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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   35145 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025

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Tens of thousands of Ukrainians fought in Bakhmut, a town of 100k people along a thousand km long line. They lost.

France, Britain and Germany would truly struggle to deploy tens of thousands of soldiers in a high intensity conflict in Ukraine. They would struggle to defend a single city. There is no European army that could hold a sizeable portion of the front except for Ukraine/Russia. The scale of the Ukraine war is vastly beyond what any European leaders have imagined for decades.

Sweden and Finland can call on ~14 battlefield-capable brigades between them. Poland has a few combat-ready divisions. Germany could probably scrape together a single active division, France the same.

Really only the former three would actually be able to put troops in the line next week. They are the ones who, bordering Russia, have been feeling the heat the longest and have actually done the work of preparing.

Sweden has 3 brigades to defend 1500 km. Sweden's military is remarkably under dimensioned. Finland has a more sizeable military but needs the force at home. Moving the military to the other side of Europe leaves the home front vulnerable while providing Russia with a reason for war.

They could siege Leningrad again, that worked out pretty well for them last time, right?

I mean they ended up better than pretty much all of the Axis powers except maybe Italy

Yeah, I wasn't being sarcastic, they came out of it amazingly well all considered.

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