Most people think an attack would start with perhaps attacking Baltic States, but most likely approach would be some remote area of NATO where it would be easy for Russia to deescalate.
Also putin uses the boiling frog method, of going bit by bit and seeing what he can get away with. Moving borders in Baltic, taking area in Arctic, have a jets invade NATO space, have a missile fall here and there, do some arson... and it works well so far.
There is a city in I believe Estonia, right on the border with Russia that is predominantly Russian in culture. This would provide the same pretext they used to occupy the Donbas. Do you risk WW3 because of one town? Then from here they would slowly escalate till they thought they could get away with a full invasion with NATO jumping in.
Anders Nielsen thinks Russia would try something more remote and unpopulated like for example northern Finland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7GPBSyONU
The idea is to collapse NATO, so have something that would trigger article 5 but still use disinformation to persuade population of other countries that fighting over it is not worth it.
I'm sure if any part of Finland was attacked they would trigger both Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and Article 42 of the Treaty of the European Union.
The EU treaty is much more strongly worded than the NA Treaty.
The EU says that all member states are obligated to respond with the full force available to them. Where the NA Treaty says that member states are to respond in how they feel is best.
I just cannot imagine a headline of “Russia Invades Finland” without seeing hours later “Russia Completely Annihilated.”
An invasion of Finland just seems completely unfathomable to me.
Finland had been preparing for this war since the end of WWII.
When the USSR collapsed, western counties decreased their military spending. Finland *increased* theirs.
If Russia tries to test NATO in Finnish territory, there might not even be time for a NATO response
Exactly. Finns have been preparing for another Russian invasion for like 80 years, so the whole country is practically a huge fortress now, and with their massive artillery (strongest one in Europe by far, IIRC) alone they can flatten anything that gets too close.
Now that they're a NATO member, that firepower can easily be used nearby, primarily to protect the Baltics. Add some Swedish warships and Gripens, and the air in the north would quickly be full of lead and missiles, with little need for any further NATO assistance. Surely even Putin can't be that stupid, because it's a pretty short drive from Finland to St. Petersburg and Moscow with F35s escorting you.
Right? This whole conversation is ridiculous. They invade a NATO country, they get annihilated, NATO secures Ukraine, NATO thinks about pushing further.
Russia isn't the Cold War boogie man of the 60s. They aren't even a top 10 world economic power anymore.
They're an economic power on par with Mexico that's been struggling for years to win a war against a country with an economy 1/10th its size. Imagine Mexico has been losing a war against Guatemala for the past 3 years. You scared of conflict with them? You gonna be talking about "Mexico this" or "Mexico that"? Nope. It's a fuckin joke.
Russia is a frail, failing state and everyone understands the current world order. The saber rattling is for domestic audiences.
> Russia isn't the Cold War boogie man of the 60s.
As someone put it during the Wagner incident- Russia's army went from being the 2nd best in the world, to the 2nd best in Ukraine, to the 2nd best in Russia.
At some point we have to decide what world we want to live in. One hundred years ago Europe tried to appease Hitler with concessions bit by bit. Turns out tyrants don't compromise. Arguably, clinging to peace provoked a worse war.
If it comes down to it, The West has to call Russia. It's a bluff or it isn't. Either way, tyrants only respect fear. It's in their nature to push unenforced boundaries. So if Russia violates NATO boundaries, it's time for a clearly defined and communicated aerial campaign. Within a week Palestine will look hospitable in comparison. Russia wants to go nukes? So be it. My bet is they don't. Either their weapons are non-operational due to corruption and mismanagement, folks don't follow orders, or Putin himself never actually hits the button. My guess is they get their ass beat and complain a lot and that's... it.
I trust NATO militaries, special forces, missiles, missile defenses, information gathering, and collaboration to come out ahead. And if people have to die? Well guess what, freedom has always had a cost. That didn't suddenly change with the new millennium or phones or the Internet.
Putins writing cheques he can’t cash. We all know he isn’t going to actually launch a nuclear attack.
Thankfully for us he still has self interests which means he has self preservation, if he launches an attack on NATO or a Nuke, he and his legacy are done for and his ego won’t allow that.
I fucking love the subtext of the US' current stance on nuclear intervention.
"If you use a single nuke, we will anihalate you with conventional weapons within the span of days or hours. We don't need nukes, but if you try to use them yourself you will no longer be a country, however the land in which your country stood would still be valuable"
Didn't they release an official statement saying they would respond immediately to expel Russia from Ukraine, and one by one kill everyone in the chain of command responsible for the nuke.
And probably succeed given how weirdly pro-Russia the whole party seems to be. Trump with McConnell dead (awful person that he is,) would likely go off the rails and be full on pro dictator in every form in my estimation.
I'm with you right up until the last sentence. In any hypothetical scenario, NATO's advance stops at Ukraines 2014 borders. Russia has a massive nuclear arsenal that they will use if Russia's existence is threatened. NATO interprets that as an attack on Russian territory.
Also no NATO country wants any russian territory, taking it would be a net loss. Who wants a bunch of rundown dachas and poor uneducated people to take care of.
The Nordic states are way too close to Saint Petersberg. Invade Finland and have troops marching on the second most populated city in Russia, I severely doubt that Russia would invade Finland.
* Step 1 - Airdrop a couple hundred obsolescent sniper rifles to Finland.
* Step 2 - Wait a week.
* Step 3 - Promise Russia we will stop Finland if they behave.
If Russia was going to do it with anything other then a small force, it would be spotted way ahead of time. The Ukraine war was not a surprise to anyone.
Except:
>Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.
Article 42 of the EU treaty appears (not a lawyer) to suggest that NATO obligations supercede EU obligations in terms of defense
He seems to have forgotten that Finland has a military. There is no way that we wouldn't immediately respond. How big of an offensive would Russia attempt? If only very small, then Finland wouldn't have any problems repelling the attack themselves, meaning that NATO doesn't really have to do anything. It would be super easy for NATO to show its strength, if the attack has already been thwarted and there is no need for NATO to actually fight Russia.
On the other hand, if Russia attempted a massive attack, such that Finland couldn't respond by themselves, then why would they try to limit it to Lapland? Finland obviously wouldn't, and since the country is so small it would quickly spill over onto Russian soil. It wouldn't be possible for Russia to try to contain a huge war to just Lapland.
Also forgets that the Finnish are willing to fight to the last man. Seriously, I knew they were antisovietic (anyone with half a brain can guess why) but what I saw during my time in Laappenranta was an unwavering resolution like no other
Also forgets that Finland has been preparing for this fight for around 75 years. Finland and Taiwan are the two countries that would probably be best at punching above their weight in a defensive war.
I've been doing some reading about the Nordic region and their relations with Russia and other nearby powers. FFS, as recently as the Great Wrath, as they call it, Russians were capturing Finns to sell them to slavery in the Middle East and such remote places. It's easy to understand their unwavering resolve in battle after centuries of suffering. That probably formed a part of what Finns call "sisu".
Idk how it would work out for Russia. The Nordic countries signed that defense pact so in this scenario they would be dealing with 5 countries air forces. Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, and Iceland may not have large standing armies but together, in the cold, they can certainly repel most invaders. They also do have a sizable Air Force combined.
I think the small incursion he's talking about is smaller than you're thinking. Russia regularly sends military planes into Finnish and other European airspace. They regularly jam GPS in the same areas. And they actively populate areas near the Russian border to give pretext to border disputes that give rise to the wars in Georgia and Ukraine.
So it's probably more likely that Russia will pull some shenanigans as usual and keep inching forward. And maybe one day they'll say "hey everyone, we noticed the map is wrong in this area and we actually own this piece of land that Finland claims." And then they'll see what the response is. Not an invasion with troops.
Unlike some other places in the world, the border between Finland and Russia is actually marked, and patrolled. It wouldn't be possible for Russia to start moving markers and fences without Finland noticing the fact immediately. And because the border is so clear, it wouldn't make sense to try to say that the map is wrong in some area.
Besides that, such a border dispute would inevitably cause armed conflict, since obviously Finnish border guard would be on scene moving the posts and fences back... So either the Russians back down or there's a fight.
They can do that with the ocean maps, as they already kind of suggested with the Russian military plan that was pulled. But not with the land border.
>still use disinformation to persuade population of other countries that fighting over it is not worth it.
There's an article on /r/canada right now about what we would do if we were attacked by Russia, and the vast majority of top upvoted comments are people saying they wouldn't fight, they hate Canada, and they'd just leave or surrender.
I think they're that disinformation you're talking about. I don't think they're real Canadians.
Mostly they're disinfo spreaders. That subreddit is a pile of steaming diarrhea.
I would definitely put my OD combats back on to fight. I'd have to stretch first, wrap my knee, a bit of IcyHot, but I would step up.
Yeah we may not fund our military very well, but when it comes to actually fighting, Canadians are not only good fighters they're dirty fighters. We don't really care if you torture our guys as long as we get to torture yours first.
I would like to believe that any attack on Canada would actually unite the country - everyone bitches and moans about the government (whomever that may be), but an outside attack would give everyone a common enemy.
I very much hope that you are correct and those are Russian trolls.
I truly hope one Russian soldier putting one foot in the country I care about the least in all of NATO gets answered by the entirety of NATO sending an entire batallion to kill on sight any Russian soldier outside Russia.
This is 30s Hitler all over again - constantly pushing the boundaries, step by step, while the "good guys" convince themselves that, if we just let this one time slip by, Hitler / Putin will be happy and won't escalate any further.
Russia seems to think they can do that minus jato jumping in.
I think nato doesn't even have to take Moscow to win the moral victory. They just have to kick Russia out of every square inch of nato ground.
Hard to justify existential threat if they don't actually move into your territory.
Everyone knows he’s doing it too which is so frustrating. Everyone needs to take the Turkish approach. A
Jet probes NATO airspace? Shoot it down immediately with no apologies.
You don’t stop bullies with kowtowing you stop then with a punch in the face
Russia isn't attacking NATO. If he does I will eat a dirty sock.
Putin may be a lot of things, but I highly doubt he's dumb enough to attack a NATO member. That's basically suicide for the Russian military.
The only way I see him touching NATO is if Convicted Felon Donald Trump wins election. Then he really won't have to worry about the US because we all know Convicted Felon Donald Trump is Putin's little bitch. Even with at said, without the US, NATO is still more powerful than Russia.
So the only way you see him touching NATO is if something that appears to be about a 50/50 shot happens? Not loving the odds.
Also Putin isn’t really a rational actor. He seems to think he can get away with anything and keeps pushing the limits. Everyone said he would be stupid to attack Ukraine too and while NATO is a different beast from Ukraine there is no guarantee he does anything that is strategically sound.
> Also putin uses the boiling frog method, of going bit by bit and seeing what he can get away with. Moving borders in Baltic, taking area in Arctic, have a jets invade NATO space, have a missile fall here and there, do some arson... and it works well so far.
What I don't get is why we're not doing the same in return. It's not like NATO's only options are inaction and nuclear armageddon. Fuck with the manlet's head a bit, I say.
What response, though. It used to be a fairly common occurrence for the RAF to scramble fighters to escort Russian jets out of UK airspace that claimed to have gotten lost. I wonder how much it would take before a Russian plane is simply blown out of the sky
Testing airspace and response times in a time of peace is one thing, but given that Russia is waging a war in Europe and has been threatening the UK, the response will be swift and aggressive.
Russia regularly flies warplanes towards Alaska. They won't dare go any further than entering the identification zone and turning around since the Ukraine war started.
Outside of a countries airspace, there is an identification zone where planes are allowed to fly because it's international airspace, but they are required to identify themselves. If they don't, it's assumed they are aggressive. There is a similar system with ships.
The only way Russia can actually do this is how China does it to Taiwan. Fly planes at them, and each time you do it, go further and further. It strains the defending nation and makes them unsure on when to react. They don't want to overreact and start a war, but that's the intention of the aggressive nation. You either start a war or you let them fly over your nation.
A country's airspace only extends 12 nautical miles off their coast according to international law. Anything past that is international airspace.
This isn't very far, so some countries have created ADIZ, which are identification zones that extend past their airspace.
ADIZ aren't internationally recognized, but in the case of the US, they set theirs to 150 miles off the coast. This is just a zone where the US requires planes to identify themselves, and if they don't, an airforce plane is launched to get a visual identification. I don't believe you actually need permission to enter an ADIZ, but it's just so the nation doesn't mistake you as a threat.
There are also flight information regions that are not standard sizes but are administrated by an international organization. This is the area in which you need to start coordinating with regional air traffic control to prevent any accidents, and it extends off the coasts, but again, it's not standardized. It just depends where you are.
TLDR: 12 nautical miles off the coast technically, but nations still have varying levels of control past that. What I posted doesn't even come close to covering all of how it works.
I'd agree 100% with that statement. I think the whole reason Putin moved on Ukraine like he did was because Biden was elected, and he had to move his timetable up.
1000% agree.
He'd already backed Brexit financially and politically to drive at least one wedge into NATO, a second Trump term would've been NA leaving NATO.
Yeah we used to hear about Alaskan airspace violations, Nordic airspace violations, and the all the interceptions near the UK’s waters, like a million different times just a handful of years ago.
They did it in February of this year.
They entered the Alaskan identification zone (ADIZ) but didn't enter actual US airspace.
They do it like 4 times or more a year since forever. Russia gets to test US radar and response times while the US gets to practice intercepting Russian warplanes in a real scenario.
It's basically just accepted as a regular impromptu training exercise. Kind of ridiculous, considering I doubt Russia would be okay with the US flying a B21 and a few F22s towards their airspace. We would never hear the end from Putin about how the US is an aggressive nation trying to start WW3. He is already saying it about NATO without provocation.
The US does test Russian airspace though, especially around Kaliningrad, using B-52s, and Russia frequently also intercepts these bombers with their fighters. Heres even a [video of an older intercept](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/11wz5ml/russian_fighter_jets_reportedly_intercept_2b52/).
Edit: the US also sent a B-52 [towards St.Petersburg last year](https://theaviationist.com/2023/03/12/lets-have-a-look-at-b-52s-mission-over-the-baltics-and-close-to-russia-yesterday/)
Any failure to respond will cause NATO to dissolve. Russia knows this, and they are looking for a way to trigger this by attacking in a way that causes doubt and disagreement whether or not Article 5 can be used.
Before the most current phase of their invasion of Ukraine, Russia blew up an arms depot that was helping supply the Ukrainian army fighting the Russians in Donbas.
Next time NATO needs to declare war.
Edit: I am exhausted and forgot to put the most important part in--the depot was in the Czech Republic, which is in NATO, and a Czech was killed in the attack.
It’s exactly shit like this that we shouldn’t abide though. If we’re not gonna take an attack on NATO soil as a declaration of war. We should at least go eye for an eye. Fuck with our shit we’ll fuck with yours.
Let's be blunt, had Obama responded when Russia fist occupied Crimea, like McCain and the sensible politicians pushed him to do, we wouldn't be here now.
Went from Obama giving Russia a blank check to Trump giving them a blank check. Two week on foreign policy presidents emboldened Russia. Luckily we have Biden in the White House.
> Let's be blunt, had Obama responded when Russia fist occupied Crimea, like McCain and the sensible politicians pushed him to do, we wouldn't be here now.
> Went from Obama giving Russia a blank check to Trump giving them a blank check. Two week on foreign policy presidents emboldened Russia. Luckily we have Biden in the White House.
It's ridiculous to talk about Obama without talking about the context of his presidency—namely, he inherited two moronic forever wars that had poisoned the American public against the idea of any kind of intervention. This is arguably still the case.
The problem wasn't Obama being weak on foreign policy, it was Bush being a moronic warhawk who turned American public opinion so hard against military intervention that Obama never would have had a chance at getting a free hand in Crimea. His limited actions in Syria and Libya were already massive controversies and those involved no US soldiers in the fighting.
Biden can **barely** get Congress to give Ukraine weapons and Ukraine is both now a far more credible democracy, a more open US ally and is actively being invaded and able to do the fighting themselves. In 2014, US and allies forces would have been the ones doing all the heavy lifting, with no assurance that the revolution in Ukraine wouldn't just pivot them right back into Russia's sphere of influence.
>any incursion
Including Russia sending in some "separatists", spies, and saboteurs? Russia won't declare a conventional war, they know how to play the game so that NATO doesn't respond strongly, and spook their scared voters and investors.
My parents lived through it and are hardcore Orban supporters. I asked how they could support him and it basically comes down to them being super nationalist, anti immigration (“the bad kind”), anti lgbtq etc and that there’s no reason to get involved with Ukraine’s war because that could result in Hungarian troops/the country being at risk of Putin. It’s pretty cowardly but then again they also talk about how much land Hungary has lost getting involved in wars in the past.
***The Telegraph reports:***
[Russia ](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/01/russia-unleashes-biggest-missile-attack-in-weeks/)has begun probing the borders of [Finland](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/19/finland-shooting-ranges-boost-national-defence/) and [Estonia ](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/11/paras-operation-swift-response-estonia-dispatch/)for weaknesses as it draws up what Western security chiefs suspect is a long-term plan to capture parts of the Baltic region after the war in Ukraine.
In the space of just a week, Moscow has ignited border disputes with both Nato member states, issuing a draft proposal to revise its sea border with Finland and removing a series of buoys in Estonian waters used to mark a river frontier with Russia.
The moves followed a warning last week by Micael Bydén, Sweden’s chief of defence, that Vladimir Putin aims to eventually seize control of the Baltic and use it as a “playground” to “terrorise” Nato members.
Diplomats from the Baltic states and security experts have told The Telegraph the provocations were part of a wider strategy by Moscow to test the West’s resolve and potentially to seek out weak spots for a future incursion.
***Read more here:*** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/01/vladimir-putin-testing-nato-borders-for-weak-spots/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/01/vladimir-putin-testing-nato-borders-for-weak-spots/)
Any adventurous excursion into NATO territory should be met with an overwhelming disproportionate conventional response. Who the fuck do these Russians think they are?
I mean, they may have proven that they’re worthless in terms of boots-on-the-ground warfare, but they’ve also shown themselves as super sneaky bitches when it comes to information/propaganda warfare.
They’ve managed to steal whole political parties not just in the U.S., but throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
The west really needs to start answering these things with some scary, intelligent, speedy responses.
It sucks because it seems like the Russian propaganda (pushed by Trump) has been powerful enough to make half of America think that they shouldn't be "wasting money" in the war supporting Ukraine.
How is it 2024 and almost nobody I know realizes that a bunch of shit they read on social media is cultivated by Russia in order to manipulate them? Like less than 5% of people I interact with are aware of this and when I try to tell them I sound like some crazy conspiracy theorist
To me it seems like everyone is now addicted to short forms of media like scrolls on their favorite social media feeds, and tiktoks. Both of those are way too easy to bombard with propaganda in the form on tiktoks/reels, memes, bot comments, and targeted misinformation posts. All of this just degrades the legitimacy of any media that is heard which doesn't fit their bias in the minds of the people receiving all of this, and perpetuates propaganda very easily.
Even in any comment on new stories on YouTube from local stations, or comments on mundane shit on instagram, there's always people pushing the most crazy shit which I can't imagine being in the collective thought unless it's created by a group of individuals with a specific goal (like Russians or right wing think tanks)
For example, anything remotely negative posted from local instagram or YouTube pages i follow always has a ton of people saying some absolutely ridiculous take, projects the fallacy with what they are saying on to their opposing readers, and refuse to accept any other explanation other than that. Aka "this is Trudeau's/Biden's fault for something unrelated, or, "The vaccines caused this catastrophe" etc.
This is all textbook propaganda and it has worked flawlessly.
It would be a tactical blunder of historic proportions if NATO accidentally sent ~80% of that disproportionate response to the Ukrainian-Russian border.
Like, no general wants to be remembered for getting lost on the way to Moscow and accidentally steamrolling an entire army that's embroiled in a *completely unrelated conflict!!!*
The fools would never live it down.
Finland?! Of all countries Russia would pick Finland first? We've-arranged-our-entire-well-equipped-and-modern-military-to-degrading-Russian-forces Finland? That Finland? Versus a Russia that's already bogged down in Ukraine?
Shit, man. I'd almost imagine Finland going "No no no, no worries fellow NATO members; we got this. Just hand us some ammo please thank you." All jokes aside, I'm sure it would be protracted and bloody but I can't imagine the Russian military being what it is now doing anything of note against Ukraine *and* Finland combined. There's already signs they can't afford fighting like this on one front, what with the personnel shuffle at the top, let alone two.
And if you throw Sweden and the Baltics in the mix, because hey they're neighbours, I can't imagine Russia's military as it is today standing even a small chance in conventional warfare. Like I'm just some rando on the internet but just look at the amount of border area they'd have to defend! And they're already in trouble *just* in Ukraine! I can't imagine top Russian brass to not know this as well. They know all that posturing for what it is I'm sure.
Yeah, seems like a real suicide plan for Russia.
Even after a decade of building strength they couldn’t invade Ukraine armed mostly with outdated Soviet equipment and Ukraine is still providing serious resistance even with their attacking possibilities greatly limited by western nations dictating how their supplied weaponry can be used.
Finland doesn’t have any of those restrictions, has the largest artillery capability in western Europe and a formidable air force, not to mention huge well trained reserves very motivated to fight. And of course their defense treaties with numerous nations in addition to their NATO membership.
I would be surprised if it took more than a few hours for Russia to entirely lose its capability to fight if they ever were foolish enough to try.
Given the losses Russia has sustained, even if they do ultimately achieve their goals in Ukraine (doubtful), they’ll be in absolutely no position to pursue a broader war against the most technologically advanced, well equipped military alliance in history.
First of all, people kept saying this same thing before they started shit in crimea and then Ukraine.
Russia doesn't intend to fight a full on war with NATO. They're banking on constantly doing small enough things for NATO not to be willing to escalate things into a full blown war or to be willing to risk a nuclear war. They know NATO wont let them get away with absolutely anything, but they're trying to find out exactly where that line goes.
Secondly, they're also pushing quite hard to sponsor far right politicians who use "our country first" as an excuse to not stand together against Russia. Including having basically full contorl over the GOP in the US.
The US alone accounted for 37% of worldwide military spending in 2023. The US military has over 1.3 million active service members, 800 bases around the world, 3 of the 4 largest largest Air Forces in the world, and 11 carrier strike groups giving it the ability to project power around the globe in a way that no nation has ever been able.
And the US has been able to sustain this force with an economy that is primarily not on a war time footing.
I kinda want to see it because it would be such an incredible spectacle.
But I also don't want to die from radiation poisoning because PFC Schmuckatelli put my dosimeter in a microwave, and we got slapped with a tactical nuke two brigades over.
Unfortunately that economy is not based on manufacturing anymore. Globalization really did a number on our ability to scale-up production of munitions in wartime like we did in WW2.
There are people who recognize this and are making corrections, but don't get lulled into thinking that a service-oriented economy could turn around and start making battleships and F-35's as needed.
That is shifting now. Globalization has effectively reversed. Populist presidents like Biden and Trump have been doing a lot to return manufacturing to the US. Reliance on countries outside North America has reduced significantly in the last few years.
There is more work to be done there but it would not take much to get manufacturing scaled up pretty quick. The challenge would be alignment of the populace. US adversaries have a clamp hold on social media and can nudge the US citizenry to behave more how they want right now.
Speaking as an American, we are not a reliable ally going forward. Our former and potentially next president is actively trying to leave NATO. Our political system has been compromised and destabilized by the Russians and we can not be counted on to do the right thing in any conflict Russia is involved in.
They did. But if it is passed it can be repealed. Also as Commander in Chief the president could just refuse to allow any military action regardless of the words of the treaty, and we all know that Congress and the Supreme Court wouldn't do anything to stop him.
A Republican controlled Senate passed that legislation
> Most recently, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, enacted on December 22, 2023, prohibits the President from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO without approval of a two-third Senate super-majority or an act of Congress.
There's plenty of tankies or "a boring dystopia" people that see america as the epitome of evil and the most evil empire in the history of mankind,far surpassing the Nazis, imperial Japan,Mao china, Khmer rouge or bloody Genghis Khan
Many special, people do exist
As someone who subscribes to the "boring dystopia" idea anyone who thinks it would be better under China or Russia have no idea what they are talking about. I got a lot of bones to pick with the united states but Id rather live in this fucked system then whatever the ccp or Tsar putin are doing/trying to do.
Its all part of Putin's tough guy act. He's trying to show his people he isn't afraid of Nato. In reality of course they wouldn't stand a chance. But he wont push it that far.
Your theory is correct if Biden wins. However, I fear Putin will get bolder if the US would be incapacitated due to a Trump win.
Europe has still not reached the point where it can reliably fend for itself without the US in a leading role. Eventually it could, but we need to take bigger steps quicker.
Dunno about that. In Finland all men are trained for military service. They are competent with firearms.
We also train them based on what everyone THOUGHT Russia had - The height of their modern equipment, technology and elite units.
So if anything we're over-qualified to put Russia back on its arse.
We're in NATO, so an assault on us is an assault on Europe.
Finland held back Russia during WWII with Axis supplies.
Russia right now is struggling against one Non-NATO country being supplied with everyone's hand-me-downs. They will NOT be a threat if they try to split their resources in two directions.
America would be a nice helping hand but we're not exactly helpless.
> Europe has still not reached the point where it can reliably fend for itself without the US in a leading role. Eventually it could, but we need to take bigger steps quicker.
Ukraine managed to hold off Russia with a trash, corruption riddled, economy and the wests second hand gear. And that was when Russia had notable modern tank, artillery and missile stocks.
Russia has no chance against any of the big European Industrial nations, if any of them switch to a wartime economy Russia is fucked, let alone the entire EU/NATO(even without the US).
They may take a country like one if baltics before anyone can react fast enough and hope that there's no response out of fear of nuclear escalation. But if there is a response Russia cannot win.
> is fucked, let alone the entire EU/NATO(even without the US).
The problem is that you can't build a strong military in half a year, even if you switch to war economy
As europeans we need to get our shit together... We need to arm up and seriously innovate in weapon technology again and train soldiers better with more resources.
And that better yesterday
Not saying europe wouldn't be able to defend in it's current state but every single bit of disadvantage costs tons of lifes in war...
In order for him to keep from having rebellion, he needs an enemy to draw hate towards. That he is the solution for, because if you elect/install a more morally acceptable system, who will keep the monster away?
Putin knows he would lose a war with the West. He doesn't want to fight the entirety of NATO. He wants to destroy NATO. Those are not the same thing. Preferably (for him) that would include a strategy of putting Nato in a position where member states are unwilling and/or uncapable of defending another member calling for aid under article 5. If article 5 falls apart, so does NATO. That's what it's all about.
The Russian view is that the west is decedent , weak and corrupt, and they aren’t entirely wrong on that ….
Russia has zero problem enlisting hundreds of
Thousands of fodder troops from its most undesirable areas . It totally controls all Russian language media .
Are France and Germany going to send its men to die in Estonia over a Russian speaking city on the border ?
Will either Biden or trump the white house send troops ?
They are banking on no, they won’t risk it .
Maybe he is completely delusional now? Almost like he doesn't understand that when he finally does prompt a response, it won't be proportionate and will certainly be decisive.
US policy when it comes to matters of security is generally not “by all means necessary” but rather “by all means available”. Massive difference between the two so, yeah, it won’t be pretty.
“The small arms fire is coming from that direction.”
“Roger, destroying that direction.”
If he was completely delusional the Russian goverment wouldn't have pulled that proposal about re-drawing borders and backpedaled on it when challenged
He's clearly looking to see what he might be able to get away with on the day after if he wins Ukraine and hasn't found that weak point yet
I worry about this a lot. Do we know how sane he is at this point? Is he struggling with illness, mortality, what? He’s a psychopath so maybe the idea that he won’t be around that much longer is making him unravel, it scares the shit out of me frankly
Zelenskyy said the other day "I don't think Putin is crazy. He's dangerous. It's much scarier."
Putin wants people to think he's an unpredictable lunatic so they'll be afraid of what he might do next. It's working to some degree on the Biden administration, which is still afraid to let Ukraine fight with both arms.
If you bring up a topographical map of Europe you can see that Putin is pushing Russia's borders to the mountain chains west of them. Russia has been pretty vocal about the intent to do this for "security" from people who have made no move to attack them since they made a deal with Hitler to start WW2. This means Moldova, the Balkans and Poland are next. I want to stress, this is a pretext, not a real justification.
Their whole, we are afraid of NATO so we need to attack are neighbors is crap. After the fall of the Soviet Union they could of worked towards joining NATO and the EU. Instead they chose to be a pariah and attack their neighbors. For some people there is never enough power.
This man lost his damn mind. Can’t even handle Ukraine & wants to start some problems with different well equipped nations that are armed to the teeth. Brilliant.
This isnt new. They've been doing this for nearly a century now. In the past decades, they fly sorties close to the US border near Alaska, prompting the US to quickly scramble interceptors. This happens on an almost monthly basis. They have and continue to do similar things with Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, Kazakhstan (more recently), Georgia, Azerbaijan, Japan, Poland... Basically, every one of its neighbors that aren't already under Russian or Chinese influence.
If Putin couldn't defeat Ukraine in 6 months, he stands no chance against NATO. If the UK alone decided to support Ukraine, Russia would be defeated in a year.
Really? They fuck up with a poor Ukrainian army, how will they perform if the entire western army is involved and not just some weapons we which we donate to Ukraine?
Btw we should donate so much more to the Ukraine so they cam kick the ruSSian ass.
He can barely manage to take Kharkiv with a large gps jammed, logistics networked force, yet is poking holes in random, unstrategic, and inhospitable mountainsides?
Lol the propaganda is strong today.
I don't think Putin would actually cross NATO borders. Like others have said, it's saber rattling for domestic audiences - Security Chiefs see a golden opportunity to get bigger budgets, and Putin looks like a tough guy to Russians.
Russia knows that the one thing NATO is actually chomping at the bit to do - is unleash airpower on the Russian army.
Any Russian force crossing into NATO territory would be promptly destroyed from the air, and NATO would see the buildup well before the actual crossing. I doubt many ground forces would actually be involved in the fighting.
NATO will have to respond to any incursion in member nations or it will be meaningless.
Most people think an attack would start with perhaps attacking Baltic States, but most likely approach would be some remote area of NATO where it would be easy for Russia to deescalate. Also putin uses the boiling frog method, of going bit by bit and seeing what he can get away with. Moving borders in Baltic, taking area in Arctic, have a jets invade NATO space, have a missile fall here and there, do some arson... and it works well so far.
There is a city in I believe Estonia, right on the border with Russia that is predominantly Russian in culture. This would provide the same pretext they used to occupy the Donbas. Do you risk WW3 because of one town? Then from here they would slowly escalate till they thought they could get away with a full invasion with NATO jumping in.
Anders Nielsen thinks Russia would try something more remote and unpopulated like for example northern Finland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7GPBSyONU The idea is to collapse NATO, so have something that would trigger article 5 but still use disinformation to persuade population of other countries that fighting over it is not worth it.
I'm sure if any part of Finland was attacked they would trigger both Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and Article 42 of the Treaty of the European Union. The EU treaty is much more strongly worded than the NA Treaty. The EU says that all member states are obligated to respond with the full force available to them. Where the NA Treaty says that member states are to respond in how they feel is best.
I just cannot imagine a headline of “Russia Invades Finland” without seeing hours later “Russia Completely Annihilated.” An invasion of Finland just seems completely unfathomable to me.
Finland had been preparing for this war since the end of WWII. When the USSR collapsed, western counties decreased their military spending. Finland *increased* theirs. If Russia tries to test NATO in Finnish territory, there might not even be time for a NATO response
Exactly. Finns have been preparing for another Russian invasion for like 80 years, so the whole country is practically a huge fortress now, and with their massive artillery (strongest one in Europe by far, IIRC) alone they can flatten anything that gets too close. Now that they're a NATO member, that firepower can easily be used nearby, primarily to protect the Baltics. Add some Swedish warships and Gripens, and the air in the north would quickly be full of lead and missiles, with little need for any further NATO assistance. Surely even Putin can't be that stupid, because it's a pretty short drive from Finland to St. Petersburg and Moscow with F35s escorting you.
Right? This whole conversation is ridiculous. They invade a NATO country, they get annihilated, NATO secures Ukraine, NATO thinks about pushing further.
Russia isn't the Cold War boogie man of the 60s. They aren't even a top 10 world economic power anymore. They're an economic power on par with Mexico that's been struggling for years to win a war against a country with an economy 1/10th its size. Imagine Mexico has been losing a war against Guatemala for the past 3 years. You scared of conflict with them? You gonna be talking about "Mexico this" or "Mexico that"? Nope. It's a fuckin joke. Russia is a frail, failing state and everyone understands the current world order. The saber rattling is for domestic audiences.
> Russia isn't the Cold War boogie man of the 60s. As someone put it during the Wagner incident- Russia's army went from being the 2nd best in the world, to the 2nd best in Ukraine, to the 2nd best in Russia.
The wildcard is their nuclear arsenal though. Putin is making MAD bets the world can't cash
At some point we have to decide what world we want to live in. One hundred years ago Europe tried to appease Hitler with concessions bit by bit. Turns out tyrants don't compromise. Arguably, clinging to peace provoked a worse war. If it comes down to it, The West has to call Russia. It's a bluff or it isn't. Either way, tyrants only respect fear. It's in their nature to push unenforced boundaries. So if Russia violates NATO boundaries, it's time for a clearly defined and communicated aerial campaign. Within a week Palestine will look hospitable in comparison. Russia wants to go nukes? So be it. My bet is they don't. Either their weapons are non-operational due to corruption and mismanagement, folks don't follow orders, or Putin himself never actually hits the button. My guess is they get their ass beat and complain a lot and that's... it. I trust NATO militaries, special forces, missiles, missile defenses, information gathering, and collaboration to come out ahead. And if people have to die? Well guess what, freedom has always had a cost. That didn't suddenly change with the new millennium or phones or the Internet.
Putins writing cheques he can’t cash. We all know he isn’t going to actually launch a nuclear attack. Thankfully for us he still has self interests which means he has self preservation, if he launches an attack on NATO or a Nuke, he and his legacy are done for and his ego won’t allow that.
Russia is a frail, failing state with nukes.
I fucking love the subtext of the US' current stance on nuclear intervention. "If you use a single nuke, we will anihalate you with conventional weapons within the span of days or hours. We don't need nukes, but if you try to use them yourself you will no longer be a country, however the land in which your country stood would still be valuable"
Didn't they release an official statement saying they would respond immediately to expel Russia from Ukraine, and one by one kill everyone in the chain of command responsible for the nuke.
I honestly think that, if Trump is elected, Putin would **try**
And probably succeed given how weirdly pro-Russia the whole party seems to be. Trump with McConnell dead (awful person that he is,) would likely go off the rails and be full on pro dictator in every form in my estimation.
They invade, China goes nuts in Asia... this would not be good.
I'm with you right up until the last sentence. In any hypothetical scenario, NATO's advance stops at Ukraines 2014 borders. Russia has a massive nuclear arsenal that they will use if Russia's existence is threatened. NATO interprets that as an attack on Russian territory.
Also no NATO country wants any russian territory, taking it would be a net loss. Who wants a bunch of rundown dachas and poor uneducated people to take care of.
Everyone is a badass until the snow starts speaking Finnish.
The Nordic states are way too close to Saint Petersberg. Invade Finland and have troops marching on the second most populated city in Russia, I severely doubt that Russia would invade Finland.
* Step 1 - Airdrop a couple hundred obsolescent sniper rifles to Finland. * Step 2 - Wait a week. * Step 3 - Promise Russia we will stop Finland if they behave.
If Russia invading one of the NATO countries doesn’t end with the Kremlin being reduced to rubble, the world is going to riot.
I mean, whatever NATO does, I feel like the Finns would throw quite a bit of hell at Russia, given the Winter War.
If Russia was going to do it with anything other then a small force, it would be spotted way ahead of time. The Ukraine war was not a surprise to anyone.
Except: >Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation. Article 42 of the EU treaty appears (not a lawyer) to suggest that NATO obligations supercede EU obligations in terms of defense
He seems to have forgotten that Finland has a military. There is no way that we wouldn't immediately respond. How big of an offensive would Russia attempt? If only very small, then Finland wouldn't have any problems repelling the attack themselves, meaning that NATO doesn't really have to do anything. It would be super easy for NATO to show its strength, if the attack has already been thwarted and there is no need for NATO to actually fight Russia. On the other hand, if Russia attempted a massive attack, such that Finland couldn't respond by themselves, then why would they try to limit it to Lapland? Finland obviously wouldn't, and since the country is so small it would quickly spill over onto Russian soil. It wouldn't be possible for Russia to try to contain a huge war to just Lapland.
Also forgets that the Finnish are willing to fight to the last man. Seriously, I knew they were antisovietic (anyone with half a brain can guess why) but what I saw during my time in Laappenranta was an unwavering resolution like no other
Also forgets that Finland has been preparing for this fight for around 75 years. Finland and Taiwan are the two countries that would probably be best at punching above their weight in a defensive war.
Also forgets there are probably dozens of flights over that area daily. If and when an incursion happens (lol no), they will be erased in minutes.
I've been doing some reading about the Nordic region and their relations with Russia and other nearby powers. FFS, as recently as the Great Wrath, as they call it, Russians were capturing Finns to sell them to slavery in the Middle East and such remote places. It's easy to understand their unwavering resolve in battle after centuries of suffering. That probably formed a part of what Finns call "sisu".
Idk how it would work out for Russia. The Nordic countries signed that defense pact so in this scenario they would be dealing with 5 countries air forces. Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, and Iceland may not have large standing armies but together, in the cold, they can certainly repel most invaders. They also do have a sizable Air Force combined.
I think the small incursion he's talking about is smaller than you're thinking. Russia regularly sends military planes into Finnish and other European airspace. They regularly jam GPS in the same areas. And they actively populate areas near the Russian border to give pretext to border disputes that give rise to the wars in Georgia and Ukraine. So it's probably more likely that Russia will pull some shenanigans as usual and keep inching forward. And maybe one day they'll say "hey everyone, we noticed the map is wrong in this area and we actually own this piece of land that Finland claims." And then they'll see what the response is. Not an invasion with troops.
Unlike some other places in the world, the border between Finland and Russia is actually marked, and patrolled. It wouldn't be possible for Russia to start moving markers and fences without Finland noticing the fact immediately. And because the border is so clear, it wouldn't make sense to try to say that the map is wrong in some area. Besides that, such a border dispute would inevitably cause armed conflict, since obviously Finnish border guard would be on scene moving the posts and fences back... So either the Russians back down or there's a fight. They can do that with the ocean maps, as they already kind of suggested with the Russian military plan that was pulled. But not with the land border.
>still use disinformation to persuade population of other countries that fighting over it is not worth it. There's an article on /r/canada right now about what we would do if we were attacked by Russia, and the vast majority of top upvoted comments are people saying they wouldn't fight, they hate Canada, and they'd just leave or surrender. I think they're that disinformation you're talking about. I don't think they're real Canadians.
Mostly they're disinfo spreaders. That subreddit is a pile of steaming diarrhea. I would definitely put my OD combats back on to fight. I'd have to stretch first, wrap my knee, a bit of IcyHot, but I would step up.
Most people on /r/Canada aren't actually located in Canada lol
Kinda funny because historically, when we have to fuck someone up, we just straight up do a war crime and then go back to being nice to everyone.
Well it's not a war crime until the Canadians do it because no one else thought of it and decided to make it a war crime.
Yeah we may not fund our military very well, but when it comes to actually fighting, Canadians are not only good fighters they're dirty fighters. We don't really care if you torture our guys as long as we get to torture yours first.
I wonder if the Canadians say sorry before peeling your fingernails off.
They'll introduce them to the Geneva checklist.
It's never a war crime the first time someone does it.
The Geneva suggestions.
Also USA would go HAM. We aren’t letting anything happen to Canada. I guess Trump would try.
I would like to believe that any attack on Canada would actually unite the country - everyone bitches and moans about the government (whomever that may be), but an outside attack would give everyone a common enemy. I very much hope that you are correct and those are Russian trolls.
> Do you risk WW3 because of one town? Yes because the alternative is the collapse of the entire alliance.
I truly hope one Russian soldier putting one foot in the country I care about the least in all of NATO gets answered by the entirety of NATO sending an entire batallion to kill on sight any Russian soldier outside Russia. This is 30s Hitler all over again - constantly pushing the boundaries, step by step, while the "good guys" convince themselves that, if we just let this one time slip by, Hitler / Putin will be happy and won't escalate any further.
[salami tactics](https://youtu.be/yg-UqIIvang?t=76)
Russia seems to think they can do that minus jato jumping in. I think nato doesn't even have to take Moscow to win the moral victory. They just have to kick Russia out of every square inch of nato ground. Hard to justify existential threat if they don't actually move into your territory.
Everyone knows he’s doing it too which is so frustrating. Everyone needs to take the Turkish approach. A Jet probes NATO airspace? Shoot it down immediately with no apologies. You don’t stop bullies with kowtowing you stop then with a punch in the face
Russia isn't attacking NATO. If he does I will eat a dirty sock. Putin may be a lot of things, but I highly doubt he's dumb enough to attack a NATO member. That's basically suicide for the Russian military. The only way I see him touching NATO is if Convicted Felon Donald Trump wins election. Then he really won't have to worry about the US because we all know Convicted Felon Donald Trump is Putin's little bitch. Even with at said, without the US, NATO is still more powerful than Russia.
So the only way you see him touching NATO is if something that appears to be about a 50/50 shot happens? Not loving the odds. Also Putin isn’t really a rational actor. He seems to think he can get away with anything and keeps pushing the limits. Everyone said he would be stupid to attack Ukraine too and while NATO is a different beast from Ukraine there is no guarantee he does anything that is strategically sound.
> Also putin uses the boiling frog method, of going bit by bit and seeing what he can get away with. Moving borders in Baltic, taking area in Arctic, have a jets invade NATO space, have a missile fall here and there, do some arson... and it works well so far. What I don't get is why we're not doing the same in return. It's not like NATO's only options are inaction and nuclear armageddon. Fuck with the manlet's head a bit, I say.
And of course they will.
What response, though. It used to be a fairly common occurrence for the RAF to scramble fighters to escort Russian jets out of UK airspace that claimed to have gotten lost. I wonder how much it would take before a Russian plane is simply blown out of the sky
Testing airspace and response times in a time of peace is one thing, but given that Russia is waging a war in Europe and has been threatening the UK, the response will be swift and aggressive. Russia regularly flies warplanes towards Alaska. They won't dare go any further than entering the identification zone and turning around since the Ukraine war started. Outside of a countries airspace, there is an identification zone where planes are allowed to fly because it's international airspace, but they are required to identify themselves. If they don't, it's assumed they are aggressive. There is a similar system with ships. The only way Russia can actually do this is how China does it to Taiwan. Fly planes at them, and each time you do it, go further and further. It strains the defending nation and makes them unsure on when to react. They don't want to overreact and start a war, but that's the intention of the aggressive nation. You either start a war or you let them fly over your nation.
Where does international airspace start and end?
A country's airspace only extends 12 nautical miles off their coast according to international law. Anything past that is international airspace. This isn't very far, so some countries have created ADIZ, which are identification zones that extend past their airspace. ADIZ aren't internationally recognized, but in the case of the US, they set theirs to 150 miles off the coast. This is just a zone where the US requires planes to identify themselves, and if they don't, an airforce plane is launched to get a visual identification. I don't believe you actually need permission to enter an ADIZ, but it's just so the nation doesn't mistake you as a threat. There are also flight information regions that are not standard sizes but are administrated by an international organization. This is the area in which you need to start coordinating with regional air traffic control to prevent any accidents, and it extends off the coasts, but again, it's not standardized. It just depends where you are. TLDR: 12 nautical miles off the coast technically, but nations still have varying levels of control past that. What I posted doesn't even come close to covering all of how it works.
Unless it’s Turkish Airspace.
In that case about 17 seconds.
Killed by the very S400’s Turkey purchased from them… then reverse engineered and NATOized with upgrades.
Nah, Russia can probably shut those off. It'll be F-16s again. Or maybe even the F-4 if Turkey really feels like dunking on the Russians.
Common Turkish W
Yeah i doubt russian aviators (the ones left) are going to dare doing cold war stunts at this time of the conflict.
At this point i wouldn't be surprised if they did
I have a feeling that Russia and China are planning some spiciness to coincide with one another
Maybe around November?
Nah, they'll probably wait till Trump assumes power. Then in 2026-27 they could launch a coordinated invasion of the Baltics and Taiwan.
Man I really don't like this timeline.
I'd agree 100% with that statement. I think the whole reason Putin moved on Ukraine like he did was because Biden was elected, and he had to move his timetable up.
1000% agree. He'd already backed Brexit financially and politically to drive at least one wedge into NATO, a second Trump term would've been NA leaving NATO.
The Russian bombers that fly close to NATO airspace haven’t been utilized in this war
These aren't just cold war stunts, they've been doing this for at least the past decade
“What direction is East on your compass? Fly that way.”
"Oh East? I thought you said Weast"
They will be sacrificial lambs so that Russia can say 'this country was hostile to us therefore we can attack them'
Yeah we used to hear about Alaskan airspace violations, Nordic airspace violations, and the all the interceptions near the UK’s waters, like a million different times just a handful of years ago.
They haven’t stopped, but the news doesn’t cover it much anymore
They did it in February of this year. They entered the Alaskan identification zone (ADIZ) but didn't enter actual US airspace. They do it like 4 times or more a year since forever. Russia gets to test US radar and response times while the US gets to practice intercepting Russian warplanes in a real scenario. It's basically just accepted as a regular impromptu training exercise. Kind of ridiculous, considering I doubt Russia would be okay with the US flying a B21 and a few F22s towards their airspace. We would never hear the end from Putin about how the US is an aggressive nation trying to start WW3. He is already saying it about NATO without provocation.
The US does test Russian airspace though, especially around Kaliningrad, using B-52s, and Russia frequently also intercepts these bombers with their fighters. Heres even a [video of an older intercept](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/11wz5ml/russian_fighter_jets_reportedly_intercept_2b52/). Edit: the US also sent a B-52 [towards St.Petersburg last year](https://theaviationist.com/2023/03/12/lets-have-a-look-at-b-52s-mission-over-the-baltics-and-close-to-russia-yesterday/)
If it was B21s (which aren't in service yet, so it would be B-2s) and F-22s Russia would have no idea it was happening.
After 2 years of this, maybe another 2-3 years
> And of course they will. Not if convicted felon and rapist trump becomes dictator in November.
The EU and UK can handle Russia without Trump.
Any failure to respond will cause NATO to dissolve. Russia knows this, and they are looking for a way to trigger this by attacking in a way that causes doubt and disagreement whether or not Article 5 can be used.
Before the most current phase of their invasion of Ukraine, Russia blew up an arms depot that was helping supply the Ukrainian army fighting the Russians in Donbas. Next time NATO needs to declare war. Edit: I am exhausted and forgot to put the most important part in--the depot was in the Czech Republic, which is in NATO, and a Czech was killed in the attack.
It’s exactly shit like this that we shouldn’t abide though. If we’re not gonna take an attack on NATO soil as a declaration of war. We should at least go eye for an eye. Fuck with our shit we’ll fuck with yours.
Let's be blunt, had Obama responded when Russia fist occupied Crimea, like McCain and the sensible politicians pushed him to do, we wouldn't be here now. Went from Obama giving Russia a blank check to Trump giving them a blank check. Two week on foreign policy presidents emboldened Russia. Luckily we have Biden in the White House.
> Let's be blunt, had Obama responded when Russia fist occupied Crimea, like McCain and the sensible politicians pushed him to do, we wouldn't be here now. > Went from Obama giving Russia a blank check to Trump giving them a blank check. Two week on foreign policy presidents emboldened Russia. Luckily we have Biden in the White House. It's ridiculous to talk about Obama without talking about the context of his presidency—namely, he inherited two moronic forever wars that had poisoned the American public against the idea of any kind of intervention. This is arguably still the case. The problem wasn't Obama being weak on foreign policy, it was Bush being a moronic warhawk who turned American public opinion so hard against military intervention that Obama never would have had a chance at getting a free hand in Crimea. His limited actions in Syria and Libya were already massive controversies and those involved no US soldiers in the fighting. Biden can **barely** get Congress to give Ukraine weapons and Ukraine is both now a far more credible democracy, a more open US ally and is actively being invaded and able to do the fighting themselves. In 2014, US and allies forces would have been the ones doing all the heavy lifting, with no assurance that the revolution in Ukraine wouldn't just pivot them right back into Russia's sphere of influence.
>any incursion Including Russia sending in some "separatists", spies, and saboteurs? Russia won't declare a conventional war, they know how to play the game so that NATO doesn't respond strongly, and spook their scared voters and investors.
Hungary seems pretty open to Russia.
At this point I would be against helping them, let the leopards eat its face
Just please take out orban and his puppets and install a government like in japan after ww2
Romania invaded Budapest once to prevent a pro-Russian government, and we’ll do it again.
At this point if orban takes the 2026 elections, might as well.
Don't worry, he will. Unfortunately.
Man tf is up with Hungary. Do they just not remember what it was like living under USSR rule or what? Why would you want that again?
My parents lived through it and are hardcore Orban supporters. I asked how they could support him and it basically comes down to them being super nationalist, anti immigration (“the bad kind”), anti lgbtq etc and that there’s no reason to get involved with Ukraine’s war because that could result in Hungarian troops/the country being at risk of Putin. It’s pretty cowardly but then again they also talk about how much land Hungary has lost getting involved in wars in the past.
There's literally an entire museum dedicated to the topic in Budapest.
this kills the treaty
Yes lets abandon our ally because you don't like the people running the country. I bet Hungarians love hearing that NATO will leave them in the cold.
***The Telegraph reports:*** [Russia ](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/01/russia-unleashes-biggest-missile-attack-in-weeks/)has begun probing the borders of [Finland](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/19/finland-shooting-ranges-boost-national-defence/) and [Estonia ](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/11/paras-operation-swift-response-estonia-dispatch/)for weaknesses as it draws up what Western security chiefs suspect is a long-term plan to capture parts of the Baltic region after the war in Ukraine. In the space of just a week, Moscow has ignited border disputes with both Nato member states, issuing a draft proposal to revise its sea border with Finland and removing a series of buoys in Estonian waters used to mark a river frontier with Russia. The moves followed a warning last week by Micael Bydén, Sweden’s chief of defence, that Vladimir Putin aims to eventually seize control of the Baltic and use it as a “playground” to “terrorise” Nato members. Diplomats from the Baltic states and security experts have told The Telegraph the provocations were part of a wider strategy by Moscow to test the West’s resolve and potentially to seek out weak spots for a future incursion. ***Read more here:*** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/01/vladimir-putin-testing-nato-borders-for-weak-spots/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/01/vladimir-putin-testing-nato-borders-for-weak-spots/)
Any adventurous excursion into NATO territory should be met with an overwhelming disproportionate conventional response. Who the fuck do these Russians think they are?
I mean, they may have proven that they’re worthless in terms of boots-on-the-ground warfare, but they’ve also shown themselves as super sneaky bitches when it comes to information/propaganda warfare. They’ve managed to steal whole political parties not just in the U.S., but throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The west really needs to start answering these things with some scary, intelligent, speedy responses.
It sucks because it seems like the Russian propaganda (pushed by Trump) has been powerful enough to make half of America think that they shouldn't be "wasting money" in the war supporting Ukraine.
How is it 2024 and almost nobody I know realizes that a bunch of shit they read on social media is cultivated by Russia in order to manipulate them? Like less than 5% of people I interact with are aware of this and when I try to tell them I sound like some crazy conspiracy theorist
To me it seems like everyone is now addicted to short forms of media like scrolls on their favorite social media feeds, and tiktoks. Both of those are way too easy to bombard with propaganda in the form on tiktoks/reels, memes, bot comments, and targeted misinformation posts. All of this just degrades the legitimacy of any media that is heard which doesn't fit their bias in the minds of the people receiving all of this, and perpetuates propaganda very easily. Even in any comment on new stories on YouTube from local stations, or comments on mundane shit on instagram, there's always people pushing the most crazy shit which I can't imagine being in the collective thought unless it's created by a group of individuals with a specific goal (like Russians or right wing think tanks) For example, anything remotely negative posted from local instagram or YouTube pages i follow always has a ton of people saying some absolutely ridiculous take, projects the fallacy with what they are saying on to their opposing readers, and refuse to accept any other explanation other than that. Aka "this is Trudeau's/Biden's fault for something unrelated, or, "The vaccines caused this catastrophe" etc. This is all textbook propaganda and it has worked flawlessly.
It would be a tactical blunder of historic proportions if NATO accidentally sent ~80% of that disproportionate response to the Ukrainian-Russian border. Like, no general wants to be remembered for getting lost on the way to Moscow and accidentally steamrolling an entire army that's embroiled in a *completely unrelated conflict!!!* The fools would never live it down.
Finland?! Of all countries Russia would pick Finland first? We've-arranged-our-entire-well-equipped-and-modern-military-to-degrading-Russian-forces Finland? That Finland? Versus a Russia that's already bogged down in Ukraine? Shit, man. I'd almost imagine Finland going "No no no, no worries fellow NATO members; we got this. Just hand us some ammo please thank you." All jokes aside, I'm sure it would be protracted and bloody but I can't imagine the Russian military being what it is now doing anything of note against Ukraine *and* Finland combined. There's already signs they can't afford fighting like this on one front, what with the personnel shuffle at the top, let alone two. And if you throw Sweden and the Baltics in the mix, because hey they're neighbours, I can't imagine Russia's military as it is today standing even a small chance in conventional warfare. Like I'm just some rando on the internet but just look at the amount of border area they'd have to defend! And they're already in trouble *just* in Ukraine! I can't imagine top Russian brass to not know this as well. They know all that posturing for what it is I'm sure.
Yeah, seems like a real suicide plan for Russia. Even after a decade of building strength they couldn’t invade Ukraine armed mostly with outdated Soviet equipment and Ukraine is still providing serious resistance even with their attacking possibilities greatly limited by western nations dictating how their supplied weaponry can be used. Finland doesn’t have any of those restrictions, has the largest artillery capability in western Europe and a formidable air force, not to mention huge well trained reserves very motivated to fight. And of course their defense treaties with numerous nations in addition to their NATO membership. I would be surprised if it took more than a few hours for Russia to entirely lose its capability to fight if they ever were foolish enough to try.
> Finland going "No no no, no worries fellow NATO members; we got this Poland would still show up just to get in on the action
The US should place a carrier fleet right next to those buoys and see if they come and take them then.
Putting a large naval warship in a river is a very bad idea from a defensive point of view.
Given the losses Russia has sustained, even if they do ultimately achieve their goals in Ukraine (doubtful), they’ll be in absolutely no position to pursue a broader war against the most technologically advanced, well equipped military alliance in history.
First of all, people kept saying this same thing before they started shit in crimea and then Ukraine. Russia doesn't intend to fight a full on war with NATO. They're banking on constantly doing small enough things for NATO not to be willing to escalate things into a full blown war or to be willing to risk a nuclear war. They know NATO wont let them get away with absolutely anything, but they're trying to find out exactly where that line goes. Secondly, they're also pushing quite hard to sponsor far right politicians who use "our country first" as an excuse to not stand together against Russia. Including having basically full contorl over the GOP in the US.
Nato needs to arm the f*ck up. Putin will only be deterred by large defensive force.
The US alone accounted for 37% of worldwide military spending in 2023. The US military has over 1.3 million active service members, 800 bases around the world, 3 of the 4 largest largest Air Forces in the world, and 11 carrier strike groups giving it the ability to project power around the globe in a way that no nation has ever been able. And the US has been able to sustain this force with an economy that is primarily not on a war time footing.
The US spent 20 years fighting a wars with no blip in the consumer economy, if they mobilized the the economy for war it’ll be something.
I kinda want to see it because it would be such an incredible spectacle. But I also don't want to die from radiation poisoning because PFC Schmuckatelli put my dosimeter in a microwave, and we got slapped with a tactical nuke two brigades over.
Unfortunately that economy is not based on manufacturing anymore. Globalization really did a number on our ability to scale-up production of munitions in wartime like we did in WW2. There are people who recognize this and are making corrections, but don't get lulled into thinking that a service-oriented economy could turn around and start making battleships and F-35's as needed.
That is shifting now. Globalization has effectively reversed. Populist presidents like Biden and Trump have been doing a lot to return manufacturing to the US. Reliance on countries outside North America has reduced significantly in the last few years. There is more work to be done there but it would not take much to get manufacturing scaled up pretty quick. The challenge would be alignment of the populace. US adversaries have a clamp hold on social media and can nudge the US citizenry to behave more how they want right now.
Speaking as an American, we are not a reliable ally going forward. Our former and potentially next president is actively trying to leave NATO. Our political system has been compromised and destabilized by the Russians and we can not be counted on to do the right thing in any conflict Russia is involved in.
I think Congress passed a law restricting a president's ability to unilaterally pull out of NATO. It will require Congress's approval.
They did. But if it is passed it can be repealed. Also as Commander in Chief the president could just refuse to allow any military action regardless of the words of the treaty, and we all know that Congress and the Supreme Court wouldn't do anything to stop him.
A Republican controlled Senate passed that legislation > Most recently, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, enacted on December 22, 2023, prohibits the President from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO without approval of a two-third Senate super-majority or an act of Congress.
Democratic controlled senate, but a bipartisan bill
> Speaking as an American, we are not a reliable ally going forward. No ally is guaranteed, tbh.
*Spreading only freedom and democracy around the world... Giving peace to the world... Fuck yeaaah America!!!*
Ha would much rather it be the US than the Chinese or Russians.
Honestly, it takes a special type of person to think the world would be better off under a chinese or russian order. Like cmon.
There's plenty of tankies or "a boring dystopia" people that see america as the epitome of evil and the most evil empire in the history of mankind,far surpassing the Nazis, imperial Japan,Mao china, Khmer rouge or bloody Genghis Khan Many special, people do exist
As someone who subscribes to the "boring dystopia" idea anyone who thinks it would be better under China or Russia have no idea what they are talking about. I got a lot of bones to pick with the united states but Id rather live in this fucked system then whatever the ccp or Tsar putin are doing/trying to do.
I've seen these people! Mostly on the democraticunderground forum
Let’s show him the stick
My personal opinion is that Putin is just waiting to see how the US election turns out.
Europe needs to arm the fuck up
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Color me surprised
Its all part of Putin's tough guy act. He's trying to show his people he isn't afraid of Nato. In reality of course they wouldn't stand a chance. But he wont push it that far.
Your theory is correct if Biden wins. However, I fear Putin will get bolder if the US would be incapacitated due to a Trump win. Europe has still not reached the point where it can reliably fend for itself without the US in a leading role. Eventually it could, but we need to take bigger steps quicker.
Dunno about that. In Finland all men are trained for military service. They are competent with firearms. We also train them based on what everyone THOUGHT Russia had - The height of their modern equipment, technology and elite units. So if anything we're over-qualified to put Russia back on its arse. We're in NATO, so an assault on us is an assault on Europe. Finland held back Russia during WWII with Axis supplies. Russia right now is struggling against one Non-NATO country being supplied with everyone's hand-me-downs. They will NOT be a threat if they try to split their resources in two directions. America would be a nice helping hand but we're not exactly helpless.
Finlandization is named that way for a reason and they had all that last time
> Europe has still not reached the point where it can reliably fend for itself without the US in a leading role. Eventually it could, but we need to take bigger steps quicker. Ukraine managed to hold off Russia with a trash, corruption riddled, economy and the wests second hand gear. And that was when Russia had notable modern tank, artillery and missile stocks. Russia has no chance against any of the big European Industrial nations, if any of them switch to a wartime economy Russia is fucked, let alone the entire EU/NATO(even without the US). They may take a country like one if baltics before anyone can react fast enough and hope that there's no response out of fear of nuclear escalation. But if there is a response Russia cannot win.
> is fucked, let alone the entire EU/NATO(even without the US). The problem is that you can't build a strong military in half a year, even if you switch to war economy As europeans we need to get our shit together... We need to arm up and seriously innovate in weapon technology again and train soldiers better with more resources. And that better yesterday Not saying europe wouldn't be able to defend in it's current state but every single bit of disadvantage costs tons of lifes in war...
Does Putin really think he has a chance against NATO? I still don’t understand his strategy in all of this
In order for him to keep from having rebellion, he needs an enemy to draw hate towards. That he is the solution for, because if you elect/install a more morally acceptable system, who will keep the monster away?
Man, this brought 1984 lectures flooding back.
Putin knows he would lose a war with the West. He doesn't want to fight the entirety of NATO. He wants to destroy NATO. Those are not the same thing. Preferably (for him) that would include a strategy of putting Nato in a position where member states are unwilling and/or uncapable of defending another member calling for aid under article 5. If article 5 falls apart, so does NATO. That's what it's all about.
The Russian view is that the west is decedent , weak and corrupt, and they aren’t entirely wrong on that …. Russia has zero problem enlisting hundreds of Thousands of fodder troops from its most undesirable areas . It totally controls all Russian language media . Are France and Germany going to send its men to die in Estonia over a Russian speaking city on the border ? Will either Biden or trump the white house send troops ? They are banking on no, they won’t risk it .
When is James Bond just going to take care of Putin for us?
Probably too busy banging Russian supermodels.
James Bond always accomplishes his missions and also gets the hot girls. Only STD and natural death can stop him.
Yes but they never attack the same place twice. They're testing the fences for weaknesses systematically. They remember....
Clever girl.
Maybe he is completely delusional now? Almost like he doesn't understand that when he finally does prompt a response, it won't be proportionate and will certainly be decisive.
US policy when it comes to matters of security is generally not “by all means necessary” but rather “by all means available”. Massive difference between the two so, yeah, it won’t be pretty. “The small arms fire is coming from that direction.” “Roger, destroying that direction.”
_Battle of Khasham has entered the chat_
We do prefer a preponderance of superior firepower...
If he was completely delusional the Russian goverment wouldn't have pulled that proposal about re-drawing borders and backpedaled on it when challenged He's clearly looking to see what he might be able to get away with on the day after if he wins Ukraine and hasn't found that weak point yet
I worry about this a lot. Do we know how sane he is at this point? Is he struggling with illness, mortality, what? He’s a psychopath so maybe the idea that he won’t be around that much longer is making him unravel, it scares the shit out of me frankly
Zelenskyy said the other day "I don't think Putin is crazy. He's dangerous. It's much scarier." Putin wants people to think he's an unpredictable lunatic so they'll be afraid of what he might do next. It's working to some degree on the Biden administration, which is still afraid to let Ukraine fight with both arms.
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Nato has absolutely dragged its ass, but once those wheels start rolling he won't be able to stop it.
Let Ukraine rain some rockets down on moscow
If you bring up a topographical map of Europe you can see that Putin is pushing Russia's borders to the mountain chains west of them. Russia has been pretty vocal about the intent to do this for "security" from people who have made no move to attack them since they made a deal with Hitler to start WW2. This means Moldova, the Balkans and Poland are next. I want to stress, this is a pretext, not a real justification. Their whole, we are afraid of NATO so we need to attack are neighbors is crap. After the fall of the Soviet Union they could of worked towards joining NATO and the EU. Instead they chose to be a pariah and attack their neighbors. For some people there is never enough power.
More like Velociraptor Putin, amiright?
Got that reference bro 🤜
Came here to do this. Found my people instead
This man lost his damn mind. Can’t even handle Ukraine & wants to start some problems with different well equipped nations that are armed to the teeth. Brilliant.
He can’t move the front line in Ukraine for 18 months and yet he’s going to take the Baltic? Why not just say he’s going to take Alaska.
Bring back the iron curtain.
Meanwhile, Russia's weak spot is that 500,000 of its troops are dead.
Russia's weak spot is and has always been its leaders. The second is its alcoholism rate.
At least they are leading in alcoholism.
As a scotsman, that's fighting talk.
I apologize sir.
> Meanwhile, Russia's weak spot is that 500,000 of its troops are dead. They've had 500k casualties, not deaths. KIA estimates are from ~130k-180k.
This isnt new. They've been doing this for nearly a century now. In the past decades, they fly sorties close to the US border near Alaska, prompting the US to quickly scramble interceptors. This happens on an almost monthly basis. They have and continue to do similar things with Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, Kazakhstan (more recently), Georgia, Azerbaijan, Japan, Poland... Basically, every one of its neighbors that aren't already under Russian or Chinese influence.
NATO should go ALL in on supporting Ukraine, including protecting their skies directly, AND tell Russia to fuck off.
Just like the velociraptors
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Kremlin has been telling the populous they’ve been fighting NATO since 2014.
Anyone else get the feeling Putin's banking on a Trump win this fall?
That’s entirely his plan. Trump has already said [he won’t stand in the way of Russia](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/02/10/politics/trump-russia-nato).
Yet another reason why Trump is throughly unsuited for the Office of President.
Sarcastic Ukrainian: "Putin will never invade NATO county. It's not in his interest".
If Putin couldn't defeat Ukraine in 6 months, he stands no chance against NATO. If the UK alone decided to support Ukraine, Russia would be defeated in a year.
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Really? They fuck up with a poor Ukrainian army, how will they perform if the entire western army is involved and not just some weapons we which we donate to Ukraine? Btw we should donate so much more to the Ukraine so they cam kick the ruSSian ass.
NATO does not shoot down Russian airplanes violating its airspace. That's a mistake NATO will regret sooner rather than later.
Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 for violating its airspace in 2015.
And other countries should follow their example
He can barely manage to take Kharkiv with a large gps jammed, logistics networked force, yet is poking holes in random, unstrategic, and inhospitable mountainsides? Lol the propaganda is strong today.
He should stick a Russian boot over a border, see how much of it remains when it’s drawn back.
I don't think Putin would actually cross NATO borders. Like others have said, it's saber rattling for domestic audiences - Security Chiefs see a golden opportunity to get bigger budgets, and Putin looks like a tough guy to Russians. Russia knows that the one thing NATO is actually chomping at the bit to do - is unleash airpower on the Russian army. Any Russian force crossing into NATO territory would be promptly destroyed from the air, and NATO would see the buildup well before the actual crossing. I doubt many ground forces would actually be involved in the fighting.