FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Military Utopians Demand Stepped-Up Efforts against Russian and Chinese ‘Aggression’

March 6, 2018 (EIRNS)—In testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, head of U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, argued that “evolving Russian capabilities” were a threat to U.S. global military superiority, and a challenge to the U.S. “ability to operate uncontested in all domains.”

Given Russia’s “increasingly aggressive” military posture, Scaparrotti said, Congress must be willing to spend more money to bolster EUCOM’s “assigned and rotational forces.” Russia, he insisted, is the primary threat to stability in Europe, and for this reason he’d requested two more naval destroyers, aircraft carriers, troops, and equipment, which he said are critical “if we want to remain dominant in the maritime domain, and particularly undersea.” This is crucial, he warned, given “the modernization and the growth of the Russian fleets in Europe,” Voice of America quoted him as saying.

He also said that despite the fact that forces and capabilities have already been added to EUCOM, “I’m not comfortable yet with the deterrent posture we have in Europe.”

Scaparrotti also recommended that should Turkey go ahead with acquiring the Russian S-400 air defense system, his “best military advice” would be to refuse to supply Turkey with the F-35 joint strike fighter. It makes no sense, he said, to offer the F-35 to an ally “that is working with Russian systems, particularly air defense systems, with one of our most advanced technological capabilities.”