The top American officer in Europe told a Senate panel Thursday that despite Russia’s struggles in Ukraine, Russia will remain the top threat in the region, in part because the conflict has mostly degraded only its ground forces.
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) asked Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commander of U.S. European Command/NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, how he sees threats changing in his area of operations in the coming decades. He responded it will likely be more of the same, despite the conflict.
“I think Russia is quite likely to remain the core security challenge in Europe for some years to come. Their military has suffered significant losses in this conflict, but they’ve mainly been in the ground domain. The air force, the tactical air force has lost about 80 fighters and fighter-bombers, but they have more than 1,000 of them left. The long-range aviation has not been touched, the navy has barely been touched, lost a ship or two,” he said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
“The strategic nuclear forces, the cyber, the space have not been touched. So I think Russia will continue to be the core security challenge,” he continued.
Cavoli also highlighted China gaining influence and how there is “always instability in the Balkan. We’re not done with that. So I think, perhaps we’ll see more of the same, senator.”
In his written testimony, Cavoli added that despite “significant losses” and diminished stockpiles of equipment and munitions in Ukraine, “Russian ground forces still have substantial capability and capacity, and continue to possess the ability to regenerate their losses.”
He argued Russia will likely rebuild its future army into a “sizeable and more capable land force.”
Separately, Cavoli said as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, he has delivered a new set of operational plans, which were turned over on April 14. The aim is to help create the first plans-based force structure for NATO in decades, which in turn is meant to help drive defense investments by member states that will also react to Russia’s current actions and member’s sending significant numbers of weapons to Ukraine.
“They’re very specific regional plans for collective defense and they have a level of specificity that’s going to drive the force structure requirement, which will be the first time in 35 years that the alliance has a plans-based force structure requirement. This will guide national defense investments across the alliance.”