If a European nation is lucky enough to be a NATO member — Ukraine, which desperately needs allied security, is not — then that nation will be pleased by the United States's announcement of its largest military expansion on the continent since the Cold War. The U.S. mobilization is designed to discourage Vladimir Putin from doing to free, democratic countries in Western, Central and Eastern Europe what he's presently doing so brutally to Ukraine, in Europe's eastern part.
"The announcement," reports The Wall Street Journal (paywalled), "follows a NATO pledge this week to increase its high-readiness forces sevenfold." Said President Biden at the opening of the NATO summit, "We’re stepping up. We’re proving that NATO is more needed now than it ever has been." Given Putin's geopolitical and military recklessness of late, Biden's insight is indisputable — although, as noted, it's also conditional. NATO currently protects European nations at peace with Russia; those being bruised, bloodied and shelled daily by Russian forces are mostly on their own.
The defense alliance's updated document, "Strategic Concept," declares that Russia and China's now-closer relationship "run[s] counter to our values and interests." This is specially true within the borders of countries being invaded by Putin, who is seeing economic assistance from China, which facilitates his war machine. Russia might someday receive China's military assistance, too, assuming President Xi can find a way around Western sanctions.
The U.S. will add rotational and, in a first, permanent troops to its now 100,000 troop deployment in Europe. It will also deploy more military hardware to its NATO partners, more Navy destroyers to Spain, a short-range air defense battery to Italy, and two squadrons of F-35 jet fighters to the U.K. According to the Center for Arms Control, the cost, "including ancillary costs like depot maintenance, ground support equipment, and spare parts is $110.3 million per F-35A, $135.8 million per F-35B, and $117.3 million per F-35C."
Two squadrons consist of between 36 and 48 fighter planes. Assuming the squadrons' average of 42 planes, and each plane's average cost of $121 million, the U.S.'s total cost will run in excess of a half-billion dollars. Last summer there were five, MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets available on the open market. The U.S. could probably still pick up these little beauties at individual prices ranging from $2.5 million — "less than the sticker on a Bugatti Chiron supercar" — to $4.65 million "for a fully certified, fully flying 1986 model." Ukraine could use them; it's a bit economically oppressed right now, since Putin's activities are running counter to Ukraine and the West's "values and interests."
President Zelensky addressed NATO's gathering today via video, perfectly articulating what the West has failed to sufficiently grasp. "[Russia] must not be present in the international bodies that it wants to destroy," he said. "Ukraine needs security guarantees, so a place for Ukraine in the common security space should be found." Security guarantees + common security space = NATO. And after four-plus months of Russia's pounding invasion of Ukraine, the auxiliary verb should must be must. For if the United States is willing to secure freedom and democracy in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, it must also be willing to protect all free, democratic nations within those neighborhoods, NATO membership or not.