Russia could outmatch and outgun American and other NATO military forces on the ground if war broke out in Eastern Europe, said Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the head of U.S. European Command and the supreme allied commander of the alliance.
Scaparrotti said the 29-nation alliance would prevail in a wider regional conflict with the Russians, but on Thursday warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. does not have enough forces in Europe.
The testimony comes after the release of a Rand Corp. study that found Russian troops greatly outnumber NATO forces by 78,000 to nearly 32,000 stationed in the Baltic border countries of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the senior Republican chairing the hearing, said Rand found that Moscow could push into those countries’ capitals within 60 hours of fighting and that the U.S. would be “outranged, outgunned, and outmatched” by Russian ground forces.
“If you look at it in a concentrated way on the border of Eastern Europe and only on the ground force, I would agree with that statement. [But] we fight multi-domain,” Scaparrotti responded.
A key finding of the Rand Corp. report was that Russia would have a substantial time and distance advantage during a ground attack on a NATO member in the Baltic region “because of its strong starting position and ability to reinforce with ground and air units from elsewhere.”
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Armed Services chairman, issued a statement during the Thursday hearing saying the U.S. faces a “new strategic reality in Europe.” McCain is at home in Arizona receiving treatment for brain cancer.
None of the committee “enjoyed listening to or studying” the Rand report because it laid out “plausible scenarios where the United States could lose a war with Russia,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.
Scaparrotti said European Command helped with the report, which was conducted over the past several years.
“I don’t have any argument with the basis of the report and the threat that we have, particularly on the eastern borders where it is focused,” Scaparrotti said. “We have repostured forces since the Rand study was done. We’ve rewritten plans since then and we would fight this differently than Rand found in that experiment or that exercise that they did.”
But he said elements of the findings “are still true today” when it comes to the Russian threat.
“Hence my comment that I don’t have all the forces I need in Europe today,” he said.
Europe Command is planning to build up those forces through the U.S. European Deterrence Initiative following a new two-year budget deal in Congress allowing increased defense funding, Scaparrotti said.
“My intent is to use that as well to station or rotate additional forces, particularly enablers that I need. … I can build the posture that I believe I need given the fighting that I perceive I need to fight,” he said.
