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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16006 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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Such accusations against the AfD merely mean in practice that mainstream political parties in Germany are willing to sleepwalk into another big and disastrous European war for the third time in the span of 110 or so years and the AfD is the main opponent of that. In that sense they're the perfect counterexample of the stereotypically warmongering idiotic Germans.

That's unserious. Russia is already failing to take on Ukraine; I strongly doubt they'll pick a direct fight with the EU anytime soon; i.e., in this century.

If Russia makes peace with Ukraine, Russia would almost certainly have the military strength to rapidly overrun 1 or all of the Baltics at the very least. Going to a drone-based force has made Ukraine and Russia much stronger than they were previously. Other nations will only slowly assimilate this into their own militaries. Russia would sweep aside Baltic resistance quite easily, and then the only question is whether NATO or the EU would come to the rescue. NATO barely exists at this point with Trump at the helm for both ideological and practical (Iran) reasons. The EU loves can-kicking and deferring collective action. If Russia accomplished their operation quickly, which they probably could, then the rest of Europe could say "whelp, guess it's a fait accompli" and then blame America with "w-w-we trusted you to rescue us!".

It's happening the other way around, I think.

What way is that?

The EU leadership seems to be convinced that they can force a Russian capitulation by escalating the war.

Yes, that seems to be the ideological bit they have committed to. Regardless of whether that plays out as they imagine: Russia is not winning in any way that indicates that they could pick a fight with the EU and succeed in it.

The can't win, but they do likely have the capacity to ensure everyone loses.

Are you implying they'll roll into Estonia and threaten the US and NATO into submission with nukes?

Yes. I don't think that's a likely scenario. But if the premise of the hypothetical is "EU leadership escalates the war towards an outcome where Russia straight loses", then that is an option that Putin has available.

That's why I am much more concerned about escalating conflict with Russia than I was about Venezuela or Iran. Only one of them has a "global catastrophe" button.

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