matter of hours, otherwise, Washington’s rivals will quickly occupy the Baltic States and Taiwan, Gunzinger writes. Only aviation – bombers, and fighters of the fifth generation – can quickly respond to such a global challenge, the military noted.

The colonel said that since the Cold War, 66% of the US Air Force bombers have been sent to the landfill.

“The power of our Air Force is now half of the one that defeated the Iraqi army in 1991,” he added.

The current 140 B-1, B-2, and B-52 aircraft can make 30 strike sorties per day. At the same time, during the “Desert Storm” (the operation of the multinational forces to liberate Kuwait and defeat the Iraqi army), B-52 bombers alone were sent on missions on average 50 times a day. These forces are not enough for a successful war with the leading armies of the planet, the expert stressed. If China and Russia simultaneously strike Taiwan and the Baltic countries, and American troops are unable to give an immediate overwhelming response, this will have a devastating impact on the United States, will reduce the country to the level of secondary military power, and will also destroy NATO, Gunzinger summed up.