cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59867996
German media outlets Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR, and NDR also cite the report, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears intent on testing NATO’s Article 5 guarantees. The alliance’s mutual defence clause obliges member states to come to one another’s aid if attacked. The assessment suggests Putin may seek to challenge how seriously that commitment would be honoured.
They burned through their Soviet stockpiles of artillery and tanks in 3 years fighting Ukraine, what makes anyone think they could fight NATO?
Depends which side the US is on
Bingo.
And also depends on which side China is on. Their war production dwarfs even the US, and I find it difficult to believe that it will all be spent fighting the US and Taiwan.
There is a very real possibility that these three countries gang up together and divide the world among themselves.
At this point it seems much more likely that the US sides with Russia than China. The EU is their largest trading partner, they’d never risk losing that market.
Why would Russia risk alienating China?
In realpolitik, China is the more desirable partner than the USA.
Russia has alienated China already by being an unstable and unpredictable mess of a country.
The problem is China is right there, and a lot of parts of Russia used to have Chinese names.
Mostly, Siberia is literally infinite resources, the kind of thing China desperately needs.
Why would either need to side with Russia? They only have 140m people, a untrustworthy and soon to be unstable government. If you’re aim is to carve up territory then you don’t give a potential long term adversary access to half a billion people.
Alliances aren’t forever. Hitler and Stalin made an agreement not to fight each other, which worked to the benefit of both for a while, and the Trump admin and Putin are more closely aligned ideologically than those two ever were. Alliances can be made for expedience and short-term gain, even with a potential long-term adversary.
You don’t ‘need’ Russia, but it’s mutually beneficial to have them on your side.
US has a sizeable advantage in terms of sheer firepower but lacks the collective will to side with Russia in a conflict with NATO. To be clear, the Trump administration might try to side with Russia and the initial consequences of that would be very serious. But, long term, I think that would bring a swift end to the US’ global dominance. Potentially even bringing us to the point of total collapse.
That’s just one American’s perspective though.
As an European, could you please collapse before siding with Russia over us? That would be great, thanks.
Alternatively, and much preferred, just kick the whole Trump administration into the ocean, hold your own Nuremberg trials and start refreshed into the future. K thx bye.
Alternatively, and much preferred, just kick the whole Trump administration into the ocean, hold your own Nuremberg trials and start refreshed into the future. K thx bye.
I like the way you think.
Don’t worry, we would.
The south would demand we side with the champions of (white) Christian culture.
The coasts would finally have enough and we’d continue the civil war we should have finished 160 years ago.
But is there a downside for the guy running our country?
they have the US on their side now
Their unlimited supplies of Russian delusions of superiority.
So I just looked into the numbers quickly and am probably off by a bit
NATO has 3.2m active military personnel and 2.2m in reserve
Russia has 1.5m active and 2m reserve
BUT, American forces make up 1.3m of NATOs active and 800k reserve
If I were to randomly combine the American army with Russia rather than NATO for no particular reason,
NATO would have 1.9m active 1.4m reserve and the Axis-sorry I mean Russia and America would have 2.8m active 2.8m reserve…
Maybe this is a suicidal plan, Putin is going to die and wants to take the world with him. From what we know about him, he is megalomaniacal and sadistic enough to want something like this.
He must also be counting on the United States being out of NATO by then, maybe Trump will even send some soldiers to help his Russian allies.
The number of personnel won’t really matter here past a threshold. Looking at Ukraine Russian war it’s clear most of the fighting will be done with suicide drones, ones that can be produced en mass by any country more or less.
There’s no way the US military would side with Russia, even if ordered to.
Would you say they’re at the top of that slippery slope, or part way down it already?
Maybe today’s top brass wouldn’t, but there are probably enough JD Vance types among the MAGA lovin’ grunts to promote, to structure an army that’ll take Trump at his word. If he says Europe were the enemy all long, enough times, with enough conviction…
Wouldn’t have believed it myself until this year.
George W. Bush convinced Americans that France was an enemy for a while, and his supporters lapped it up. Today Trump has large chunks of his cult believing that Canada is an enemy. There’s apparently no limit to the absurdities and poison people will swallow if their beloved cult leader tells them to.
famous last words.
Considering that Putin got his ass absolutely beat by a small country using second hand and surplus military hardware he’d have to be an absolute moron to pick a fight with NATO. Literally the only card he has to play is nukes and that’s kind of an all or nothing sort of move. If nukes are off the table any concerted push by NATO is going to be mopping up in moscow within a few months.
That’s also assuming the US doesn’t get serious about it, but considering Putin’s puppet in the Whitehouse there’s a pretty good chance the US would quit NATO and so wouldn’t factor in. Even without the US though Russia has demonstrated the rest of NATO is far more than sufficient to handle Russia.
Poland + Ukraine is enough to practically destroy Russia.
Honestly I really hope putin just croaks over and dies at this point, the old fuck has practically killed endless amounts of his own people just for land. He can’t use the excuse of “Hur dur NATO is encroaching on my borders via Ukraine” because Finland is in NATO now thanks to his stupidity.
He’s gambling with WW3 with a high chance of losing it.
And he can’t keep America under his grasp forever, by the end of the decade trump could lose the election or get couped by anyone.
Redo the calculations with the USA fighting on Russia’s side, and things start to look different.
Trump doesn’t have enough pull yet to make that happen, and it’s unlikely he will anytime soon. He could manage to get the US to sit out the fight, but actively committing US forces to help Russia isn’t going to happen.
Then again he’s going on with cable cutting and other idiocies. I’m not sure some kind of stupid “test run” could be ordered by him, like attacking one of the Baltic countries or Finland.
If the war stops BTW then his days are probably numbered so maybe he’ll need some stupid war just to stay in power/alive.
10yrs? That long? Is Putin really that healthy? He looks like he has Cushing’s.
End of the decade is 31-12-2029, which is about 4.7 years away, not 10.
10 years would be “within/in/over a decade”.
for what?
King of the Ash Pile is a cool title
Take out putin now and set the stage for a world at “peace” with humanity’s eye back on a civilized future.
Bunch of rag outlets fearmongering. No way Russia will attack NATO which has nukes.
Hey, some years ago we said the same about Russia invading Ukraine. Maybe Russia’s actions aren’t directed by logic.
Maybe Russia’s actions aren’t directed by logic.
They are, just not the kind of logic that considers human lives valuable.
And it won’t lead to the expected outcome.
If Russia knows the USA won’t respond, and may even help, this may work differently. It would take a lot to get any NATO country to fire a nuke, especially if they didn’t have US support, and Russia knows this.
Lol, imagine thinking the USA and Russia would be on opposite sides when we have multiple Russian assets in the White House. And in Congress. And probably in the supreme court.
France has nukes too.
One day Russia is flat broke and losing the war.
The next they are preparing to invade Europe with their epic weapons stockpile
Honest question. If Russia nuked Krakow, would America retaliate with nukes? Would France? England?
I don’t think so. It’s not even clear nato would declare conventional war.
Mutually assured destruction only works for countries with nukes. Am alliance is no real deterance.
