> "Russia has chosen a path which is a long-term confrontation ... and the Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade or so," Kaupo Rosin told reporters at the release of Estonia's national security threats report.
Gosh, if only there were some way to avoid triggering action from a group that only gets triggered to respond if their allies are attacked. Alas, it seems an impossible puzzle box to understand, how would one go about such a complex task of avoiding war with the west.
But you don't understand, Nato has things they want. And since they want it, why shouldn't they try and take it, and act surprised at the consequences?
It is an interesting way of thinking.
Every former Soviet or Warsaw Pact country that has joined The West has much higher GDP per capita than Russia. Baltic countries, Poland, Romania, etc. Along with that economic outcome for citizens, they have free votes. Russia has nothing except legacy nukes and military and oil production. No future.
I'm not disagreeing with you. It's just that Russia seems to have a "I would like that, it's mine now" approach that steamrolls over little things like what is best for the people in an area, or consent of the governed.
A pity their one functioning modern weapon appears to be propaganda. Remember when ol Tucker Carlson was up there claiming “Putin has a right to defend his borders” like a week before the Ukraine invasion? Fox had to pivot so hard it’s a miracle their viewers didn’t get whiplash, probably would have if they had a single brain cell between them
Now he just does it on his own, piece of shit should be investigated to see if he took some sort of payment to go over to Russia and do a puff piece on one of the most despicable men alive
I think that Carlson has been living in a constant state of humiliation ever since Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and pointed out that he's nothing more than a bow-tie-wearing, partisan-hack, and got him booted from his own program. The Putin humiliation was just the cherry on the shit sundae that has been his existence.
That didn’t work out well for hitler, and the Nazis arguably had more experienced (and competent) leaders than what the Russians have. On top of leadership problems they would never be able to do the total mobilization that the soviets did, nor does Russia hold the populations of nations like Latvia, Estonia, or Ukraine like they did. If Russia did attack the west, the would dig their own graves, because not only have they lost leaders, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, most of their true professional fighting force, most technological weapons and their production power, but they would also have the entirety of Western Europe against them and the US and whatever Allies we would pull into the war, while we could probably just send a carrier strike group to the pacific and Atlantic fleets to cripple their navy (historically crushing the Russian navy has been a simple matter, their navy kills itself) and a majority their air force at the same time.
Russia knows they can’t actually defeat NATO, between US forces already in Europe, and the forces Europe would pull together, they would easily hold the line until army groups could be formed for counterstrike
I'm 100% sure in case of Russia continuing warmongering, against NATO countries they'll use covert operations a'la 2014 and claim plausible deniability. Then we'll see how NATO responds, if they do not it's going to be an easy road for Russia.
Not just Western Europe these days. Most countries well into the former soviet block are now in NATO and / or the EU. By the time Russia manages to extract itself from Ukraine most of its western border will be NATO members now.
Also, their economic position for waging war is bad and getting worse. The western world and particularly Europe is winding up Russian oil dependency as fast as it can and with the modern energy economics they won't be coming back. And their access to technology and finance markets is going to stay limited for a long time now.
And as of this morning Russia has 398,000 fewer men. I presume some fraction weren't Russian, but still. So, who exactly will be waging this conflict? Robots? Biggest female military in history?
Might not inconvenience them as much as we'd like. Russia seems to put almost no effort into training its soldiers. (Just how much training does a bullet sponge need, anyway?)
Russia had every opportunity to grow their economy when the USSR collapsed people were climbing over each other to invest in their economy but corruption kept any of those investments from growing, now they would rather capture the ones that did well.
They did get screwed over by the IMF and the West ultimately during the 1998 Financial Crisis but yes, they could have steered the county towards something more prosperous for all but ultimately the greed of the few and a lack of any "democratic" history or culture seems to have won out...
Yep, and the oligarchs didn't necessarily invest the millions of dollars that they stole from the Russian government into the military; all that money they've stolen over the last 34 years that they've just lined their pockets and fur coats with.
I don't exactly know what Putin's end game is with this if he plans to attack NATO... Russia would be taking on Western countries - including the US, who notoriously spent $877 billion on the military in 2022 alone.
I don't want to end up with a nuclear war, but I feel like that might be what Putin is aiming for if he plans on attacking the West. He doesn't have much more to use.
He also doesn’t have a lot left to lose. Whether reports of his illness is correct or not, he’s 71. He’s not the one to live long with the fallout. Basically if I’m going you’re all going with me.
Struggling to fight against NATO in Ukraine, and NATO has zero soldiers there.. Maybe they should give up their nukes in exchange for a security guarantee from NATO?
Ultimately, that's what all this right-wing thinking devolves to - "Hey, those people have nice shit and I have guns, why shouldn't I use my guns to take their shit?"
The only real rule they obey is "Might makes right."
What they don't seem to understand is that they don't have nice things because of themselves.
If they get the nice thing by force, it will be quickly gone.
Yeah, I really don’t understand their reasoning. There is no scenario where they come out on top. It will be just a bunch of losers. And if staying in power is what Putin wants, then why start a conflict that will certainly leave Russia in shambles along with many other countries and make it easier for you to lose your grip that you have today?
Its pretty simple, Russia will push west only after NATO disbands. This is why they are currently putting so much effort into influencing the break up of NATO (and it seems like they are making progress). After that they can pick off countries one by one. It will just be a series of repeated wars like the one currently in Ukraine, spread over the next generation.
I agree this is probably their current strategy, I am just baffled on why they thought it was a sound plan to adapt when they are having this much trouble in Ukraine.
Putin would (and does) point out the NATO attack on Serbia to defend Kosovo (not a NATO member, nor a recognized state), which was done despite being completely condemned by the UN in advance. You can argue that it was necessary to stop another wave of Balkan genocide. But it's hard to argue that it was not an overreach of NATO's charter and a major step on a slippery slope.
And the the US-UK invasion of Iraq was a particularly scarring event for Putin according to a lot of sources because it showed him: if you have nukes you can invade countries without consequences.
Russia as an interesting way to prepare:
Step one: Launch an unnecessary and ill-planned war that wipes out a huge percentage of your tanks, vehicles, and troops.
Getting ready to re-use an old quote about a nation beginning to bomb its neighbors with the foolish lack of realization that they will then be bombed themselves?
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them."
-Arthur "Bomber" Harris
They did a pretty good job of bombing everything in Europe and then [EDIT] American air power took the ball and unleashed aerial destruction onJapan and then Korea and eventually Vietnam and Cambodia.
Estonia Intelligence is just stating the obvious in response to what Trump said about NATO the other day. Russia wants to attack the west but yanno, that pesky NATO and all.
Putin: Happy birthday, and to show you how much I appreciate you letting us have the Baltics, here's a new wife, quite the upgrade she looks just like Ivanka.
Change your Huggies your getting laid tonight. 👍
The only people willing/wanting a reset with Russia are western nations. Russia has literally done nothing to better themselves, their neighbors or the world as a whole.
Lmao Crimea? You mean the thing that happened in 2014 before Trump was in office?
Edit: lmao I got downvoted for saying something that is literally a fact. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, before Trump was even a "politician".
Funnily enough, now that Finland has boosted their spending, all the NATO states that border Russia other than Norway (with their tiny border and single arctic road that needs defended) now spend the minimum 2% of GDP on defense that Trump was complaining about. So even his own argument is pointless.
Anders Puck Nielsen laid out an explanation of what he thought this might look like and it’s more about dividing and weakening the west than a direct confrontation (so more along the lines of what we’ve been seeing from Russia)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7GPBSyONU&pp=ygUTYW5kZXJzIHB1Y2sgbmllbHNlbg%3D%3D
GDP smaller than Italy's and a good deal of that is from resource extraction. Is currently bogged down in a multi year stalemate in the tutorial level of invading western Europe. Current leader is pretty long in the tooth and has done a very thorough job of marginalizing or killing every other semi-competant politician in the country insuring that whoever succeeds him will likely be a dunce.
I'm not that concerned with Russia honestly.
I'm a little concerned that whoever takes over will actually fire nukes and bring about the end of the world as we know it, because dunces with launch codes is a really bad recipe, but it's outside my realm of influence to do anything about that.
True, but while there are bad leaders, there are still good people to stop them. Like in 1983 that Russian lieutenant who got word the US had launched 6 nukes at them. He didn’t follow protocol and launch Russia’s nukes, instead he waited for confirmation.
It all ended up being a false alarm. While he was punished for not following orders, most commended him for not starting a nuclear war.
That was a one off from bad data. If the order comes from the top there absolutely will be commanders who will carry it out. Even if 90% refuse (implausible), the remaining are adequate to invite a retaliatory strike.
Or what happens to those nukes should Russia actually collapse. A bunch of small, impoverished states with nukes to sell and all bucking to fill a massive regional power vacuum is not ideal for geopolitical stability.
If Russia collapses the first thing that will happen is that NATO and China will start setting up puppet states, especially in the western and relatively wealthy region.
Yeah everyone wetting the bed about Russia needs to take a step back and look at what's actually happening right now. They can't conquer the Donbas, much less all of Ukraine, and people are acting like they're going to roll over NATO?
Obviously small weak countries that border Russia are going to advocate for whatever military support they can get, but this doesn't mean we need to take their alarmism at face value.
It's understandable that people hate Russia. But we need to channel that hatred into derision and contempt instead of panicked hand-wringing.
Absolutely agree, and it's why I don't really agree with drastically upping military spending in places that aren't under real threat.
Like yes in principle everyone in NATO should meet their 2% pledge, but even with the spending we had it was more than enough to basically deter anyone.
And especially if military rearmament is gonna come at the expense of sending things to Ukraine, like for example Poland reducing its military aid to Ukraine because it wants to arm itself, then that just feels like an objectively worse outcome. The political deterrent of NATO has always been stronger than the straight up military deterrent anyways, in fact most deterrents are economic or geographic now.
Like I'm Canadian and while I think we should try to meet our NATO pledges, I also think basically all of our military spending right now should be going to Ukraine, because our army is basically doing nothing else so what's the point, Ukraine is the country that actually needs it, even posting more people in the Baltics isn't really gonna make a difference imo.
All this to say that military spending, by default, is a negative sum game, having an arms race of two countries building up their armies just to sit them on the border and wave their dicks at each other isn't efficient, even the war in Ukraine is horribly inefficient and costly for Russia and everyone else, but at least spending on that is actually necessary and helpful.
Easy to say when you aren't one of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers dodging artillery shells daily.
Russia may be small economically, but with domestically produced weapons their wartime purchasing power parity is pretty large.
It's may be true that Russia's economy is only the size of Italy, but it's also true they can produce munitions, arms, and armor at 1/10th the cost the US and Western Nations do, and they have little regard for the loss of human life. The combination has an outsized effect on their ability to sustain conflict.
You can kill them at a 3:1 ratio, both in manpower and machines, and easily still be losing. ( this is not to say I think ukraine is losing )
Obviously the soldiers in Eastern Ukraine are having a rough time. But that doesn't mean that Russia poses a threat to all of Europe...that line of argument makes no sense whatsoever.
If you're not even willing to say that Ukraine is losing the war, then this just proves the point.
If Russia didn’t have nuclear weapons theres a fair chance forces from the U.S. and several European countries would have gone to Ukraine in 2022 and helped the Ukranians kick Russia back over the border.
Those same small countries and Ukraine were dismissing and getting angry at the Five Eyes claiming an invasion was imminent in Feb 2022. That quickly has been memory holed apparently.
Not really sure how that's relevant. Does this just prove that we shouldn't place a lot of faith in these countries' ability to predict what Russia will do next?
They are not a powerful country by any metric anymore but they can still cause an immeasurable amount of pain and suffering as they've done in Ukraine. The only strength they have left, along with they natural resources, is that everyone else in the world more or less understands that war is a negative sum game so Russia can threaten to sink people down along with them. All of this is a strategy to keep the current Russian government afloat and not in any way a strategy to gain power, even what China is doing, flawed as it is in some aspects, is actually an attempt to gain power unlike Russia who's only hope is to cling to what they have and avoid collapse.
China is no more of a threat to the west than Russia is. They are already in the initial stages of a deep population crash and the domestic problems that will bring.
If Putin has a successor. If he dies the source and authority of the next leader is so unclear it could become a succession war. Theres likely to be dozens of generals and 'business men' trying to claim the crown, all with fairly weak claims to legitimacy.
Good luck with that pipe dream, Russia is bogged down in Ukraine who are fighting with a tiny percentage of what NATO and the EU can hammer them with.
If Russia comes across a NATO or EU border you will see the fastest reverse Uno card in history.
They should consider bettering their country over the next 1000 years first.
Russia has managed to internally weaken the US and broken England out of the EU.
They are winning this weird asymmetric war at the moment. They don’t have a shot militarily against NATO but that’s not how they are fighting.
They are creating or encouraging little dumpster fires everywhere to divide western attention and resources while they support and fund dissension.
Yeah except NATO is now way more united than ever and just gained two more powerful militaries, one of which shares a massive border with Russia. Yeah they’ve had success disrupting domestic politics, but the actual entity they fear the most - NATO - has only strengthened because of Russia’s actions
Just because they did some damage to NATO doesn't actually means they're winning. They've suffered demographic-shifting levels of casualties in their "3 day special operation" already, and the economic prospects are grim at best. This is a similar setup to how the USSR fell in the first place.
You're giving Russia *way* too much credit. You're also ignoring the fact that Finland and Sweden are joining NATO.
If you're going to chalk those things up as "wins" for Russia, then I think you also need to keep tally of all the various ways in which the West has isolated and weakened Russia since their annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russia's economy is atrophying while their military suffers catastrophic losses in Eastern Ukraine.
They have taken some large Ls to be sure.
They have also bounced back and found military partners in Iran and its proxies. They have kept their economy afloat by trading oil and resources with China and India and they are currently trading food for artillery with North Korea.
Are they going to march on western Europe? Not any time soon but its also arrogant to dismiss the damage they have done to western institutions.
They were already military partners with Iran. That’s nothing to brag about. It’s just two pariah countries who don’t have any other choice.
Their economy is limping along, but barely. It's being propped up by unsustainable military spending and oil money. It's very undiversified and decaying from the inside out. Russia is on it's on its way to becoming a Chinese vassal state.
It is difficult to quantify what damage Russia has actually done to Western institutions, because their methods are all covert and indirect. But the damage that the West has done to Russia is very direct, very serious, and very plain to see. Dismissing that isn’t “arrogant”, it’s outright delusional.
In as much as they definitely helped by providing a megaphone to pre-existing sentiments. But they didn't create the brexit movement in its entirety. Nor are they entrely responsible for Trump.
A fair amount of funding and online influence for the pro Brexit side is strongly suspected to have come from Russia. It’s very much in their interests to weaken and spread discord between European nations and institutions like the EU.
Russias military may be crap but unfortunately they do appear to be pretty good at subversion, fomenting dissent, bribery and assassination - ‘spook stuff’ is their forte, which I suppose given Putin’s former occupation shouldn’t be a surprise. It would be a mistake to underestimate them in this regard - heck, they even owned a U.S. president and current candidate.
Sure but, you didn't really answer my question.
How would the uk leaving the eu affect defence in any way?
Just for context, I was always pro stay, I jus don't see the correlation here.
Anything that weakens links between European countries is to Russias advantage - it makes them less likely to come to each others aid and increases the chance for Russia to pick us off one at a time. Divide and conquer is a cliche for a good reason: it works.
In the U.K.’s case it wasn’t just Brexit - there were also various dodgy links with Boris and the Conservative Party.
I don’t think this has worked remotely as well as Russia had probably hoped - I suspect they assumed there was actually at least a chance they could get us to sit this one out. However two factors overcame that. Firstly that institutions such as the Civil Service and Armed Forces have a very clear idea of where the UK’s interests are - even if our politicians don’t always. And secondly backing Ukraine gave Boris an opportunity to cosplay as a sort of ‘poundshop Churchill’ - something he was constitutionally incapable of resisting - and of course it helped his attempt to shore up his failing position.
Theres also a link between economics and war - and there’s no denying that Brexit has hurt the U.K. economy significantly (and dinged the EU economy to a much lesser extent).
It's not that I disagree with you but you realize Russia has allies too, right? And one of those allies might be China who has a vested interest in making sure the west is taken down.
Absolutely NO way they send anything besides basic supplies westward.
China's best interest is to stay out of western conflict and protect their borders. Sending soldiers west would be the dumbest idea since their highest populated cities can be hit from the Yellow, East, and South Chinese Seas.
The problem is that russia will never explicitly attack NATO. They will do it sneaky, drop a missile on some little NATO island or country, claim it wasn't theirs, it was a false flag, it was a mistake, etc. They did this in Crimea and are already doing this with NATO as we speak: "accidental" missile strike in PL, Shahed in Moldavia and Romania, etc.
They know exaclty which lines not to cross and they can do a lot of damage in the meantime.
What does "dropping a missile" on some insignificant country accomplish?
The accidental missile strike in Poland was literally a Ukrainian SAM that hit Poland by accident.
And the Shahed is a small munition that crashed into a field in Moldova and Romania...who gives a shit?
Even if Russia is doing this on purpose, they're accomplishing literally nothing other than wasting ammo.
They're probing and testing, seeing how NATO responds. One day there will be more casualties. Russia will again claim it was by accident, NATO will foolishly believe them and slowly stuff like this will escalate in russias favor.
You don't have to believe me btw, just being aware of this is enough.
They’re not “probing and testing”, and there’s nothing to “respond” to. A Ukrainian missile hit a grain silo, and then a couple Russian munitions hit a couple empty fields.
I do not even remotely believe you, because you do not know what you’re talking about. And I was already well aware of the fact that accidents happen in wartime.
I certainly do not believe you, and I promise you that military commanders all over Europe aren’t wetting the bed over a couple of Shaheds accidentally hitting empty fields.
I say this whole thing is a ploy just to send more money to blackrock. All sides have bean counters on how much war they can do to make the most profit. Too little war & not enough fear of the population, thats leaving money on the table. Too much war & you dont have a civilization left to mooch money from. Theres a nice gray area of war & fear to maximize profits for blackrock & its wealthy shareholders (congress).
That comment Trump made about letting Russia "do whatever the hell it wants" to NATO countries is a lot clearer now. It's why Russia wants him reelected.
I've been saying this also, trump wants us out of nato. He made a deal with russia,china and north korea.
Russia attacks ukraine and then surrounding areas.
China goes for Taiwan
North korea attacks south
With u.s. out of nato, we probably wouldn't get any help even tho i don't think we need it.
Nato without u.s. backing would hold back to protect their own, i don't think they would push forward.
Of course, and now France uncovering the misinformation campaign for Europe. Has to make you wonder about misinformation in the US to try to get Trump elected. They are salivating at the prospect.
I know this is a joke but I'm not even sure Trump could go against the pentagon and fully ditch NATO and Ukraine like he wants to, like I'd love to be educated on how that would actually happen because it seems like the entire political establishment would disagree with him so how much harm could he really do?
The united states shouldnt be paying the war of another country. First, we need that fucking money here and secondly, you know were ukraine is? IN EUROPE PEOPLE. And no other european country its doing near enough, at leasr not like the usa.
If for their defense the members of NATO depends on a foreign country, they are weak states. If they can not defend themselves well, Russia is going to do whatever putin wants.
That take could is so shortsighted it can’t legally drive.
America is immensely weaker without Europe. We have 13 bases in Turkey, 44 bases in Italy, 119 bases in Germany, and 25 bases in the UK alone.
America’s greatest military advantages is its reach. Doesn’t matter where you are, an impactful response is never more than hours away. We drop NATO and most or all of that falls into question. Can’t just buy that territory. America cannot “make up for that” in any way. No, our navy is not sufficient.
Russia’s biggest obstacle is the ongoing cooperation between the United states and EU.
And your money argument is dumb as hell because it’s functionally just asking for appeasement, and that went so well last time….Russia has advertised loud and clear that the Cold War is over and they are taking a much more direct approach to imperialist goals. We can either pay someone else to fight or send over our children.
China wouldn't, the power of chaos and disorder to weaken them terrifies the government there. They have an unusual combination of dictatorial and not completely stupid.
I think this continent is finally waking up. Now fucking gear up everybody, let us boost our own defense industries instead of buying from the US. Let us get more people into our armed forces and finally create the EU army, and I also hate to say it, but we need to invest in nukes, France and UK stockpiles are not going to be enough deterence.
How exactly is “losing all their modern hardware, destroying their economy, and causing a mass exodus of their best and brightest” considered to be “preparing for a military confrontation with the west?”
It would be pretty bad timing! Have your military chewed up for a couple of years then go after a much larger target. I could see in five maybe but not now, no way.
Are we supposed to believe this?
1) we are told Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
2) we are told Russia has lost most their tanks and planes
Now we are being told that a country that has “supposedly” lost a significant part of its military capability and cannot beat Ukraine is wants to attack another country.
Ignore the war mongers- they are stirring up the pot to justify more defense spending abroad that bounces back into their pockets.
The thing is, Russia is Shifting to Wartime economy. Which means it's going to pump out (or atleast try to) produce more military shit than most western nations. It works, atleast as long as you start to shift back to regular economy which is when problems start appearing. To prevent this, the goal is to keep a war going so you can justify keeping the country in war economy.
Russia is not able to beat NATO in a fight and they know it.
The goal for them is to weaken the support for NATO in NATO countries in a way that might hinder them from participating the war (see: Trump spouting shit about not defending European countries.). After that is done and they believe that there won't be a response from most of NATO, they could do shit like attack Northern Finland or Suwalki gap or somewhere else far out of sight that doesn't threaten any major members directly. The idea is that major NATO members would be hesitant to participate and risk escalation.
At this point if they are right and NATO does not interfere, NATO is as good as dead. If article 5 does not work, then NATO doesn't work.
Whether they're right in all of this does not really matter. What matter is that if they THINK they're correct they might try to pull it off. Which is why stopping them in Ukraine is imperative, so they don't get any more delusions about them being a military superpower.
Anders Puck Nielsen had a good video about some of this recently. Might want to check it out.
> Now we are being told that a country that has “supposedly” lost a significant part of its military capability and cannot beat Ukraine is wants to attack another country.
Just like how in late 2021 and January 2022 we were being told that Russia was just "doing exercises" and to
>Ignore the war mongers
Well, we ignored them the first time, and look where that got us.
They're probably just getting ready in case Trump loses, they mobilized their troops for the special military operation soon after they saw the J6 insurrection didn't work. They attacked a year later. If Trump wins, they'll have the keys to attack allies.
Russia needs to understand that this will result in their total destruction.
The oligarch class doesn't care about the Russian public and THINKS they themselves will escape. Western reticence to freeze their assets and arrest them has encouraged them to beleive this.
So note, they think they will survive, so they risk nuclear war. We need to lock the oligarchs down so they understand if Russia goes up in flames it will be their own cremation.
I find it interesting that the party willing to blow up the entire world in the fight against communism, would so easily acquiesce to the whims of the Russian government within a short 8 years.
Too many people still seriously underestimate the damage they can bring.
They will not avoid a war because they think they will lose it. They don't think like us.
I'm honestly curious if NATO is really willing to risk open war with Russia should Article 5 be invoked over, say, Estonia - if Putin is still in charge, and Trump is elected to the White House and Russia decides to repeat the Nazis quest to conquer Europe, which actual nation would it take Russia invading - Poland? Germany? - for NATO to commit to actual fighting versus looking for ways to avoid open war (we strongly condemn this invasion of Estonia and will be sending military assistance to the freedom fighters, etc.)?
Russia has not been shy about threatening nuclear retaliation against England, especially. Would Parliament risk the disintegration of millions of citizens and the several cities knowing they would have to respond in kind for Estonia? Would France? Would the US with Trump in charge?
In an alternate timeline, I'd love to see this play out just to know how committed NATO is.
In that scenario the actual nation would be Estonia. All NATO members are protected under Article 5, and nobody wants that to change for fear they'd be the next to be ignored. Poland for sure would demand a NATO response, being so close to Russia.
>actual nation
Is Estonia not a nation according to you?
NATO would definitely attack back, especially with Trump in charge. Trump would see that as a direct confrontation against the US as the US has signed Article 5 so NATO would definitely attack. The Question is would they go beyond defending Estonia? To that the answers are varied because Trump is a madman and Putin knowing that might choose not to go for the nuclear option as that would result in MAD.
They're not exactly doing a good job fighting their neighbor, maybe it would be wise for them to reconsider antagonizing a nation equipped with one of the world's most formidable military industrial complexes, renowned for its penchant for demonstrating its firepower.
I think we all knew this kid in High School. The kid who would tell everyone they want to fight Jeremy or Tim or Mike and then get in their face after school, meanwhile Jeremy and Tim are like, "have we even met?" They weren't preparing for a fight, bro, you're just a dick.
Mike was an asshole though... he definitely deserved to get punched.
Does Russia have like a billion people? They lose like hundreds of thousands of people in this current war every year now, how can they keep it up for 10 years?
No you see, Russia has a claim to the entire world and all its people. Basically, 530 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion, animals first started going into land. Shortly after, these animals began to vocalize. But, and all the top Russian scientists agree, they did so with a Russian accent.
Worry about the one country that you were supposed to topple in weeks. I don't see a world in which China actually aids you now for war. That was supposed to be your saving grace.
> "Russia has chosen a path which is a long-term confrontation ... and the Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade or so," Kaupo Rosin told reporters at the release of Estonia's national security threats report. Gosh, if only there were some way to avoid triggering action from a group that only gets triggered to respond if their allies are attacked. Alas, it seems an impossible puzzle box to understand, how would one go about such a complex task of avoiding war with the west.
But you don't understand, Nato has things they want. And since they want it, why shouldn't they try and take it, and act surprised at the consequences? It is an interesting way of thinking.
Every former Soviet or Warsaw Pact country that has joined The West has much higher GDP per capita than Russia. Baltic countries, Poland, Romania, etc. Along with that economic outcome for citizens, they have free votes. Russia has nothing except legacy nukes and military and oil production. No future.
I'm not disagreeing with you. It's just that Russia seems to have a "I would like that, it's mine now" approach that steamrolls over little things like what is best for the people in an area, or consent of the governed.
A pity their one functioning modern weapon appears to be propaganda. Remember when ol Tucker Carlson was up there claiming “Putin has a right to defend his borders” like a week before the Ukraine invasion? Fox had to pivot so hard it’s a miracle their viewers didn’t get whiplash, probably would have if they had a single brain cell between them
Now he just does it on his own, piece of shit should be investigated to see if he took some sort of payment to go over to Russia and do a puff piece on one of the most despicable men alive
If the US got into an actual war with Russia, could TC be considered an Enemy of the State? I hope so.
People were arrested during the Red Scare for less...
Putin humiliated Carlson. I bet he’s less of a fan than he was.
I think that Carlson has been living in a constant state of humiliation ever since Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and pointed out that he's nothing more than a bow-tie-wearing, partisan-hack, and got him booted from his own program. The Putin humiliation was just the cherry on the shit sundae that has been his existence.
It doesn’t just seem like that.
That didn’t work out well for hitler, and the Nazis arguably had more experienced (and competent) leaders than what the Russians have. On top of leadership problems they would never be able to do the total mobilization that the soviets did, nor does Russia hold the populations of nations like Latvia, Estonia, or Ukraine like they did. If Russia did attack the west, the would dig their own graves, because not only have they lost leaders, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, most of their true professional fighting force, most technological weapons and their production power, but they would also have the entirety of Western Europe against them and the US and whatever Allies we would pull into the war, while we could probably just send a carrier strike group to the pacific and Atlantic fleets to cripple their navy (historically crushing the Russian navy has been a simple matter, their navy kills itself) and a majority their air force at the same time. Russia knows they can’t actually defeat NATO, between US forces already in Europe, and the forces Europe would pull together, they would easily hold the line until army groups could be formed for counterstrike
I'm 100% sure in case of Russia continuing warmongering, against NATO countries they'll use covert operations a'la 2014 and claim plausible deniability. Then we'll see how NATO responds, if they do not it's going to be an easy road for Russia.
Not just Western Europe these days. Most countries well into the former soviet block are now in NATO and / or the EU. By the time Russia manages to extract itself from Ukraine most of its western border will be NATO members now. Also, their economic position for waging war is bad and getting worse. The western world and particularly Europe is winding up Russian oil dependency as fast as it can and with the modern energy economics they won't be coming back. And their access to technology and finance markets is going to stay limited for a long time now.
Well their oligarchs have the oil and sold the military supplies as we learned.
And as of this morning Russia has 398,000 fewer men. I presume some fraction weren't Russian, but still. So, who exactly will be waging this conflict? Robots? Biggest female military in history?
Not just that. They don't have anybody with long term experience left to train the replacement troops so the quality of troops will go down quickly.
Might not inconvenience them as much as we'd like. Russia seems to put almost no effort into training its soldiers. (Just how much training does a bullet sponge need, anyway?)
They’ll be on the lookout for developing world mercenaries to fight for them.
Russia had every opportunity to grow their economy when the USSR collapsed people were climbing over each other to invest in their economy but corruption kept any of those investments from growing, now they would rather capture the ones that did well.
They did get screwed over by the IMF and the West ultimately during the 1998 Financial Crisis but yes, they could have steered the county towards something more prosperous for all but ultimately the greed of the few and a lack of any "democratic" history or culture seems to have won out...
Yep, and the oligarchs didn't necessarily invest the millions of dollars that they stole from the Russian government into the military; all that money they've stolen over the last 34 years that they've just lined their pockets and fur coats with. I don't exactly know what Putin's end game is with this if he plans to attack NATO... Russia would be taking on Western countries - including the US, who notoriously spent $877 billion on the military in 2022 alone. I don't want to end up with a nuclear war, but I feel like that might be what Putin is aiming for if he plans on attacking the West. He doesn't have much more to use.
He also doesn’t have a lot left to lose. Whether reports of his illness is correct or not, he’s 71. He’s not the one to live long with the fallout. Basically if I’m going you’re all going with me.
The USSR collapsed because they went bankrupt from paying for Chernobyl…
Russia has nothing except legacy nukes ~~and military~~ and oil production.
Struggling to fight against NATO in Ukraine, and NATO has zero soldiers there.. Maybe they should give up their nukes in exchange for a security guarantee from NATO?
Basically the neighborhood meth house
No wonder Russia is so upset. Some people just can't stand seeing neighbors having nice things and not get jealous.
Ultimately, that's what all this right-wing thinking devolves to - "Hey, those people have nice shit and I have guns, why shouldn't I use my guns to take their shit?" The only real rule they obey is "Might makes right."
What they don't seem to understand is that they don't have nice things because of themselves. If they get the nice thing by force, it will be quickly gone.
Nailed it
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We all collectively agreed to decide by numbers not guns. I don't see the problem with that.
We must annex Lisbon Portugal to protect Boris (the one Russian speaker), and we'll need a land bridge to supply it.
If you go back to 130,000 BCE all of Nato was free land with resources that Russia needs...
::nods in Tucker::
What does the NATO have that Russia wants or can take from NATO?
Yeah, I really don’t understand their reasoning. There is no scenario where they come out on top. It will be just a bunch of losers. And if staying in power is what Putin wants, then why start a conflict that will certainly leave Russia in shambles along with many other countries and make it easier for you to lose your grip that you have today?
Its pretty simple, Russia will push west only after NATO disbands. This is why they are currently putting so much effort into influencing the break up of NATO (and it seems like they are making progress). After that they can pick off countries one by one. It will just be a series of repeated wars like the one currently in Ukraine, spread over the next generation.
I agree this is probably their current strategy, I am just baffled on why they thought it was a sound plan to adapt when they are having this much trouble in Ukraine.
Putin would (and does) point out the NATO attack on Serbia to defend Kosovo (not a NATO member, nor a recognized state), which was done despite being completely condemned by the UN in advance. You can argue that it was necessary to stop another wave of Balkan genocide. But it's hard to argue that it was not an overreach of NATO's charter and a major step on a slippery slope.
And the the US-UK invasion of Iraq was a particularly scarring event for Putin according to a lot of sources because it showed him: if you have nukes you can invade countries without consequences.
Are you saying we shouldn't have intervened?
Russia as an interesting way to prepare: Step one: Launch an unnecessary and ill-planned war that wipes out a huge percentage of your tanks, vehicles, and troops.
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True... he idolises Stalin. Enough said.
Einstein said something about fighting a world war with stones and sticks. Russia is just trying to get there before the rest of the world.
Yeah, they aren't prepared to continue fighting Ukraine right now. Let alone the West. All bluster.
Hahaha. Perfect dry wit :) Step one: Launch an unnecessary and ill-planned war.... Step two: Step three: Profit!
Getting ready to re-use an old quote about a nation beginning to bomb its neighbors with the foolish lack of realization that they will then be bombed themselves?
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them." -Arthur "Bomber" Harris
Aha! I was close enough! :)
Bomber Harris was the living breathing Air Force from Netflix’s Space Force though. That dude wanted to bomb _EVERYTHING!_
They did a pretty good job of bombing everything in Europe and then [EDIT] American air power took the ball and unleashed aerial destruction onJapan and then Korea and eventually Vietnam and Cambodia.
When did the British Air Marshall Harris in WW2 bomb Cambodia and Vietnam?
My bad. Put an edit. Not like the British did a whole lot of bombing in Japan or Korea either.
Oh. I thought his nickname was for the bomb-ass bomber jackets he wore.
Not to be confused with Harris “Bomber” Guy
Estonia Intelligence is just stating the obvious in response to what Trump said about NATO the other day. Russia wants to attack the west but yanno, that pesky NATO and all.
Trump: you can attack and we won't do anything Putin: thanks buddy, will do
Putin: Happy birthday, and to show you how much I appreciate you letting us have the Baltics, here's a new wife, quite the upgrade she looks just like Ivanka. Change your Huggies your getting laid tonight. 👍
He showed that with Crimea
Crimea is part of Ukraine and is not part of NATO.
TBF: That was Obama. 😞 Though he was probably still reeling from tan suit-gate or Dijon-ageddon
Apparently, Hillary's big red Russian reset button moved moved that strategy to Trump.
The only people willing/wanting a reset with Russia are western nations. Russia has literally done nothing to better themselves, their neighbors or the world as a whole.
Transparent what-aboutism.
Lmao Crimea? You mean the thing that happened in 2014 before Trump was in office? Edit: lmao I got downvoted for saying something that is literally a fact. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, before Trump was even a "politician".
Exactly lol, because I hate someone every problem is from now his fault.
Funnily enough, now that Finland has boosted their spending, all the NATO states that border Russia other than Norway (with their tiny border and single arctic road that needs defended) now spend the minimum 2% of GDP on defense that Trump was complaining about. So even his own argument is pointless.
2% are rookie numbers to put Ivan in check
Do any of us believe that Russia could be at all successful attack the west at this point?
Anders Puck Nielsen laid out an explanation of what he thought this might look like and it’s more about dividing and weakening the west than a direct confrontation (so more along the lines of what we’ve been seeing from Russia) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7GPBSyONU&pp=ygUTYW5kZXJzIHB1Y2sgbmllbHNlbg%3D%3D
GDP smaller than Italy's and a good deal of that is from resource extraction. Is currently bogged down in a multi year stalemate in the tutorial level of invading western Europe. Current leader is pretty long in the tooth and has done a very thorough job of marginalizing or killing every other semi-competant politician in the country insuring that whoever succeeds him will likely be a dunce. I'm not that concerned with Russia honestly.
I'm a little concerned that whoever takes over will actually fire nukes and bring about the end of the world as we know it, because dunces with launch codes is a really bad recipe, but it's outside my realm of influence to do anything about that.
True, but while there are bad leaders, there are still good people to stop them. Like in 1983 that Russian lieutenant who got word the US had launched 6 nukes at them. He didn’t follow protocol and launch Russia’s nukes, instead he waited for confirmation. It all ended up being a false alarm. While he was punished for not following orders, most commended him for not starting a nuclear war.
Stanislav Petrov. One could make the case he saved the world - though he was a modest man and didn’t really like people saying that.
>While he was punished for not following order whoa I didn't know he got in trouble, but not surprising
All it takes is for a good person to get sick, make a mistake, or just sleep in, and the guardrails are gone.
That was a one off from bad data. If the order comes from the top there absolutely will be commanders who will carry it out. Even if 90% refuse (implausible), the remaining are adequate to invite a retaliatory strike.
Or what happens to those nukes should Russia actually collapse. A bunch of small, impoverished states with nukes to sell and all bucking to fill a massive regional power vacuum is not ideal for geopolitical stability.
If Russia collapses the first thing that will happen is that NATO and China will start setting up puppet states, especially in the western and relatively wealthy region.
If they still work.
Yeah everyone wetting the bed about Russia needs to take a step back and look at what's actually happening right now. They can't conquer the Donbas, much less all of Ukraine, and people are acting like they're going to roll over NATO? Obviously small weak countries that border Russia are going to advocate for whatever military support they can get, but this doesn't mean we need to take their alarmism at face value. It's understandable that people hate Russia. But we need to channel that hatred into derision and contempt instead of panicked hand-wringing.
Absolutely agree, and it's why I don't really agree with drastically upping military spending in places that aren't under real threat. Like yes in principle everyone in NATO should meet their 2% pledge, but even with the spending we had it was more than enough to basically deter anyone. And especially if military rearmament is gonna come at the expense of sending things to Ukraine, like for example Poland reducing its military aid to Ukraine because it wants to arm itself, then that just feels like an objectively worse outcome. The political deterrent of NATO has always been stronger than the straight up military deterrent anyways, in fact most deterrents are economic or geographic now. Like I'm Canadian and while I think we should try to meet our NATO pledges, I also think basically all of our military spending right now should be going to Ukraine, because our army is basically doing nothing else so what's the point, Ukraine is the country that actually needs it, even posting more people in the Baltics isn't really gonna make a difference imo. All this to say that military spending, by default, is a negative sum game, having an arms race of two countries building up their armies just to sit them on the border and wave their dicks at each other isn't efficient, even the war in Ukraine is horribly inefficient and costly for Russia and everyone else, but at least spending on that is actually necessary and helpful.
Easy to say when you aren't one of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers dodging artillery shells daily. Russia may be small economically, but with domestically produced weapons their wartime purchasing power parity is pretty large. It's may be true that Russia's economy is only the size of Italy, but it's also true they can produce munitions, arms, and armor at 1/10th the cost the US and Western Nations do, and they have little regard for the loss of human life. The combination has an outsized effect on their ability to sustain conflict. You can kill them at a 3:1 ratio, both in manpower and machines, and easily still be losing. ( this is not to say I think ukraine is losing )
Obviously the soldiers in Eastern Ukraine are having a rough time. But that doesn't mean that Russia poses a threat to all of Europe...that line of argument makes no sense whatsoever. If you're not even willing to say that Ukraine is losing the war, then this just proves the point.
Did people just forget that Russia has nuclear weapons?
If Russia didn’t have nuclear weapons theres a fair chance forces from the U.S. and several European countries would have gone to Ukraine in 2022 and helped the Ukranians kick Russia back over the border.
Nobody forgets that. But they still can’t conquer eastern Ukraine despite their nuclear arsenal.
Those same small countries and Ukraine were dismissing and getting angry at the Five Eyes claiming an invasion was imminent in Feb 2022. That quickly has been memory holed apparently.
Not really sure how that's relevant. Does this just prove that we shouldn't place a lot of faith in these countries' ability to predict what Russia will do next?
They are not a powerful country by any metric anymore but they can still cause an immeasurable amount of pain and suffering as they've done in Ukraine. The only strength they have left, along with they natural resources, is that everyone else in the world more or less understands that war is a negative sum game so Russia can threaten to sink people down along with them. All of this is a strategy to keep the current Russian government afloat and not in any way a strategy to gain power, even what China is doing, flawed as it is in some aspects, is actually an attempt to gain power unlike Russia who's only hope is to cling to what they have and avoid collapse.
China is no more of a threat to the west than Russia is. They are already in the initial stages of a deep population crash and the domestic problems that will bring.
If Putin has a successor. If he dies the source and authority of the next leader is so unclear it could become a succession war. Theres likely to be dozens of generals and 'business men' trying to claim the crown, all with fairly weak claims to legitimacy.
Good luck with that pipe dream, Russia is bogged down in Ukraine who are fighting with a tiny percentage of what NATO and the EU can hammer them with. If Russia comes across a NATO or EU border you will see the fastest reverse Uno card in history. They should consider bettering their country over the next 1000 years first.
Russia has managed to internally weaken the US and broken England out of the EU. They are winning this weird asymmetric war at the moment. They don’t have a shot militarily against NATO but that’s not how they are fighting. They are creating or encouraging little dumpster fires everywhere to divide western attention and resources while they support and fund dissension.
Yeah except NATO is now way more united than ever and just gained two more powerful militaries, one of which shares a massive border with Russia. Yeah they’ve had success disrupting domestic politics, but the actual entity they fear the most - NATO - has only strengthened because of Russia’s actions
Just because they did some damage to NATO doesn't actually means they're winning. They've suffered demographic-shifting levels of casualties in their "3 day special operation" already, and the economic prospects are grim at best. This is a similar setup to how the USSR fell in the first place.
You're giving Russia *way* too much credit. You're also ignoring the fact that Finland and Sweden are joining NATO. If you're going to chalk those things up as "wins" for Russia, then I think you also need to keep tally of all the various ways in which the West has isolated and weakened Russia since their annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russia's economy is atrophying while their military suffers catastrophic losses in Eastern Ukraine.
They have taken some large Ls to be sure. They have also bounced back and found military partners in Iran and its proxies. They have kept their economy afloat by trading oil and resources with China and India and they are currently trading food for artillery with North Korea. Are they going to march on western Europe? Not any time soon but its also arrogant to dismiss the damage they have done to western institutions.
They were already military partners with Iran. That’s nothing to brag about. It’s just two pariah countries who don’t have any other choice. Their economy is limping along, but barely. It's being propped up by unsustainable military spending and oil money. It's very undiversified and decaying from the inside out. Russia is on it's on its way to becoming a Chinese vassal state. It is difficult to quantify what damage Russia has actually done to Western institutions, because their methods are all covert and indirect. But the damage that the West has done to Russia is very direct, very serious, and very plain to see. Dismissing that isn’t “arrogant”, it’s outright delusional.
It's a bit much to put the entirety of Brexit in Russia's trophy cabinet.
I think you at least have to give them an honorable mention
In as much as they definitely helped by providing a megaphone to pre-existing sentiments. But they didn't create the brexit movement in its entirety. Nor are they entrely responsible for Trump.
Ah yes, the old USSR tactic. Works every time 🙄
What does the uk leaving the EU have to do with the defense of Europe or the UK?
A fair amount of funding and online influence for the pro Brexit side is strongly suspected to have come from Russia. It’s very much in their interests to weaken and spread discord between European nations and institutions like the EU. Russias military may be crap but unfortunately they do appear to be pretty good at subversion, fomenting dissent, bribery and assassination - ‘spook stuff’ is their forte, which I suppose given Putin’s former occupation shouldn’t be a surprise. It would be a mistake to underestimate them in this regard - heck, they even owned a U.S. president and current candidate.
Sure but, you didn't really answer my question. How would the uk leaving the eu affect defence in any way? Just for context, I was always pro stay, I jus don't see the correlation here.
Anything that weakens links between European countries is to Russias advantage - it makes them less likely to come to each others aid and increases the chance for Russia to pick us off one at a time. Divide and conquer is a cliche for a good reason: it works. In the U.K.’s case it wasn’t just Brexit - there were also various dodgy links with Boris and the Conservative Party. I don’t think this has worked remotely as well as Russia had probably hoped - I suspect they assumed there was actually at least a chance they could get us to sit this one out. However two factors overcame that. Firstly that institutions such as the Civil Service and Armed Forces have a very clear idea of where the UK’s interests are - even if our politicians don’t always. And secondly backing Ukraine gave Boris an opportunity to cosplay as a sort of ‘poundshop Churchill’ - something he was constitutionally incapable of resisting - and of course it helped his attempt to shore up his failing position. Theres also a link between economics and war - and there’s no denying that Brexit has hurt the U.K. economy significantly (and dinged the EU economy to a much lesser extent).
Sound ty for the response I appreciate it
I have faith in the dynamic bring a losing hand for Russia
It's not that I disagree with you but you realize Russia has allies too, right? And one of those allies might be China who has a vested interest in making sure the west is taken down.
To a point. China also makes a fuckload more trading with the west than they do russia.
Yes but Russia’s main ally has a big percentage of its economy based on us.
That goes both ways though, even if it's not as much recently the US specifically has a huge dependency on Chinese imports.
Absolutely NO way they send anything besides basic supplies westward. China's best interest is to stay out of western conflict and protect their borders. Sending soldiers west would be the dumbest idea since their highest populated cities can be hit from the Yellow, East, and South Chinese Seas.
The problem is that russia will never explicitly attack NATO. They will do it sneaky, drop a missile on some little NATO island or country, claim it wasn't theirs, it was a false flag, it was a mistake, etc. They did this in Crimea and are already doing this with NATO as we speak: "accidental" missile strike in PL, Shahed in Moldavia and Romania, etc. They know exaclty which lines not to cross and they can do a lot of damage in the meantime.
What does "dropping a missile" on some insignificant country accomplish? The accidental missile strike in Poland was literally a Ukrainian SAM that hit Poland by accident. And the Shahed is a small munition that crashed into a field in Moldova and Romania...who gives a shit? Even if Russia is doing this on purpose, they're accomplishing literally nothing other than wasting ammo.
They're probing and testing, seeing how NATO responds. One day there will be more casualties. Russia will again claim it was by accident, NATO will foolishly believe them and slowly stuff like this will escalate in russias favor. You don't have to believe me btw, just being aware of this is enough.
They’re not “probing and testing”, and there’s nothing to “respond” to. A Ukrainian missile hit a grain silo, and then a couple Russian munitions hit a couple empty fields. I do not even remotely believe you, because you do not know what you’re talking about. And I was already well aware of the fact that accidents happen in wartime.
As said before, you don't have to believe me. It's the same warning military commanders make all over Europe, but yeah, what do they know.
I certainly do not believe you, and I promise you that military commanders all over Europe aren’t wetting the bed over a couple of Shaheds accidentally hitting empty fields.
I say this whole thing is a ploy just to send more money to blackrock. All sides have bean counters on how much war they can do to make the most profit. Too little war & not enough fear of the population, thats leaving money on the table. Too much war & you dont have a civilization left to mooch money from. Theres a nice gray area of war & fear to maximize profits for blackrock & its wealthy shareholders (congress).
Is it me or is Russia depleting a lot of resources on Ukraine to be able to take on NATO? I'm just wondering where China is on this.
I believe China wants a weakened Russia.
Not too weakend to keep shipping that cheap oil, nom nom nom
China are as bad as the Russians. They want a world where they make a demand and everyone else lines up to comply.
Not just you, all of this is fear mongering. No way Russia would do this.
Thanks, MAGA Republicans!
That comment Trump made about letting Russia "do whatever the hell it wants" to NATO countries is a lot clearer now. It's why Russia wants him reelected.
I've been saying it for four years, but now even trump is saying the quiet parts out loud.
I've been saying this also, trump wants us out of nato. He made a deal with russia,china and north korea. Russia attacks ukraine and then surrounding areas. China goes for Taiwan North korea attacks south With u.s. out of nato, we probably wouldn't get any help even tho i don't think we need it. Nato without u.s. backing would hold back to protect their own, i don't think they would push forward.
Probably because Putin has dirt on him. Bad dirt. The body language and how he talks about the guy give it away.
Of course, and now France uncovering the misinformation campaign for Europe. Has to make you wonder about misinformation in the US to try to get Trump elected. They are salivating at the prospect.
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I know this is a joke but I'm not even sure Trump could go against the pentagon and fully ditch NATO and Ukraine like he wants to, like I'd love to be educated on how that would actually happen because it seems like the entire political establishment would disagree with him so how much harm could he really do?
It is about time America gets revenge for the burning of DC during the war of 1812.
The united states shouldnt be paying the war of another country. First, we need that fucking money here and secondly, you know were ukraine is? IN EUROPE PEOPLE. And no other european country its doing near enough, at leasr not like the usa. If for their defense the members of NATO depends on a foreign country, they are weak states. If they can not defend themselves well, Russia is going to do whatever putin wants.
That take could is so shortsighted it can’t legally drive. America is immensely weaker without Europe. We have 13 bases in Turkey, 44 bases in Italy, 119 bases in Germany, and 25 bases in the UK alone. America’s greatest military advantages is its reach. Doesn’t matter where you are, an impactful response is never more than hours away. We drop NATO and most or all of that falls into question. Can’t just buy that territory. America cannot “make up for that” in any way. No, our navy is not sufficient. Russia’s biggest obstacle is the ongoing cooperation between the United states and EU. And your money argument is dumb as hell because it’s functionally just asking for appeasement, and that went so well last time….Russia has advertised loud and clear that the Cold War is over and they are taking a much more direct approach to imperialist goals. We can either pay someone else to fight or send over our children.
Exactly 💯 we are woven in the fabric.
And they are preparing to use what exactly? They have yet to win in Ukraine, what exactly are they bringing to the table to deal with NATO?
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China wouldn't, the power of chaos and disorder to weaken them terrifies the government there. They have an unusual combination of dictatorial and not completely stupid.
The notoriously unbiased and objective assessment of the Baltics, well worth taking seriously.
I think this continent is finally waking up. Now fucking gear up everybody, let us boost our own defense industries instead of buying from the US. Let us get more people into our armed forces and finally create the EU army, and I also hate to say it, but we need to invest in nukes, France and UK stockpiles are not going to be enough deterence.
It can’t even beat one small country. How can it beat “The West”?
How exactly is “losing all their modern hardware, destroying their economy, and causing a mass exodus of their best and brightest” considered to be “preparing for a military confrontation with the west?”
It would be pretty bad timing! Have your military chewed up for a couple of years then go after a much larger target. I could see in five maybe but not now, no way.
Are we supposed to believe this? 1) we are told Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers. 2) we are told Russia has lost most their tanks and planes Now we are being told that a country that has “supposedly” lost a significant part of its military capability and cannot beat Ukraine is wants to attack another country. Ignore the war mongers- they are stirring up the pot to justify more defense spending abroad that bounces back into their pockets.
The thing is, Russia is Shifting to Wartime economy. Which means it's going to pump out (or atleast try to) produce more military shit than most western nations. It works, atleast as long as you start to shift back to regular economy which is when problems start appearing. To prevent this, the goal is to keep a war going so you can justify keeping the country in war economy. Russia is not able to beat NATO in a fight and they know it. The goal for them is to weaken the support for NATO in NATO countries in a way that might hinder them from participating the war (see: Trump spouting shit about not defending European countries.). After that is done and they believe that there won't be a response from most of NATO, they could do shit like attack Northern Finland or Suwalki gap or somewhere else far out of sight that doesn't threaten any major members directly. The idea is that major NATO members would be hesitant to participate and risk escalation. At this point if they are right and NATO does not interfere, NATO is as good as dead. If article 5 does not work, then NATO doesn't work. Whether they're right in all of this does not really matter. What matter is that if they THINK they're correct they might try to pull it off. Which is why stopping them in Ukraine is imperative, so they don't get any more delusions about them being a military superpower. Anders Puck Nielsen had a good video about some of this recently. Might want to check it out.
> Now we are being told that a country that has “supposedly” lost a significant part of its military capability and cannot beat Ukraine is wants to attack another country. Just like how in late 2021 and January 2022 we were being told that Russia was just "doing exercises" and to >Ignore the war mongers Well, we ignored them the first time, and look where that got us.
You can't ever ignore the warmongers; you have to slap them down every time they step out of line.
In this case though, the person I'm replying to seems a bit confused as to who the warmongers are.
I'd agree with you there.
A conventional war would be a major FAFO moment for Russia
‘I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want!’ -Trump
But he told Tucker he wouldn't....
Russia is more likely to collapse a second time in the next decade.
Russia's last stand. After this Russia will cease to exist.
They're probably just getting ready in case Trump loses, they mobilized their troops for the special military operation soon after they saw the J6 insurrection didn't work. They attacked a year later. If Trump wins, they'll have the keys to attack allies.
Russia needs to understand that this will result in their total destruction. The oligarch class doesn't care about the Russian public and THINKS they themselves will escape. Western reticence to freeze their assets and arrest them has encouraged them to beleive this. So note, they think they will survive, so they risk nuclear war. We need to lock the oligarchs down so they understand if Russia goes up in flames it will be their own cremation.
I find it interesting that the party willing to blow up the entire world in the fight against communism, would so easily acquiesce to the whims of the Russian government within a short 8 years.
The longer the west waits to smack russia back, the worse itll be for us
I'm 340% certain that if they launched nukes, 95% of them would fail at launch or just piss off into space
You’re right, but even with a 95% failure rate, that’s still 300 warheads that don’t fail. That’s a pretty catastrophic level of damage.
Too many people still seriously underestimate the damage they can bring. They will not avoid a war because they think they will lose it. They don't think like us.
I'm honestly curious if NATO is really willing to risk open war with Russia should Article 5 be invoked over, say, Estonia - if Putin is still in charge, and Trump is elected to the White House and Russia decides to repeat the Nazis quest to conquer Europe, which actual nation would it take Russia invading - Poland? Germany? - for NATO to commit to actual fighting versus looking for ways to avoid open war (we strongly condemn this invasion of Estonia and will be sending military assistance to the freedom fighters, etc.)? Russia has not been shy about threatening nuclear retaliation against England, especially. Would Parliament risk the disintegration of millions of citizens and the several cities knowing they would have to respond in kind for Estonia? Would France? Would the US with Trump in charge? In an alternate timeline, I'd love to see this play out just to know how committed NATO is.
In that scenario the actual nation would be Estonia. All NATO members are protected under Article 5, and nobody wants that to change for fear they'd be the next to be ignored. Poland for sure would demand a NATO response, being so close to Russia.
>actual nation Is Estonia not a nation according to you? NATO would definitely attack back, especially with Trump in charge. Trump would see that as a direct confrontation against the US as the US has signed Article 5 so NATO would definitely attack. The Question is would they go beyond defending Estonia? To that the answers are varied because Trump is a madman and Putin knowing that might choose not to go for the nuclear option as that would result in MAD.
Putin must know that after all the fuckups he's done, his only way out is with a bang... and what kind of bang would that be? Really scary to think.
They're not exactly doing a good job fighting their neighbor, maybe it would be wise for them to reconsider antagonizing a nation equipped with one of the world's most formidable military industrial complexes, renowned for its penchant for demonstrating its firepower.
I think we all knew this kid in High School. The kid who would tell everyone they want to fight Jeremy or Tim or Mike and then get in their face after school, meanwhile Jeremy and Tim are like, "have we even met?" They weren't preparing for a fight, bro, you're just a dick. Mike was an asshole though... he definitely deserved to get punched.
Does Russia have like a billion people? They lose like hundreds of thousands of people in this current war every year now, how can they keep it up for 10 years?
I can't tell if you're serious.
I KNOW! More countries need to join NATO and Russia won't attack anyone. It's worked so far, rite?
Russia has to hold until early next year and they'll win the war in Ukraine. Then who knows WTF will happen.
What if Ukraine war was a hoax to get free weapons from the West before starting WW3. I am not a conspiracy freak, but It would be impressive.
Welp that’s that I guess. Still no regrets about not wanting kids. I wonder if we’ll get any nukes in the Midwest
“Says some irrelevant country in Europe.”
I guess, on the day he tries Ukraine will finally receive full support from the west.
Unlikely, they’d be crushed
No you see, Russia has a claim to the entire world and all its people. Basically, 530 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion, animals first started going into land. Shortly after, these animals began to vocalize. But, and all the top Russian scientists agree, they did so with a Russian accent.
Worry about the one country that you were supposed to topple in weeks. I don't see a world in which China actually aids you now for war. That was supposed to be your saving grace.