WASHINGTON \u2014 As roughly 100,000 Russian troops amass around Ukraine, a series of emerging crises around the world \u2014 the Middle East, China, North Korea \u2014 are demanding the full attention of NATO, and particularly its most powerful member, the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, there\u2019s a growing sense among national security experts that the crisis in Ukraine is just one of many conflicts on the precipice, putting pressure on the alliance and its member countries to address this threat and at the same time brace for the next one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, China this week flew 39 warplanes toward Taiwan. And consider the United Arab Emirates reported this week it had intercepted multiple ballistic missiles aimed at Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, described the ongoing dispute between Russia and Ukraine as a \u201cmicrocosm\u201d of the types of threats Western analysts were expecting all along. \u201cAll of this is becoming very real,\u201d she said this week at a panel in Brussels sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, \u201csomething could happen on China and Taiwan next week,\u201d said Ian Lesser, vice president at the think tank, referring to the possibility of China attacking the U.S.-backed island nation that Beijing sees as a renegade province to be eventually united with the mainland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked about that possibility on Thursday, Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said the military remains watchful of other theaters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think the gist of your question is, why can\u2019t we walk and chew gum at the same time,\u201d he told reporters at the Pentagon. \u201cWe can, and we are. \u2026 Just because we\u2019re focused on bolstering our allies because of the worrisome accumulation of combat-credible power by the Russians in and around Ukraine doesn\u2019t mean that we aren\u2019t focused on the pacing challenge that China represents to the department.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As NATO tries to use diplomacy to defuse tensions in Ukraine, planners are finding the standoff reflects many of the characteristics slated to make up the alliance\u2019s new strategic concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Analysts have long said the upcoming revision, up for approval at the alliance\u2019s Madrid summit in late June, must consider defenses against information warfare, cyber attacks, economic pressure and an overall increase in conflict complexity that exceeds that of traditional military operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much of that is happening right now,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With NATO and U.S. written responses delivered to Moscow on Wednesday, diplomacy is still running its course. Russia wants the alliance to close the door to an eventual Ukrainian membership, a prospect considered notional at best even within NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alliance officials, in turn, have touted the principle that Russia\u2019s neighbor nations should be able to pick their own path in matters of defense and security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That idea doesn\u2019t sit well with the Kremlin, where President Vladimir Putin is nursing dreams of restoring past Russian grandeur along ethnic, religious and language lines, incorporating some of its neighbors, according to Western analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, the guns remained silent on mid-day Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think the West is doing fairly well in managing a conflict that cannot be deterred,\u201d said Hal Brands, a senior fellow with Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brands said he believes Moscow\u2019s demands were so outrageous an eventual armed confrontation was likely baked into them from the start. At this point, he said, Putin may be more interested in continuing the pace of escalation rather than agreeing to a diplomatic solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deterrence has been the name of the game in Europe, however, where countries are trumpeting weapon shipments large and small into Ukraine, publicly scorning the one government not going along: Berlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
European countries still view their relationship with Russia through bilateral lenses, said Rachel Rizzo, an analyst with the Atlantic Council think tank. \u201cThat\u2019s why they are sidelined,\u201d she added, referring to the fact that the European Union has no formal role in the ongoing negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
German government officials have defended their position of sending only help that neither shoots nor explodes, like helmets, arguing a plus-up in combat capabilities would be too insignificant to warrant undermining Berlin\u2019s policy of hopeful hedging. But inside the country, some analysts are arguing it\u2019s time to take a stance militarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The situation is emblematic for how disjointed Europe\u2019s position continues to be on key defense issues, and how its biggest economic player is finding itself isolated, said Christian M\u00f6lling of the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have left a vacuum that the Americans are forced to fill once again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some suggest fears of China invading Taiwan in concert with a Russian invasion of Ukraine are unfounded and have been fueled by overheated rhetoric from both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, who served as director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and defense attache in Beijing, said he sees simultaneous invasions of Ukraine and Taiwan as unlikely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI assess there\u2019s always a probability of simultaneous crises, and honestly, I believe that the Chinese are watching this current situation very carefully. They will watch to see what [the] Russians do, watch the world react, internalize the lessons learned and then subsequently incorporate that into their own strategy,\u201d Hooper said at a virtual event on Tuesday. \u201cSo, in other words, I don\u2019t see things happening simultaneously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if the U.S. won\u2019t commit troops to defend Ukraine, China should not \u2014 and likely will not \u2014 see that as a green light for China to invade Taiwan, said Ian Bremmer, president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. America has signaled Taiwan is off-limits through its new security pact with Australia and the U.K., the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, its strengthened diplomacy with Taiwan and this week\u2019s naval exercises with Japan, he argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf anything, the takeaway the Chinese would get from everything over the last year is that America is focused on the areas they care about. Asia is the place they care about and China is the adversary they\u2019re concerned about,\u201d Bremmer said. \u201cWe\u2019re both sending signals to each other there here are some fairly significant red lines we both have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Either way, the Chinese are sure to take good notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For one, leaders in Beijing are watching if the West can come together and put in place a \u201cpunishing sanctions regime\u201d to deter further Russian attacks on Ukraine, said Brands. Such economic pressure would also be a key tool in managing an outright conflict with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, they are likely watching the degree to which the crisis will tie up U.S. resources in a theater once considered quiet enough to allow the Pentagon to execute its fabled \u201cpivot to Asia,\u201d he added. \u201cThe more distracted the U.S. is, the better for China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The standoff in Europe once again drives home the idea the \u201cenemy gets a vote,\u201d as the U.S. military adage goes, raising the question of how America weighs its involvement in other crises around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe certainly have to prioritize those threats with the greatest risk to our national interests \u2014 but we are able to do more than one thing at a time,\u201d said retired U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, who previously commanded Central Command and Special Operations Command. \u201cNot everything requires a large scale military response \u2014 we have to think more about the power of a compelling information campaign as well as smaller, tailored and sustainable efforts, including military forces, that address these threats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Brands, the pivot to Asia is not happening anytime soon unless U.S. leaders can come up with \u201cclever\u201d ways to reduce tensions in other regions like Europe. The old choice of either reducing the number of commitments or throwing more money at them remains as current as ever, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Europeans, for their part, are very much attuned to that U.S. conundrum as they navigate the Russia crisis. Former President Donald Trump, with his mantra of \u201cAmerica First,\u201d came close to pulling American troops out of Europe and leaving NATO altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While President Joe Biden is an avowed trans-Atlanticist, that sentiment may not be guaranteed to last as an organizing principle of Washington\u2019s foreign policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAmerican democracy is not doing well at the moment,\u201d said Alexander Stubb, a former Finnish prime minister. He was speaking at a panel discussion in Brussels sponsored by the European Union Institute for Security Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know yet if Trump is a footnote in history, or if Biden is a footnote of history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Howard Altman in Washington and The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now, there\u2019s a growing sense among national security experts that the crisis in Ukraine is just one of many conflicts on the precipice, putting pressure on the alliance and its member countries to address this threat and at the same time brace for the next one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[100,8,23,93,12,25],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3288,3380],"class_list":["post-23849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"HH5ZPQJBHVCP5KL2ACY7VBRBKA","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/europe\/2022\/01\/28\/us-military-readies-to-walk-and-chew-gum-as-multiple-crises-loom\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n