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I think the second point still is ridiculous, because there is neither the means (unless you really flog your brain into accepting the "the enemy simultaneously weak and strong" pattern that is every propagandist's dream goal) nor really the motive (unless the Baltics really decide to force it by blockading Kaliningrad or the like) for them to take on NATO. Ukraine really was, in many ways, sui generis: at the outset it was almost 50% culturally and politically Russian, it hosted the best European warm-water port Russia had (and if you accept that the Russians did not want to surrender it, that alone almost made the path to the current situation inevitable - the Maidan government wanted to tear up the lease so Crimea had to be taken, and the post-Maidan governments wanted to starve out Crimea so more territory had to be taken), and it's a single-authority transit country linking Russia to the easternmost loyal hydrocarbon customers it has in Europe (Hungary and Slovakia), which the pro-Atlanticist forces in Europe and Ukraine were very keen on using against them through out the 200Xes.
Well I was trying to steelman OP’s thesis so I had to accept at least some of his assertions. I meant it’s not unreasonable to assume that Russian forces have possibly taken enough damage to make it not feasible to mount an invasion of Poland even if they wanted to. I don’t agree but I don’t laugh in his face for making the argument. Personally I think this whole boondoggle has probably increased the capability of the Russian army and made them more likely to go for Poland or the Baltic states, like one of those self-fulfilling prophecies from a Greek tragedy.
Well, we shouldn't forget that Poland, too, has actually greatly increased the size and funding of its army since 2022. Besides, how likely is it really that there would be no NATO response in case of a Russian invasion of the Baltics/Poland? (even if it's not immediate, the rest of the EU certainly would get involved, and if it possibly goes badly for them, I don't see a world in which the US stands by idly)
It seems to me that you just need to believe a lot of fairly peculiar (and likely unacceptable to any in the pro-UA camp apart from people like Julian Roepcke who went off the deep end in contrarianism) things to imagine a Russian invasion of Poland or the Baltics being successful: either you really think that NATO is already lending Ukraine most of its power (and so Russia is really currently barely prevailing in a stalemate against the collective West) and so Poland and friends will be weaker when Russia comes for them because they were already stripped bare, or that NATO is not giving Ukraine that big a fraction of its power and so the current stalemate means that Russia and Ukraine alone are about evenly matched and each stronger than NATO.
(Mind you, technically I think the picture is more complicated than that because the non-entry of the West has currently kept Russia several steps below the top of the escalation ladder, e.g. by leaving NPPs and civilians alone. However, to use this in your argument, you would have to concede that Russia is not currently evilmaxxing, which is also taboo for pro-UA.)
I think it’s plausible for a few reasons:
Since the Maidan revolution, Russia has had every paranoid fear of NATO being out to get them validated by NATO. I think Russia genuinely views it as an existential struggles. Both the leadership and a good chunk of the people.
Poland just isn’t as well suited to turning into a four year grinding trench war. It’s geographically a lot smaller, it’s land army manpower is somewhere between 15 percent and 50 percent the size of the Ukrainian Army. Most of the modernization went into magic beans (F16s, M1 tanks) that are serviceable but apparently not that magical in modern warfare.
God only knows what the hell is going to be going on in Burgerland in six months, much less three years. They may or may not get involved.
Europe is in pretty good shape to drip-feed equipment to Ukraine. But if that turned into “immediately mobilize 115 divisions and rush them into Eastern Europe while hypersonic missiles are crashing into every railway station and airfield Between Paris and Warsaw” they would be up Shit Creek.
If Ukraine really does fall I suspect a lot of countries are going to rapidly revaluate their commitment to the cause.
I don't think this is as clear-cut as you want it to be: maybe it is, but we also just saw a brief war between Israel and Iran in which the former was seemingly able to establish air dominance with modern "magic beans" against a country equipped with largely modern Eastern bloc air defense systems. I don't think Iran even claims to have shot down a manned aircraft (compare to this years' India-Pakistan skirmish, which had several).
I don't think it's completely crazy to suggest that a Russia-NATO conflict might look, in the air, like a scaled up version of the Israel-Iran conflict, and I'd expect air dominance to make it pretty one-sided. It's also believable that it'd fall into something looking more like the present Ukraine conflict where manned air assets are of limited utility. But for anyone thinking it's a good idea to start such a conflict, to steal a good movie quote: "You've got to ask yourself one question, 'Do I feel lucky?'. Well do you, punk?"
Israel is a country the size of New Jersey, with one of the strongest air defense networks in the entire world. They burned through their entire interceptor stockpile in about a week. After that, they were looking at having their airfields and critical infrastructure systematically dismantled by Iranian missile strikes. Burgerland had to force Israel into a ceasefire because Burgerland didn’t want to have to spend 1/3 of its entire national stockpile (that took 30 years to build up) refilling Israel’s interceptor batteries for another week. Air Defense is just generally on the back-foot in this century. Now picture Europe, an area about 500 times the size of Israel, with hardly any air defense batteries. They would be getting systematically diced up from day one, including all those airfields and hangers that NATO air units are supposed to be flying missions out of.
Also, this all hinges on the United States actually entering the conflict, which nowadays I would call a pretty big if.
I think "dismantled" is overselling it here. Sure, burning through interceptors isn't great, but you seem to be comparing "Iran got in a few good hits" to "Israel was free to hit all but the hardest targets for as long as it cared to." There seems to be this common bias towards seeing Western nations as glass cannons, where only a few good hits are required to bring them to their knees, and you can win as long as you can tank whatever they throw at you (which is maybe limited by "moral" concerns about indirectly harming civilians) until you manage that and negotiate an outcome that favors your objectives. I think if you're against the West fighting a war they got involved in by choice, maybe this works to convince democracies to choose peace (see Vietnam, et al). I don't think it immediately follows that this applies to something more existential (see Israel vs. Gaza, or Yamamoto at Pearl Harbor).
If landing (conventional) ballistic missiles into enemy capitals was a decisive victory, the Germans would have won WWII.
Maybe true, but this is still a pretty big "if", and the existence of the question has prompted Europe to start actually investing in defense.
Iran only got in a few hits because the war stopped when the interception rate dropped to about 65-70 percent. Given the volume they were throwing at Israel that could have done a lot of damage if most or all them were getting through. And during WWII the weapons were a lot less precise. Now with Israel I doubt they were in too much danger because at worst they could throw a couple of nukes and scare the Iranians enough to call it off (not even getting into the probable US intervention that would probably come before that). When you’re fighting the country with the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet that wouldn’t be a reliable backstop.
That’s really the problem here. It’s not that western countries are glass cannons, in a lot of ways they are pretty capable. But when you are backing a huge nuclear armed world power into a existential corner it’s a much more difficult situation. And I’m sure someone will draw the right sigils in blood on floor to call forth @Dean and five other posters to explain to that this isn’t really an existential situation for Russia and that they wouldn’t do shit in response to their entire air defense network being glassed by NATO SEAD, but I’m pretty sure they genuinely feel that way and aren’t just being pricks for no reason.
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5: Which ones specifically?
4: Russia hasn't even managed to wipe out Ukraine's aviation or train network yet, and most of Europe would be rather further away.
2: It's about half the size (of presumably full-sized Ukraine), plus Poland and the Baltics have Russia by the balls due to Kaliningrad (whatever happens later on, it probably gets turned into a parking lot or occupied/taken hostage in the opening weeks of a conflict)
1: I mean, if Ukraine falls, what further ways does NATO have to validate Russia's fears? There will be no immediate Russian objectives like controlling Ukraine that NATO can actively prevent, so the ball will be in their court. If they then actually start something (like the aforementioned moves on Kaliningrad), then sure, all bets are off, but so far I thought the lizardmen were trying to be a bit more subtle about the whole "look how dangerous and unhinged they are, if we punch them they punch back" schtick.
Russian victim complex is as bad as SJW. Why is everyone mean to me after I belittled and degraded them at every opportunity. I am such a victim boohoo. Maybe thats why progressives love Russia, they love a victim narrative especially if its against the USA.
I thought progressives hated Russia now?
I think 2D3D is referring to the particular brand of leftist (of /r/stupidpol origin or similar) who are so anti capitalist and anti American that they love the old Soviet Union (including its gulags and glorious strongman and kulak-butcherer Stalin) and anyone opposed to the West today. Palestine, Russia, etc. They'll cry loudly about "the genocide" (Gaza) while also supporting a brutal conquest of Ukraine and their NATO allies.
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It's particularly egregious coming from such an abusive, macho, might makes right, corrupt imperialist culture with a 550 year history of aggressing against neighbors. Russia could unironically use a bit of Russian Guilt being taught in their schools.
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