U.S. Troops Train in Eastern Europe to Echoes of the Cold War
Young American Army officers are once again using flash cards — or the digital equivalent — to study the structure
and abilities of Russian Army units, just as American officers did with earlier generations of Russian forces and weaponry in the 1970s and 1980s.
6, 2017
NOVO SELO TRAINING RANGE, Bulgaria — After more than a decade spent fighting Islamic insurgents in Iraq
and Afghanistan, the United States Army is scrambling to relearn Cold War-era skills to confront potential threats from Russia here in Eastern Europe, territory formerly defended by the Soviet Army.
Lt. Gen. Frederick B. Hodges, the head of United States Army forces in Europe, discounted the prospects of a war between the West and Russia,
but said Mr. Putin would probably keep stoking efforts to keep Western armies and governments off balance.
A 10-day exercise last month involving 25,000 American
and allied forces spread across three former Warsaw Pact countries — Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria — offered a window into how a generation of senior Army commanders are rehearsing updated tactics and strategies once used to counter Soviet troops, tanks and artillery, including nighttime aerial assaults by hundreds of paratroopers.
Colonel Gill said that We need to be ready to go anywhere, anytime,
West Point said that We have to figure out how to adapt to this new environment,
Moscow is flowing forces for its own exercises along its western border with Europe
and also deploying in Syria and eastern Ukraine, and is building up its nuclear arsenal and cyberwarfare prowess in what American military officials say is an attempt to prove its relevance after years of economic decline and retrenchment.
