Crowflies
3mo ago
(Nature endorsing Biden).
Nature is owned by Springer Nature, a private for-profit publisher. Nature having a political stance does not differ from, say, The Economist.
Crowflies
3mo ago
If it's so real, why can virtually no countries in Europe maintain their commitments to NATO spending?
The "virtually no countries" is completely not true. The European defense spending have been rising rapidly even before Trump came to office. Only a handful of NATO members do not spend 2% GDP and the number of allies exceeding the limit crossed 23 in 2004. There are now a few countries that spend more than US without having global ambitions and open ocean navies.
Russia couldn't capture Ukraine (so far because the war is still ongoing) because Ukraine had the largest land military in Europe apart from Russia, had a vast air defense stockpile inherited from Soviet Union, and had a military that fought with some various intensity with Russia since 2014 and had experience. On top of that, Ukraine is large and has a large defense depth. Putin thought Ukraine will just not fight.
Nobody knows what Putin thinks but if he succeeds in Ukraine, he has a war machine, veterans (including criminals that would be better kept in the army), war economy that would crumble if demobilized. At this point, the risk of continuing the conquest may not be larger than the risk of demobilizing. Russia is no match to a unified NATO (even ex-US) but fractured and indecisive NATO is vulnerable.
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