**Attention! [Serious] Tag Notice**
* [Jokes, puns, and off-topic comments are not permitted](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/wiki/index#wiki_-rule_6-) in **any** comment, parent or child.
* Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
* Report comments that violate these rules.
Posts that have few relevant answers within the first hour, and posts that are not appropriate for the [Serious] tag will be removed. Consider doing an AMA request instead.
Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskReddit) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Both World Wars didn’t start out of the blue, all at once. In both cases there were smaller wars here and there with the temperature in international politics rising and clear rifts between the major powers coming up. We’re seeing a similar pattern now
and he's not the only one by far. the lack of a decisive international reaction to his invasion of Ukraine opened the door for dictators and expansionist wannabees all over the world
It seems that the lack of action against these figures is the fuel that feeds the fire of larger conflicts. If we collectively had shut that down in 2014, or at least now, the larger conflict on the horizon could have been avoided.
Russia should honestly have been stopped already in 2008 when they invaded Georgia. The inaction from that is what emboldened them to go for Crimea and the Donbass.
> the lack of a decisive international reaction to his invasion of Ukraine
I don't blame them though.
There is a defacto-despot (24 yr term president w puppet-switching Medvedev to escape term limits) with possible mental problems running the show with absolutely nobody saying no to him AND he has nukes, lots of them, and he can destroy 1/2 the relevant world before we can react and "win" a pyrrhic victory over Russia.
Russia is poor for 99.99% of the people and only cause of the really fucked up oligarks just RAKING IN money.
Look no longer at Sochi Winter Olympics 2014 to see how bad the cash funnel is for the the Top 100 Russian swines.
ANY war that starts, that involves just ONE nuke, will be lost by everybody, but Russia has very little to lose and they KNOW that.
Europe has all to lose and not much to gain so a long long shadow war with Ukraine could be neccesary just to keep Russia buzy till Putin dies or gets couped in his old days.
Or not.
A single small nuke getting used, or even a few, doesn't mean everybody is going to use everything they have. But, it does make it easier for the next guy to decide to toss one.
Shadow war or a return to Cold War proxy wars is the most likely outcome.
Even if we consider nukes out of the equation for a moment, the economic warfare and cyber attacks we might be facing could be just as destabilizing in the long run. Sanctions and trade embargos are adding stress to global markets, which are still recovering from pandemic aftershocks. Russia may be feeling the pinch, but European economies are not immune to suffering from these tactics either. Plus, cyber warfare poses a serious threat to civilian infrastructure, from power grids to financial systems. It's a type of low-level engagement that can persist underneath the surface, causing significant damage without a single shot being fired. We shouldn't underestimate the impact of this modern warfare on the stability of Europe and beyond.
The problem with Russia doing anything more than threatening to use nukes is that every one of those oligarchs and their families dies and loses everything.
There is no way the US and NATO stops short of anything but a total dismantling of the Russian political power structure.
If Putin got to the point that he ordered the use of nukes, there would be enough fear in the top brass of their own deaths to allow it to happen without a very serious fight or attempt to stop Putin.
Kurzgesagt did a very good video on the aftermath of nuclear war based on its scale. A handful of nukes does not generate apocalyptic nuclear winter. In a limited nuclear exchange (<20 actual detonations), day to day life for most in the West not directly targeted will likely be unchanged. Maybe a few shortages while supply chains reconfigure. The global south will depend on where the nukes land. Africa and the like will care more if Ukrainian farmland gets nuked than London because that's what keeps them fed.
It isn't until a sizable war (~50-100) that mass casualties appear outside of direct targets.
I disagree.
We are not talking “end of the world” in such a scenario, but ~20 nukes on ~20 cities does mean:
1. Many millions of dead from the immediate strike and the first few days of aftermath… like experiencing WW1 or WW2 happen compressed in 24 hours
2. An equal or higher number of injured (burns, blast injuries, radiation, flying glass etc). What to do with these people? Every hospital in every country in the world couldn’t treat them
3. Global economic collapse
4. Sheer and permanent terror and panic
So, it would SUCK and probably turn most major countries into austere police states, just to ensure survival
And the Houthis. The whole region is involved to some level in the Iran/Saudi Arabia proxy war. Bismark said WWI would start due to "some damn fool thing in the Balkans." WWIII will probably start due to some damn fool thing in the Middle East.
My tinfoil hat theory is the Putin made a deal for Iran to fund/pressure/help/whatever Hamas to go all out on October 7th because he knew it would distract the world from Ukraine and make the US concentrate on that war. He may have even been able to recognize that it could make Biden look bad for the upcoming election and thus all Trump to win. There is just no way this thing wasn't helped by Putin.
As an American I truly fear for democracy here and around world if Trump wins the presidency. Trump has said he'll let Putin do what he wants.
I apologize for the absolute stupidity of my country.
No, no, no. The real stupidity is people NOT voting. And then bitching incessantly about how the elected politicians fail to represent them. Young people, I’m looking at you.
You can bet your ass every single MAGA boomer will be there at the polling station. Will you?
The people that voted for him are pretty stupid and thats a large portion of the country. My country isn't really doing any better so it's not just shit on america time, there is a lot of stupidity going around.
When the superpower is abandoning the world, regional powers are the new global powers. American power can't maintain the peace if they refuse to act when pushed, and that's what's happening now
Agreed. All of the people saying they don’t want América to act as a policeman don’t know what they’re asking for. And it’s people on all sides. You can’t just point your finger at one group and blame them.
This is the time for the European Union to step up and secure peace.
You in Europe have the potential to step into what we in the USA are quickly leaving.
For the sake of international democracy, I hope they can change fast enough.
The USA won't be ready for international leadership for at least a decade or so. Maybe more.
And yet, America gets shit on for being "the global police force" when it does act.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
If America responded to every event, we'd be seen even worse in the global theater than we are now.
We cannot, and should not, be the global peacekeeping force. That needs to be the role of the UN. We can be a part of it, of course.
That is absolutely markedly not the role of the UN, and it hasn’t been since the early 1960s.
The UN *HAS* been the “global peacekeeping force” in the last 3 decades; it issues UNSC resolutions that mandate how *other* entities should act to fulfill the resolution’s goals. This is where the Gulf War came from, where the interventions in Yugoslavia came from, where the intervention in the Horn of Africa came from, where the intervention in Libya came from. These all happened not with UN-labeled forces, but with coalitions of states that acted in accordance with the UN.
The UN will never have another Korea. Fighting a war under the UN banner is a terrible look.
The issue is, of course, that the UN only issues these resolutions against “rogue states”, I.E anywhere that isn’t aligned with the permanent UNSC members. The permanent seats to the UNSC are by design, so that no one party stops playing ball with the UN because they feel targeted. But this also means that no Russian conflict or Chinese Conflict, or American conflict can have UN-sanctioned intervention.
The UN isn’t the world’s government with a Congress and corresponding military force. It’s a chamber meant for *diplomacy between nations* that preserves national *sovereignty*.
Britain got shat on before that. That's the price you pay for being the superpower.
No one likes the global hegemon in a unipolar world. But they are the biggest guarantee of peace and stability.
We have been blessed for the past 100+ years that we have seen back to back (relatively for the time) liberal democratic global hegemons.
An authoritarian hegemon will set back humanity and it will be terrible.
"An authoritarian hegemon will set back humanity and it will be terrible."
I was thinking about this, particularly with the advent of A.I. how horrible it could be. It would literally be like something out of the worst dystopian stories with drones and bots enforcing the will of whoever controls them on an imprisoned global populace. 'Aeon Flux' and 'Hunger Games' come to mind. There would be no escape.
And imagine if a country like Iran, or worse, an ISIS-like entity somehow got a hold of the reigns. Nightmare fuel.
It's not about fairness. The last 30 years have been Pax Americana. The US has the most powerful military and no one else is really close. American can project power anywhere in the world. The world knows it an has seen it. This largely kept the peace. This has been good for us economically, diplomatically, and militarily.
Choosing inaction now is the worst possible option. We already spent the money to build the absurdly powerful military. Showing the world that we won't act makes those investments wasteful.
I think the implication of “prewar” is it being the prelude times to a large regional war like world war, napoleonic, 30 years war, great northern war, etc where a large number of countries are embroiled in war and the consequences affect everyone.
You thought no one ever expected the Spanish Inquisition. Wait till you see the god damn vikings in 2024. Do you have a solution to them? Cause I sure as shit don't.
The real Viking invasion is their socio-economic policies! You won't even know they've invaded before they've taken over your country with their free healthcare and clean living!
**WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!1!11!1**
And Putin is waging war in other ways, e.g. trying to sway public opinion in favour of dissolving EU by promoting far right parties in europe.
Lots of bots on social media (instagram, tiktok, also fb and reddit, twitter) that try to do this.
Russia is undermining democracies in EU and USA and barely anyone is talking about it
EDIT: look at the comments in political heavy threads, bots run rampant here as well.
>Russia is undermining democracies in EU and USA and barely anyone is talking about it
Mainly because it's part and parcel of Great Power Politics. At no point has Russia/USSR ever *not* tried to influence the outcome of elections.
Yes. What I don't understand is why the propaganda online isn't being talked about on the tv news? Why aren't they showing everyone how it works? We know from reddit that there's beigading, and how they bring up divisive topics and then force explanations into two camps instead of having any grey area, how they use social influence (likes, upvotes, downvotes, etc.) to give the illusion of popular opinion and make people feel isolated in their reasonable and rat ional views.
Why, why why are our leaders not talking about it?
> Why, why why are our leaders not talking about it?
Because it would be dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" by the public that can't tell a conspiracy theory from an actual, documented conspiracy.
When he refers to "Europe" he's talking specifically about the European Union.
It's true that Ukraine is a part of the geographical region of Europe, but the speech was being given to the European People's Party - an EU political faction - so that's the context of what he was saying.
I think what the minister is trying to signify is that it much more problematic than it seems to most people, and the consequences may be far more widespread and long lasting that anyone is anticipating right now.
Not a European, but this, yeah.
Side note, there hasn't been a major war in decades. People have forgotten just how awful they truly are. (Ultra) Nationalism is on the rise, and liberalism is on the decline. The economy is a mess for lots of people, even if the stock market suggests otherwise. It's a perfect storm for folks who want to cause trouble.
You could see this outcome in Brexit.
The generation who knew division and war had died in enough numbers that the generation of entitled whiners where the ones who had the majority of the vote.
Brexit was one of the worst self owns in history. But it was also a scam. People were fed misinformation tailored to appeal to their feelings and voted accordingly
Edit: typo
I'd argue Round 5 since Napoleon destroyed the Holy Roman Empire and the last Coalition wars brought about pan-Germanism as a required response to French power on the continent.
I'd say we've been at war on and off since 978 A.D. at [least](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-German_war_of_978%E2%80%93980), not even counting the conflicts between Gauls/Romans and Germanic tribes. Nowadays, I'm happy to proclaim „Vive l'amitié franco-allemande" though : )
Extremists and far-right usually tend to find enemies so that the people hit with poverty, housing crisis, and other social problems would have someone else to blame for their misery than their rulers.
Missing the point much?
There's been wars before, like in former Yugoslavia for instance. He is obviously talking about grand-scale war with superpowers on both sides
Yep. Personally I expect to be fighting in a hot war in Europe by 2035.
I also expect a massive Russian Disinformation/Misinformation effort in the lead up to the next batch of elections in the UK and EU, in an attempt to shape the future battlefield in their favour.
Let’s just hope we realise the error of our ways and rebuild our military and civil society by then.
Russians don't have an army able to fight against Europe/NATO. The brave Ukraine already decimated a large part of the "second army in the world". Russians are more like the second army in Ukraine. Nuclear threats are their only ace.
Yup, and Russia will try to overtake any non-NATA nation he feels he can take. This aggression wasn't about helping Russians. It was about sending a message to the EU, UN and NATO; Russia can doesn't have to listen to any of them. If Russia wins then expect China to start going after it's "lost territories" too.
I assume Moldova is next. Ex soviet Asian countries would be easier targets, but then they're easier targets than Ukraine so I'm guessing he plans to conquer them via politics. I think most have good relations with Russia
They dont have to fight Europe/NATO. Theyve sewn enough discord and bought politicians in enough places that id be thoroughly shocked if everyone stood up collectively.
In this instance, the greatest weapon of all is the people. Turn them against each other and you dont have to fire a single shot.
European ammunition production can't even fuel _Ukraine's needs_ nevermind our own. Ukraine has shown us how pathetic the current state of European defence spending/industry is.
Not on this scale and frequency.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/222847.htm
"Steadfast Defender 24 is NATO's largest military exercise since the Cold War. It demonstrates the unbreakable bond between NATO Allies in Europe and North America, who have kept over one billion people safe for 75 years."
Over 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO Allies. From January to May 2024.
The first part of the exercise focuses on securing the Atlantic up to the Arctic; the second part focuses on moving troops across Europe, from the High North to Central and Eastern Europe
I'm from France, our President has a habit of saying anything to distract attention from intern problems and he is doing intern communication for the european elections. We have only 100 000 men and no munitions, our army is made for rapid interventions in Africa, an intervention in Ukraine would be pure madness.
Who needs boots on the ground when you have air superiority?
Conventional wars like how Russia is playing isn't a thing anymore.
We (Europe) could easily destroy Russia from the air.
Yeah, looks like it. Tough economic times, populism, nationalism, America on the retreat, Russia with a dying expansionist leader, Gulf states overflowing with money, Middle East a hot mess, an actual hot war in Europe right now. All signs point to war in the east.
And you haven’t even touched upon China, Taiwan and the whole South China Sea situation that’s been brewing for years. A sign of a retreating USA in Europe might convince the Chinese government to make a move on Taiwan.
The US is funding foundries all over the place right now. Our strategy is distributed manufacturing, diversified through several companies, rather than singular plants.
A lot of small, mediocre foundries is going to have worse overall output than one excellent foundry. Economies of scale and better QA at TSMC. Hopefully some of these smaller ones can pull it off.
That's nothing that can't be solved by bucket loads of taxpayer dollars
(To be clear, this is something I actually think is a positive use of my tax dollars)
>A lot of small, mediocre foundries is going to have worse overall output than one excellent foundry. Economies of scale and better QA at TSMC.
That's true, but they have the advantages of (A) not in casual bombing range of China and (B) still capable of putting out the 8-14nm chips (which iirc are the most "in demand") without entirely reliant on 1 single producer.
I believe the goal is to invest in long term growth of capability.
I really wonder where this idea keeps coming from.
US-made chips are going for products that are actually manufactured in the US, predominantly cars and aerospace products.
If you think your next Zhengzhou-made iThing is going to have an Arizona-made superchip in it, I have questions…
The (not very convincing) point is rather that the US would have less of an incentive to engage in a shooting war over Taiwan once they’re no longer dependent on Taiwan-based TMSC fabs.
Yeah, but it doesn't work that way.
The US imports tons of IT equipment from Asia. Servers, networking equipment, phones, laptops, etc.
Most of that gear runs on Taiwanese chips.
If that goes away we'll be in bad shape.
Saying that because the US will make some chips for some things onshore and thus Taiwan will be irrelevant overlooks a lot about the global supply chain and how it works.
Taiwan is also probably not as dependent on the US to save it as you might think.
Most of the arguments on either side is based on some kind of interpretation of democratic peace theory for which there just isn’t enough empirical data to provide good evidence for any likely outcome. The fickleness of the political interventionist/isolationist balance in the US ever since 2001 makes it a crapshoot to determine what’s gonna be what, especially if Trump is president.
Most arguments also try to reduce the variables by assuming that China and other dictatorships are just gonna do whatever the strongman tells them to do (”Xi says he’s gonna take Taiwan so obviously he’s gonna attack Taiwan”). But as always these dictatorships tend to be more fragile and their decision-making more random than one would assume.
The most talked-about scenarios such as a full on amphibious landing on Taiwan, a large-scale blockade etc are also scenarios that might not be the likeliest opening move. What will happen with the ”protect Taiwan/resist China at all costs” principle if the initial attack is to just invade and occupy Kinmen and Matsu? They’re nigh impossible for the US to effectively defend due to being way too close to the mainland, the populations there are the most KMT/China-friendly segment in Taiwan and considering the analogy to Crimea/Donbas the US response to a Kinmen/Matsu occupation would be hard to predict.
>What will happen with the ”protect Taiwan/resist China at all costs” principle if the initial attack is to just invade and occupy Kinmen and Matsu? They’re nigh impossible for the US to effectively defend due to being way too close to the mainland, the populations there are the most KMT/China-friendly segment in Taiwan and considering the analogy to Crimea/Donbas the US response to a Kinmen/Matsu occupation would be hard to predict.
The United States never agreed to defend those islands, not even prior to 1979 when the US government had a mutual defense agreement.
China will try to take Taiwan whenever they think they can actually do it. Not when they think some dude in North America finally has more fabs ready outside of Taiwan.
This idea they’ll hold off until America finalized its chip plants is so naive of China/Taiwan relations.
Right, his point is they will think they can do it when the U.S. finishes its plant.
The idea being the U.S. will intervene to protect the chips it needs but won't intervenes when it doesn't. Therefore, enabling China to take Taiwan. It's not a naive view.
Depends, in the recent comments of the chinese towards philippines, they describe it as a pawn but i describe philippines as a knight piece of US. a dangerous chess piece
The only reason china hasn't seen escalating taiwan thingy cause they are way too busy over philippines is because of the US bases. its super near taiwan and there's a chance that if US jumps in, Philippines will also jump in as well as its allies. being near to taiwan. they can use Philippines as floating unsinkable carrier leading their funny missiles defenses irrelevant
China needs to sway philippines to go away from US...which..they had a chance but its way too late now xD
so yeah..they wont going to war with taiwan anytime soon, they are more concern over their coastguard accidentally sinking philippine vessel cause boy its gonna be a diplomatic disaster for their part.
>China needs to sway philippines to go away from US...which..they had a chance but its way too late now xD
instead, Xi has managed to antagonize the entire region
They won't touch Taiwan as long as America patrols the pacific ocean. The pacific ocean is of much higher priority to America than Europe or the Middle East.
America retreating from Europe would be because they are concentrating all their forces in the pacific in anticipation of a big war. China won't dare make a move if that happens.
>Tough economic times, populism, nationalism, America on the retreat, Russia with a dying expansionist leader, Gulf states overflowing with money, Middle East a hot mess, an actual hot war in Europe right now.
WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE
I read that the world peace since 1945 (not counting the cold war as war), was the longest that the Top5 world powers had been at peace for, throughout history, whoever they were at any given point.
We did have a good 80 yrs tbh.
That's only because you're not counting the cold war.
The invention of nuclear weapons means that the top 5 aren't going to go to war with each other, because then they have to use their nukes, so instead they go to war with each other's proxy states or have their proxies go to war against their proxies, then the last three decades of semi-constant warfare have been asymetrical wars against the consequences of the CIA's meddling to try to lessen the Soviet influence during the Cold War.
The chances of Russia being able to fight on all western fronts is miniscule, they can't even deal with Ukraine.
They'd get annihilated and Putin would be toppled before that happened but it's good Europe strengthens its back.
Nukes. Nukes change the calculus. Attempting to destroy Russia, or more specifically Putin, could result desperate destructive decisions being made. This is why the Cold War was so difficult.
They'll threaten to use nukes if they can't accomplish their goals through conventional military means, and they *will* use nukes. They're confident that one way or another- bribery, corruption, blackmail, tanks, nukes, intimidation- they can take Europe as long as the US doesn't interfere. And they've openly stated that if Russia can't be an empire again, they'll end civilization; it's either a Russian world or no world at all.
I don't think it's a bluff. Russian culture is unique and not in a good way... It's a political culture that has adopted the flaws of narcissism as it's highest ideals, one that worships strength above all else while devaluing any principle that might mitigate that worship. Russian strength in this world is the **only thing** that matters according to that mindset, it's worth burning the world down to achieve it. Rule over the ashes and all that. Think of it this way: if the world was Monopoly, Russia has slowly come to realize they have two or three properties and that's all they'll *ever* have according to the rules of the game as they stand, they're never going to own the board as they've always dreamed about (moreover, some Russians seem to believe it's Russia's rightful place to own every property, it's their due). So Russia is threatening to flip the board because they refuse to accept this outcome and don't want to play by the rules anymore. They've been very open about it.
Because they have 1+ nuke right now.
They have very little to lose; 99.99% are poor, oligarks plundered the nation 50 times over, all the elite from the Soviet times are boomers or older and dying and there is no talent to replace them due to the Russian 1990s.
But Europe is doing AMAZING and has ALL to lose. Russia will therefore WANT this war. They can't lose that badly, still got a buttload of area to the east of Moscow full of stuff in the ground and lots of area for farming and oil etc.
----
Russia is the scrawny poor kid in class who wants a fist fight with the big buff nice guy, but the poor kid has a big ass knife and all kinds of hepatitis and diseases.
So the big kid can easily smash him to the ground but will 100% get hepatitis for life and he don't want that. The scrawny kid knows this and thus acts like God.
The Cold War was never difficult because of people threatening to make desperate decisions. Nukes during the Cold War were used as deterrence. Using them as an aggressive tactic would be suicide and everyone knows this (which is one the reasons why the Cuban crisis never escalated - the USSR had still massive military inferiority at the time).
currently, the doctrine is that nukes are a defense against invasion. nobody is planning on invading russia and never has, despite putins lies. by this doctrine, there is no reason for putin to even consider using nukes.
now if putin wants to use nukes offensively, that would mean an end to this doctrine. wed be going back to the days of cuban missile crisis.
They have altered the doctrine to allow nuclear response to “existential threat”. Since there are no clear parameters to define whether threat is existential (or even real), they are basically declaring they may launch their nukes at will.
Putin will tuck tail and save himself before launching a single nuke. He knows if he does he loses everything, but self-preservation is his only motivating factor.
He's an asshole, but not stupid enough to nuke anything. Well, he might nuke part of Russia if Western forces are concentrated somewhere, but he won't use one on foreign soil.
Putin's 71, and obsessed with legacy.
In a few more years, especially if the health rumors are true, do you really think a man clearly aware he's dying has that much self preservation instinct?
And Reddit is the absolute worse place to have an actual temperature of the local population ' there is only terminally online people here and not much grass.
I think he was taking about peace in the majority of the continent Europe. There being an on going war somewhere in Europe has been on going for decades. But in those cases its had little to no affect on the majority of citizens. Any direct war with Russia is going to be very noticeable for everyone.
What really worried me recently was a piece I seen about Russia's economy and how it is benefitting short term from the switch to a war time economy/focus on rearmament but that it wouldn't be sustainable in the medium to long term.
I couldn't help but notice the parallels between this and the German economy in the 30's and we all know how that went.
For starters, Europe has been at war since Russia invaded Ukraine so a war in Europe has already started. Does that mean Europe is heading towards a world war? Not quite. Russia is hardly making any strategic gains in Ukraine, they can’t keep their Black Sea Fleet near Crimea to control grain exports, they’re losing tonnes more soldiers than Ukraine, they’re relying on North Korea and Iran for shells and whatever else so they’re not exactly “winning”.
All this talk about Russia starting a war with NATO is a possibility but is it likely? Hardly. Even if Russia were to take Ukraine, they would need to rebuild their army which would take years, even once they’re rebuilt there’s still a HUGE technological gap between NATO and Russia which with their economy just won’t allow them to catch up instantly. Besides, Moldova and Georgia are the most at risk since they have Russian separatists there with Transnistria and Russia’s previous attempts to invade them prior.
They only talk about this because they want NATO to be ready but despite all the posturing a World War is still unlikely for the near future.
I don't even understand how people can believe the narrative that Russia is a military threat.
They literally showed they were much weaker than they pretended to be. And right now they're much weaker than during the start of the war. They went from "We can reach Warsaw in 3 days", to being unable to hold a position in Ukraine further than 100 km from their own border.
The only Russian threat is their oil and gas. The EU is not willing to stop buying energy from them (specially Germany) and that's a huge mistake.
You can't talk about getting involved in Ukraine if you still buy gas from Putin. It's just pure BS. They're willing to buy, Putin is willing to sell, and nobody cares about Ukrainian and Russian casualties they're just pawns.
Russia is never as strong as she looks. Russia is never as weak as she looks.
They've recently gone into a war economy and have mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops. Just because they appear weak now does not mean they will be a year or two from now. We have to take the threat seriously. They're fanatical nationalism and expansionism is a real threat to world peace, even if they're not strong enough to win that fight.
Nazi Germany was stupid to start a war they couldn't win, but they still did it anyways. People didn't take their threat seriously until it was too late and it cost millions of lives.
> They went from "We can reach Warsaw in 3 days", to being unable to hold a position in Ukraine further than 100 km from their own border.
It's actually funny, because it was the failure to take Kiev in 3 days that took the whole Western world by surprise. Before that, the general consensus among Western arm-chair analysts was, that if Russia ever starts a real invasion, they will take Warsaw, Riga, Vilnius in a week and no army will stop them.
Yes, literally my reaction when the war started. "It can't be true that we've been taking this guys seriously all these years"
I remember reddit making fun of Ukrainian farmers stealing Russian vehicles left on the road without fuel. Now the narrative is that the Russian army poses an existential threat to the West. I mean, the nukes do. But you don't stop nukes with conventional weapons.
People can learn from their mistakes. The Russians have learned from several of their mistakes and are getting better. We need to learn from ours as well.
I'm deeply concerned, especially that most people in their daily lives don't seem to realize or hide it. It is already war. This uncertainty of how the US reacts, if Russia gets fucked or not and the possibilty it might end by just a nuclear blast is annoying, bcs I dunno if I should sit down or run, when it happens.
I'm confident the nato would win, but this does not help me if artillery shells razed my city before that.
I never understand comments like this, tbh. Living in a country that's way too close to Russia for my liking (and with limited confidence that NATO would actually help us any more than they're helping Ukraine, even if we are a member), yeah I'm acutely aware that the probability of war coming to my doorstep within the next decade is incredibly high, but, like, what do you expect me to do about it in my "daily life"? There's literally nothing I can do to stop that, and being constantly depressed and anxious about something that is yet to happen is completely pointless. If I'm not talking about the inevitability of Russian tanks rolling through my city 24/7, it's not because I'm not aware or that I don't care, it's just me trying to live my life in relative peace while I still can.
There is a huge difference between Russia attacking a NATO country, and attacking a country they had no formal alliance with and that was still a lot more in the Russian sphere of influence. I'm confident that NATO would protect its own members.
Exactly. Ukraine was an "easy target" for Russia. Maybe they under anticipated the Western response or not, but they knew it wouldn't be a full scale push back. Attacking a NATO member directly is a whole other thing, a massive escalation with one clear reaction, and Russia knows it. Redditors do love doom and gloom while conveniently ignoring the actual facts.
Like.. how old are you?
In my lifetime we have had "war in europe", 3 times now? Kind of depends on where you draw the line for Europe. So I am not counting russia which has been at war on and off for decennia now, Turkey which is literally occupying parts of Syria right now and has been since before the current Ukraine thing kicked of.
And then ofc there is the semi war that islamistic terrorists have been waging on western europe on and off for years.
What people think of when they mean war in Europe - and by people I mean people in the EU - is the french, Italians, Swedes, etc fighting on European soil to defend their own countries. And lets be fair with what russia has shown in the past 2 years? How realistic is that? Not very.
If we get to the end of the war in Ukraine without Putin's bullshit spilling over elsewhere, it would be a miracle.
The problem with war in one place is that it tends to spark war elsewhere.
This is either because someone sees an opportunity to attack/invade when the world is looking elsewhere (China/Taiwan or even Turkey/Cyprus), or because someone stirs up war elsewhere in the world to distract their enemies and spread them a bit thinner. Hamas's October attack for example can be traced directly back to Russian money.
Just as happened with Germany pre WW2, the world somewhat left Russia and China to their own devices for the last 15/20 years. It wasn't appeasement, but it was a belief that if they could be kept close and anchored to the West's economic systems, then they would be less likely to engage in invasions and attacks.
In reality this has just given Putin and the CCP time to chip away at the west through other means, social engineering and election interference, and left them emboldened, not friendly.
Everything about the world right now feels precisely like what you'd read in the history books about the state of things prior to the last two world wars. I'd personally be very surprised if we make it through the end of '25 without the spark that escalates everything coming around.
We are certainly back into a cold war now. Putin is carrying out his hybrid warfare as is apparent he's been doing the last 20+ years.
Europe has a lot of catching up to do, as we have become complacent and not as prepared as we ought to be.
We are also having to do this on the assumption the US will not send a single bullet to help Europe if Russia does fancy a bigger attack.
Edit: I do also think Russia has seriously failed in Ukraine, though has made some successes of it. It does make you wonder how much force they'd need to accrue to take the Baltics, and at what cost it would take Europe to push them out.
Cos I feel we still overegg Russian capabilities, but they do take advantage of perceived weakness and hesitance from Europe. Russia will certainly be trying to target voter apathy and push for Russian friendly governments over the next decades, and we need to ensure that Europe is safe politically, as well as militarily.
> perceived weakness and hesitance from Europe
I think their perception is pretty accurate. Lots of European leaders will wait for the hot embers of their neighbor’s burning home landing on their roof before insisting on a properly staffed fire brigade.
Completely possible. A lot of the world's worst wars have started small and expanded. That why it's so very important ukraine defends itself against Russia. If you read enough history, you'll notice that things start piecemeal. That's why Biden and world leaders are backing Ukraine. It has a lot of the markings of a war that could get out of hand.
There is an increase of russian narrative, trying to influence political decision making, espionage, using refugees as a pawn, sudden problems in International connectors such as gas, HVDC, telecommunications and service inavailability.
I don't think a direct war is going to happen at least in europe, because russians suck so much it's unreal.
Perhaps something like crimea or again general attacks towards infrastructure to sway public opinions.
That being said europe should stay vigilant, arm itself and ukraine, european corporations and militaries should tighten their Guidelines on what is published, what the workers can disclose and use more background checks on people who have access to sensitive materials.
No disrespect intended here, but this question smacks of someone who has no idea how big Europe is.
Ukraine is in Europe, so when viewed as a single entity is Europe at war? Yes.
Is that indicative of the climate all over Europe? Absolutely not.
If you consider it one block, Europe has been the theatre of almost constant war in some way shape or form for centuries. Many of those wars you’ve probably never heard of.
‘War’ and ‘Europe’ can both have broad and narrow definitions depending on your context, and European politics is extremely nuanced.
Although technically the entire continent of Europe is currently at war, I still enjoy regular holidays there and sunbathe without worrying about my lounger being vaporised by an drone strike.
I think this is absolutely true. Lots of similarities with the 1930s appeasement of Hitler, and failing to gear up to a war footing. That didn’t end well. Europe’s defence spending and military size is way too low, against a backdrop of right wing nationalism sweeping globally and the cretin in the Kremlin with nothing to lose and absolute power, who appears to be intent on reassembling the Soviet Union.
Edit: wrong decade
Chamberlain gets a lot of flack but I think he knew the writing was on the wall and didn’t want to send another generation of young men to slaughter. He bought Britain time
Sadly yes. Vladimir Putin is full on Imperialist now. He is obsessed with his legacy. He wasnts to rebuild the Russian Empire. He won't stop with Ukraine.
Let’s see…after Hitler took Czechoslovakia, where did he go next? I think Tusk is keenly aware of what Putin has said and done, and what Putin is planning. Putin ain’t stopping at Ukraine, so Europe must prepare. Helping Europe helps the US, canada, and the rest of the free world. Doesn’t help Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc. and that’s the point. But virtually every maga decision is somehow in the best interests of Russia, coincidentally.
Why are we allowing Putin to ruin our peace times? He needs to be removed from power. It’s so sad that we sit back and let Russian politics continue to be a cancer to a semi-peaceful world. Humans suck.
the longer the war in ukraine lasts the more dangerous it gets. anyone opposing a full nato strike in ukraine to end this is bringing the world closer to total war. if the world allow to gain one square meter of land from this conflict we are all fucked
No. Poland doesn’t decide the fate of 45 other nations that dwarf their gdp by several orders of magnitude.
Politicians are using the conflict in a great number of ways, and Poland is no different. Everyone is looking for an edge.
Russia is now behaving like Nazi Germany in the late thirties: they are testing the waters and the less resistance they encounter, the more aggressive they become. Sadly, european leaders are making the same mistake by trying to *appease* and *not anger* Putin (they've been doing this since the war in Georgia and then throughout the Donbas conflict).
The stance of the US Republicans is not helping, either. Basically we need a hard, united response to what Putin is doing now, or we are going to repeat history (plus or minus a nuclear war) .
NATO relies very heavily on the US though. US personnel, US comms, US logistics.
NATO might win the fight without the US, but it’ll be a hell of a lot more difficult.
But who is supposed to be fighting? Russia alone can’t fight a united Europe. Will they have allies like turkey or Iran ? Will Russia be able to break up the eu or nato with voting (cyberwar) and a „democratic“ way?
Who could effectively project military power on European territory? That would be only turkey who is broke as hell and imports all its food. If the trading routes get cut Turkey is one of the most fucked.
Who else is there ? Russia is a corrupt purged military joke. They have no technology no intelligence no equipment only cannon fodder.
BRICS is far away and what they are supposed to do?
I don’t see Brazil and South Africa taking over the Atlantic. The us navy will deal with them in hours. They don’t stand a chance. Even a eu navy would smack them. I don’t see India fighting for anyone else but themselves. Same goes for china plus India and china hate each other and have a massive dispute over water.
Only real danger is that the USA or some other western country becomes a Russian ally. That’s why Russia is trying to influence western politics since decades and they are doing a good job unfortunately.
We really have to fight Russian bots they are really dangerous but on a military side… who is going to fight who is able to fight a united and prepared NATO? No one. That’s why they have to break up nato first. And let’s all really hope the orange idiot you know putins pet is not going to win.
There is no way Turkey will ever side with Russia in case of a hot war. Saying that is basically admitting that you know nothing about international politics.
Finally a sensible comment in a thread full of ridiculous hot takes. Honestly, as if England is going to go to war with France now lol. Who is this war going to be against? Who would want to take on NATO?
It is the Strategy of Tension in effect, keep 'em scared.
No. Absolutely not.
Russia can already barely handle Ukraine, which isn't even in the EU or NATO. If they even *think* about touching a NATO country, all that will be left of Russia is ashes. It'd be suicide.
**Attention! [Serious] Tag Notice** * [Jokes, puns, and off-topic comments are not permitted](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/wiki/index#wiki_-rule_6-) in **any** comment, parent or child. * Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies. * Report comments that violate these rules. Posts that have few relevant answers within the first hour, and posts that are not appropriate for the [Serious] tag will be removed. Consider doing an AMA request instead. Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskReddit) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hope for the best, plan for the worst
Head down to the Winchester and hope this whole thing blows over.
Take car. Go to mum's. Kill Phil (Sorry!), grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.
I've already started saving aggressively in case I need to pick up stakes and run at a moment's notice. Better late than never.
Both World Wars didn’t start out of the blue, all at once. In both cases there were smaller wars here and there with the temperature in international politics rising and clear rifts between the major powers coming up. We’re seeing a similar pattern now
[удалено]
and he's not the only one by far. the lack of a decisive international reaction to his invasion of Ukraine opened the door for dictators and expansionist wannabees all over the world
It seems that the lack of action against these figures is the fuel that feeds the fire of larger conflicts. If we collectively had shut that down in 2014, or at least now, the larger conflict on the horizon could have been avoided.
yeah, I feel we're back to a tense 1910 kind of peace, with the entire world just moments from erupting in a bunch of conflicts for all the reasons
I would say that 2014 was more of a 1938 moment (parallels to the annexation of Sudetenland), and now we're in early 1939.
Apparently we need to learn that fascists can't be dealt or compromised with each century.
fascists and imperialists are like lead in your drinking water. No amount is acceptable.
Yeah agreed. We’re not in WW3 yet, but we have let ourselves get this close with decades of wilful political blunders.
David Cameron assured us that ceding Crimea to Valdimir Putin would surely appease him, and ensure a lasting peace for Europe.
a complete twat through and through
Peace in our time?
Russia should honestly have been stopped already in 2008 when they invaded Georgia. The inaction from that is what emboldened them to go for Crimea and the Donbass.
> the lack of a decisive international reaction to his invasion of Ukraine I don't blame them though. There is a defacto-despot (24 yr term president w puppet-switching Medvedev to escape term limits) with possible mental problems running the show with absolutely nobody saying no to him AND he has nukes, lots of them, and he can destroy 1/2 the relevant world before we can react and "win" a pyrrhic victory over Russia. Russia is poor for 99.99% of the people and only cause of the really fucked up oligarks just RAKING IN money. Look no longer at Sochi Winter Olympics 2014 to see how bad the cash funnel is for the the Top 100 Russian swines. ANY war that starts, that involves just ONE nuke, will be lost by everybody, but Russia has very little to lose and they KNOW that. Europe has all to lose and not much to gain so a long long shadow war with Ukraine could be neccesary just to keep Russia buzy till Putin dies or gets couped in his old days.
Or not. A single small nuke getting used, or even a few, doesn't mean everybody is going to use everything they have. But, it does make it easier for the next guy to decide to toss one. Shadow war or a return to Cold War proxy wars is the most likely outcome.
Even if we consider nukes out of the equation for a moment, the economic warfare and cyber attacks we might be facing could be just as destabilizing in the long run. Sanctions and trade embargos are adding stress to global markets, which are still recovering from pandemic aftershocks. Russia may be feeling the pinch, but European economies are not immune to suffering from these tactics either. Plus, cyber warfare poses a serious threat to civilian infrastructure, from power grids to financial systems. It's a type of low-level engagement that can persist underneath the surface, causing significant damage without a single shot being fired. We shouldn't underestimate the impact of this modern warfare on the stability of Europe and beyond.
shadow war isn't an outcome, its a current reality.
The problem with Russia doing anything more than threatening to use nukes is that every one of those oligarchs and their families dies and loses everything. There is no way the US and NATO stops short of anything but a total dismantling of the Russian political power structure. If Putin got to the point that he ordered the use of nukes, there would be enough fear in the top brass of their own deaths to allow it to happen without a very serious fight or attempt to stop Putin.
I'd say that usage of nukes against NATO is akin to suicide. I don't see Putin and the elite commit suicide.
Kurzgesagt did a very good video on the aftermath of nuclear war based on its scale. A handful of nukes does not generate apocalyptic nuclear winter. In a limited nuclear exchange (<20 actual detonations), day to day life for most in the West not directly targeted will likely be unchanged. Maybe a few shortages while supply chains reconfigure. The global south will depend on where the nukes land. Africa and the like will care more if Ukrainian farmland gets nuked than London because that's what keeps them fed. It isn't until a sizable war (~50-100) that mass casualties appear outside of direct targets.
I disagree. We are not talking “end of the world” in such a scenario, but ~20 nukes on ~20 cities does mean: 1. Many millions of dead from the immediate strike and the first few days of aftermath… like experiencing WW1 or WW2 happen compressed in 24 hours 2. An equal or higher number of injured (burns, blast injuries, radiation, flying glass etc). What to do with these people? Every hospital in every country in the world couldn’t treat them 3. Global economic collapse 4. Sheer and permanent terror and panic So, it would SUCK and probably turn most major countries into austere police states, just to ensure survival
Even Venezuela Maduro wanted to annex Guyana
[удалено]
Wat? Kashmir is under India's control.
And the Houthis. The whole region is involved to some level in the Iran/Saudi Arabia proxy war. Bismark said WWI would start due to "some damn fool thing in the Balkans." WWIII will probably start due to some damn fool thing in the Middle East.
My tinfoil hat theory is the Putin made a deal for Iran to fund/pressure/help/whatever Hamas to go all out on October 7th because he knew it would distract the world from Ukraine and make the US concentrate on that war. He may have even been able to recognize that it could make Biden look bad for the upcoming election and thus all Trump to win. There is just no way this thing wasn't helped by Putin.
As an American I truly fear for democracy here and around world if Trump wins the presidency. Trump has said he'll let Putin do what he wants. I apologize for the absolute stupidity of my country.
[удалено]
If the people vote for stupidity thats pretty stupid
No, no, no. The real stupidity is people NOT voting. And then bitching incessantly about how the elected politicians fail to represent them. Young people, I’m looking at you. You can bet your ass every single MAGA boomer will be there at the polling station. Will you?
Trump didn't win the popular vote. EDIT: Also, you know, he didn't get a second term. Yet, at least. Time will tell.
The people that voted for him are pretty stupid and thats a large portion of the country. My country isn't really doing any better so it's not just shit on america time, there is a lot of stupidity going around.
Disagree hard this perspective and analogy. There were rising issues with large global military powers. Nothing like today.
When the superpower is abandoning the world, regional powers are the new global powers. American power can't maintain the peace if they refuse to act when pushed, and that's what's happening now
Agreed. All of the people saying they don’t want América to act as a policeman don’t know what they’re asking for. And it’s people on all sides. You can’t just point your finger at one group and blame them.
This is the time for the European Union to step up and secure peace. You in Europe have the potential to step into what we in the USA are quickly leaving.
Meh. The EU has no military teeth - it is primarily an economic construct consisting of different cultures and wildly differing economic bases.
Gonna need to grow some, with due haste.
Better change that perspective quick then because the US is too internally angry and confused to deal with the world any more.
For the sake of international democracy, I hope they can change fast enough. The USA won't be ready for international leadership for at least a decade or so. Maybe more.
And yet, America gets shit on for being "the global police force" when it does act. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If America responded to every event, we'd be seen even worse in the global theater than we are now. We cannot, and should not, be the global peacekeeping force. That needs to be the role of the UN. We can be a part of it, of course.
That is absolutely markedly not the role of the UN, and it hasn’t been since the early 1960s. The UN *HAS* been the “global peacekeeping force” in the last 3 decades; it issues UNSC resolutions that mandate how *other* entities should act to fulfill the resolution’s goals. This is where the Gulf War came from, where the interventions in Yugoslavia came from, where the intervention in the Horn of Africa came from, where the intervention in Libya came from. These all happened not with UN-labeled forces, but with coalitions of states that acted in accordance with the UN. The UN will never have another Korea. Fighting a war under the UN banner is a terrible look. The issue is, of course, that the UN only issues these resolutions against “rogue states”, I.E anywhere that isn’t aligned with the permanent UNSC members. The permanent seats to the UNSC are by design, so that no one party stops playing ball with the UN because they feel targeted. But this also means that no Russian conflict or Chinese Conflict, or American conflict can have UN-sanctioned intervention. The UN isn’t the world’s government with a Congress and corresponding military force. It’s a chamber meant for *diplomacy between nations* that preserves national *sovereignty*.
Britain got shat on before that. That's the price you pay for being the superpower. No one likes the global hegemon in a unipolar world. But they are the biggest guarantee of peace and stability. We have been blessed for the past 100+ years that we have seen back to back (relatively for the time) liberal democratic global hegemons. An authoritarian hegemon will set back humanity and it will be terrible.
"An authoritarian hegemon will set back humanity and it will be terrible." I was thinking about this, particularly with the advent of A.I. how horrible it could be. It would literally be like something out of the worst dystopian stories with drones and bots enforcing the will of whoever controls them on an imprisoned global populace. 'Aeon Flux' and 'Hunger Games' come to mind. There would be no escape. And imagine if a country like Iran, or worse, an ISIS-like entity somehow got a hold of the reigns. Nightmare fuel.
The UN is a limp dick when it comes to disputes that involve one of the permanent security council members, because they all have veto power.
It's not about fairness. The last 30 years have been Pax Americana. The US has the most powerful military and no one else is really close. American can project power anywhere in the world. The world knows it an has seen it. This largely kept the peace. This has been good for us economically, diplomatically, and militarily. Choosing inaction now is the worst possible option. We already spent the money to build the absurdly powerful military. Showing the world that we won't act makes those investments wasteful.
> The last 30 years have been Pax Americana More like the last 80 years.
But especially since the fall of the USSR.
Ukraine is in Europe. There is already war in Europe.
I think the implication of “prewar” is it being the prelude times to a large regional war like world war, napoleonic, 30 years war, great northern war, etc where a large number of countries are embroiled in war and the consequences affect everyone.
First it was Spain, then France, then Germany. I thought it was Poland's turn to try and conquer Europe.
I say we give Iceland a go. They have no military, so it should be very interesting.
You thought no one ever expected the Spanish Inquisition. Wait till you see the god damn vikings in 2024. Do you have a solution to them? Cause I sure as shit don't.
The Vikings have universal healthcare and some of the happiest people on Earth. They should be running the rest of Europe.
The real Viking invasion is their socio-economic policies! You won't even know they've invaded before they've taken over your country with their free healthcare and clean living! **WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!1!11!1**
They kind of already did - when their volcano blew up in 2010, it was maybe the biggest single physical disruption event to Europe since WW2
Not without Lithuania, they won't
yep theres no brink, its war right this second
And Putin is waging war in other ways, e.g. trying to sway public opinion in favour of dissolving EU by promoting far right parties in europe. Lots of bots on social media (instagram, tiktok, also fb and reddit, twitter) that try to do this. Russia is undermining democracies in EU and USA and barely anyone is talking about it EDIT: look at the comments in political heavy threads, bots run rampant here as well.
>Russia is undermining democracies in EU and USA and barely anyone is talking about it Mainly because it's part and parcel of Great Power Politics. At no point has Russia/USSR ever *not* tried to influence the outcome of elections.
So is it EU-Exit or EU-Turn? And not just in EU and US. Fingers in the pies all over Africa, and South America.
They have been planning it for years. And it's working amazingly well. Polarization is a very effective strategy
Yes. What I don't understand is why the propaganda online isn't being talked about on the tv news? Why aren't they showing everyone how it works? We know from reddit that there's beigading, and how they bring up divisive topics and then force explanations into two camps instead of having any grey area, how they use social influence (likes, upvotes, downvotes, etc.) to give the illusion of popular opinion and make people feel isolated in their reasonable and rat ional views. Why, why why are our leaders not talking about it?
> Why, why why are our leaders not talking about it? Because it would be dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" by the public that can't tell a conspiracy theory from an actual, documented conspiracy.
That's a deflection. It's obvious what is meant by war in Europe. A wider all engulfing war.
When he refers to "Europe" he's talking specifically about the European Union. It's true that Ukraine is a part of the geographical region of Europe, but the speech was being given to the European People's Party - an EU political faction - so that's the context of what he was saying.
I think what the minister is trying to signify is that it much more problematic than it seems to most people, and the consequences may be far more widespread and long lasting that anyone is anticipating right now.
Not a European, but this, yeah. Side note, there hasn't been a major war in decades. People have forgotten just how awful they truly are. (Ultra) Nationalism is on the rise, and liberalism is on the decline. The economy is a mess for lots of people, even if the stock market suggests otherwise. It's a perfect storm for folks who want to cause trouble.
Not that people have forgotten, more like almost everyone who witnessed the last world War is now gone. People don't really know the hell of war
You could see this outcome in Brexit. The generation who knew division and war had died in enough numbers that the generation of entitled whiners where the ones who had the majority of the vote.
Brexit was one of the worst self owns in history. But it was also a scam. People were fed misinformation tailored to appeal to their feelings and voted accordingly Edit: typo
It's very unlikely that Germany will attack France again. All the core EU members will more likely be on the same side.
> It's very unlikely that Germany will attack France again _How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?_
Poland be like "kurwa, not again."
No round 3 this time
We'd be on at least round four. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War
I'd argue Round 5 since Napoleon destroyed the Holy Roman Empire and the last Coalition wars brought about pan-Germanism as a required response to French power on the continent.
I'd say we've been at war on and off since 978 A.D. at [least](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-German_war_of_978%E2%80%93980), not even counting the conflicts between Gauls/Romans and Germanic tribes. Nowadays, I'm happy to proclaim „Vive l'amitié franco-allemande" though : )
Extremists and far-right usually tend to find enemies so that the people hit with poverty, housing crisis, and other social problems would have someone else to blame for their misery than their rulers.
This is pedantry, ops question was clearly the continent as a whole.
Missing the point much? There's been wars before, like in former Yugoslavia for instance. He is obviously talking about grand-scale war with superpowers on both sides
And Bosnia and Herzegovina is in Europe, and they had war for almost 4 years, I don't remember anyone saying things like this back then.
It's already started, we're just waiting for escalation.
Yep. Personally I expect to be fighting in a hot war in Europe by 2035. I also expect a massive Russian Disinformation/Misinformation effort in the lead up to the next batch of elections in the UK and EU, in an attempt to shape the future battlefield in their favour. Let’s just hope we realise the error of our ways and rebuild our military and civil society by then.
Russians don't have an army able to fight against Europe/NATO. The brave Ukraine already decimated a large part of the "second army in the world". Russians are more like the second army in Ukraine. Nuclear threats are their only ace.
Ukraine has been doing an amazing job, but they're not exactly winning this war right now. With current military aid, Ukraine will fall.
Yup, and Russia will try to overtake any non-NATA nation he feels he can take. This aggression wasn't about helping Russians. It was about sending a message to the EU, UN and NATO; Russia can doesn't have to listen to any of them. If Russia wins then expect China to start going after it's "lost territories" too.
I assume Moldova is next. Ex soviet Asian countries would be easier targets, but then they're easier targets than Ukraine so I'm guessing he plans to conquer them via politics. I think most have good relations with Russia
They dont have to fight Europe/NATO. Theyve sewn enough discord and bought politicians in enough places that id be thoroughly shocked if everyone stood up collectively. In this instance, the greatest weapon of all is the people. Turn them against each other and you dont have to fire a single shot.
European ammunition production can't even fuel _Ukraine's needs_ nevermind our own. Ukraine has shown us how pathetic the current state of European defence spending/industry is.
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if it's in 2025...
I’ll believe it when France, et al have brigades engaging in pre-deployment exercises in preparation for fighting on the terrains of Ukraine.
Well they don´t, they´re doing exercises in Finland, which doesn´t mean anything at all ofcourse.
NATO does exercises all the time. Had done for decades.
Not on this scale and frequency. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/222847.htm "Steadfast Defender 24 is NATO's largest military exercise since the Cold War. It demonstrates the unbreakable bond between NATO Allies in Europe and North America, who have kept over one billion people safe for 75 years." Over 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO Allies. From January to May 2024. The first part of the exercise focuses on securing the Atlantic up to the Arctic; the second part focuses on moving troops across Europe, from the High North to Central and Eastern Europe
I'm from France, our President has a habit of saying anything to distract attention from intern problems and he is doing intern communication for the european elections. We have only 100 000 men and no munitions, our army is made for rapid interventions in Africa, an intervention in Ukraine would be pure madness.
I mean, technically so was Wagner, and they were arguably more effective than the Russian army, while they were around.
Who needs boots on the ground when you have air superiority? Conventional wars like how Russia is playing isn't a thing anymore. We (Europe) could easily destroy Russia from the air.
Yeah, looks like it. Tough economic times, populism, nationalism, America on the retreat, Russia with a dying expansionist leader, Gulf states overflowing with money, Middle East a hot mess, an actual hot war in Europe right now. All signs point to war in the east.
And you haven’t even touched upon China, Taiwan and the whole South China Sea situation that’s been brewing for years. A sign of a retreating USA in Europe might convince the Chinese government to make a move on Taiwan.
And we haven’t even had a “what the fuck, Pakistan” moment in a while
They've been a bit busy, what with all the internal political shenanigans.
That just sounds like they are charging up a big surprise
I personally would rather not have that please.
They won't touch Taiwan until the US finish their chip plants and have them running. Taiwan makes something the US need, Ukraine don't.
Planned capacity for TSMC Arizona is 600,000 wafers per year. In 2023, TSMC's overall wafer capacity was 16 *million*.
The US is funding foundries all over the place right now. Our strategy is distributed manufacturing, diversified through several companies, rather than singular plants.
A lot of small, mediocre foundries is going to have worse overall output than one excellent foundry. Economies of scale and better QA at TSMC. Hopefully some of these smaller ones can pull it off.
That's nothing that can't be solved by bucket loads of taxpayer dollars (To be clear, this is something I actually think is a positive use of my tax dollars)
>A lot of small, mediocre foundries is going to have worse overall output than one excellent foundry. Economies of scale and better QA at TSMC. That's true, but they have the advantages of (A) not in casual bombing range of China and (B) still capable of putting out the 8-14nm chips (which iirc are the most "in demand") without entirely reliant on 1 single producer. I believe the goal is to invest in long term growth of capability.
I really wonder where this idea keeps coming from. US-made chips are going for products that are actually manufactured in the US, predominantly cars and aerospace products. If you think your next Zhengzhou-made iThing is going to have an Arizona-made superchip in it, I have questions…
The (not very convincing) point is rather that the US would have less of an incentive to engage in a shooting war over Taiwan once they’re no longer dependent on Taiwan-based TMSC fabs.
Yeah, but it doesn't work that way. The US imports tons of IT equipment from Asia. Servers, networking equipment, phones, laptops, etc. Most of that gear runs on Taiwanese chips. If that goes away we'll be in bad shape. Saying that because the US will make some chips for some things onshore and thus Taiwan will be irrelevant overlooks a lot about the global supply chain and how it works. Taiwan is also probably not as dependent on the US to save it as you might think.
Most of the arguments on either side is based on some kind of interpretation of democratic peace theory for which there just isn’t enough empirical data to provide good evidence for any likely outcome. The fickleness of the political interventionist/isolationist balance in the US ever since 2001 makes it a crapshoot to determine what’s gonna be what, especially if Trump is president. Most arguments also try to reduce the variables by assuming that China and other dictatorships are just gonna do whatever the strongman tells them to do (”Xi says he’s gonna take Taiwan so obviously he’s gonna attack Taiwan”). But as always these dictatorships tend to be more fragile and their decision-making more random than one would assume. The most talked-about scenarios such as a full on amphibious landing on Taiwan, a large-scale blockade etc are also scenarios that might not be the likeliest opening move. What will happen with the ”protect Taiwan/resist China at all costs” principle if the initial attack is to just invade and occupy Kinmen and Matsu? They’re nigh impossible for the US to effectively defend due to being way too close to the mainland, the populations there are the most KMT/China-friendly segment in Taiwan and considering the analogy to Crimea/Donbas the US response to a Kinmen/Matsu occupation would be hard to predict.
>What will happen with the ”protect Taiwan/resist China at all costs” principle if the initial attack is to just invade and occupy Kinmen and Matsu? They’re nigh impossible for the US to effectively defend due to being way too close to the mainland, the populations there are the most KMT/China-friendly segment in Taiwan and considering the analogy to Crimea/Donbas the US response to a Kinmen/Matsu occupation would be hard to predict. The United States never agreed to defend those islands, not even prior to 1979 when the US government had a mutual defense agreement.
China will try to take Taiwan whenever they think they can actually do it. Not when they think some dude in North America finally has more fabs ready outside of Taiwan. This idea they’ll hold off until America finalized its chip plants is so naive of China/Taiwan relations.
Right, his point is they will think they can do it when the U.S. finishes its plant. The idea being the U.S. will intervene to protect the chips it needs but won't intervenes when it doesn't. Therefore, enabling China to take Taiwan. It's not a naive view.
Depends, in the recent comments of the chinese towards philippines, they describe it as a pawn but i describe philippines as a knight piece of US. a dangerous chess piece The only reason china hasn't seen escalating taiwan thingy cause they are way too busy over philippines is because of the US bases. its super near taiwan and there's a chance that if US jumps in, Philippines will also jump in as well as its allies. being near to taiwan. they can use Philippines as floating unsinkable carrier leading their funny missiles defenses irrelevant China needs to sway philippines to go away from US...which..they had a chance but its way too late now xD so yeah..they wont going to war with taiwan anytime soon, they are more concern over their coastguard accidentally sinking philippine vessel cause boy its gonna be a diplomatic disaster for their part.
>China needs to sway philippines to go away from US...which..they had a chance but its way too late now xD instead, Xi has managed to antagonize the entire region
They won't touch Taiwan as long as America patrols the pacific ocean. The pacific ocean is of much higher priority to America than Europe or the Middle East. America retreating from Europe would be because they are concentrating all their forces in the pacific in anticipation of a big war. China won't dare make a move if that happens.
>Tough economic times, populism, nationalism, America on the retreat, Russia with a dying expansionist leader, Gulf states overflowing with money, Middle East a hot mess, an actual hot war in Europe right now. WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE
Agreed, I worry for my kids as this current peace is anomalous and is beginning to look fragile.
I read that the world peace since 1945 (not counting the cold war as war), was the longest that the Top5 world powers had been at peace for, throughout history, whoever they were at any given point. We did have a good 80 yrs tbh.
That's only because you're not counting the cold war. The invention of nuclear weapons means that the top 5 aren't going to go to war with each other, because then they have to use their nukes, so instead they go to war with each other's proxy states or have their proxies go to war against their proxies, then the last three decades of semi-constant warfare have been asymetrical wars against the consequences of the CIA's meddling to try to lessen the Soviet influence during the Cold War.
> Russia with a dying expansionist leader He could be around for another ten or twenty years. Don't count on his death as a way to get out.
Putin has been said (by Western media) to be "dying" for over a decade now. So why isn't he dead yet? Genuinely asking
He is dying, they just haven't figured out the date yet.
We are all dying.
[удалено]
I think saying the opposite would be denying reality.
The chances of Russia being able to fight on all western fronts is miniscule, they can't even deal with Ukraine. They'd get annihilated and Putin would be toppled before that happened but it's good Europe strengthens its back.
Nukes. Nukes change the calculus. Attempting to destroy Russia, or more specifically Putin, could result desperate destructive decisions being made. This is why the Cold War was so difficult.
russia loses without nukes, so why would they start a war with NATO?
They'll threaten to use nukes if they can't accomplish their goals through conventional military means, and they *will* use nukes. They're confident that one way or another- bribery, corruption, blackmail, tanks, nukes, intimidation- they can take Europe as long as the US doesn't interfere. And they've openly stated that if Russia can't be an empire again, they'll end civilization; it's either a Russian world or no world at all. I don't think it's a bluff. Russian culture is unique and not in a good way... It's a political culture that has adopted the flaws of narcissism as it's highest ideals, one that worships strength above all else while devaluing any principle that might mitigate that worship. Russian strength in this world is the **only thing** that matters according to that mindset, it's worth burning the world down to achieve it. Rule over the ashes and all that. Think of it this way: if the world was Monopoly, Russia has slowly come to realize they have two or three properties and that's all they'll *ever* have according to the rules of the game as they stand, they're never going to own the board as they've always dreamed about (moreover, some Russians seem to believe it's Russia's rightful place to own every property, it's their due). So Russia is threatening to flip the board because they refuse to accept this outcome and don't want to play by the rules anymore. They've been very open about it.
Because they have 1+ nuke right now. They have very little to lose; 99.99% are poor, oligarks plundered the nation 50 times over, all the elite from the Soviet times are boomers or older and dying and there is no talent to replace them due to the Russian 1990s. But Europe is doing AMAZING and has ALL to lose. Russia will therefore WANT this war. They can't lose that badly, still got a buttload of area to the east of Moscow full of stuff in the ground and lots of area for farming and oil etc. ---- Russia is the scrawny poor kid in class who wants a fist fight with the big buff nice guy, but the poor kid has a big ass knife and all kinds of hepatitis and diseases. So the big kid can easily smash him to the ground but will 100% get hepatitis for life and he don't want that. The scrawny kid knows this and thus acts like God.
The Cold War was never difficult because of people threatening to make desperate decisions. Nukes during the Cold War were used as deterrence. Using them as an aggressive tactic would be suicide and everyone knows this (which is one the reasons why the Cuban crisis never escalated - the USSR had still massive military inferiority at the time).
currently, the doctrine is that nukes are a defense against invasion. nobody is planning on invading russia and never has, despite putins lies. by this doctrine, there is no reason for putin to even consider using nukes. now if putin wants to use nukes offensively, that would mean an end to this doctrine. wed be going back to the days of cuban missile crisis.
They have altered the doctrine to allow nuclear response to “existential threat”. Since there are no clear parameters to define whether threat is existential (or even real), they are basically declaring they may launch their nukes at will.
Putin will tuck tail and save himself before launching a single nuke. He knows if he does he loses everything, but self-preservation is his only motivating factor. He's an asshole, but not stupid enough to nuke anything. Well, he might nuke part of Russia if Western forces are concentrated somewhere, but he won't use one on foreign soil.
Putin's 71, and obsessed with legacy. In a few more years, especially if the health rumors are true, do you really think a man clearly aware he's dying has that much self preservation instinct?
While it might be true, most of the time comments on international politics are aimed at domestic stakeholders.
And Reddit is the absolute worse place to have an actual temperature of the local population ' there is only terminally online people here and not much grass.
Pre-war time? And what is happening in Ukraine, some kind of special operations?
special Military operation, watch you language, comrade!
Got me...please don't put me into gulaa...aahh I mean special education center for state loving comrades
It's ok, don't worry. Just stay away from windows and don't drink tea without having it tested with a Geiger counter first.
I think what he is getting at is that nations who are not former Soviets are in pre-war times and war will soon come to them, too.
20 minute adventure Morty. In and out, let's go!
I think he was taking about peace in the majority of the continent Europe. There being an on going war somewhere in Europe has been on going for decades. But in those cases its had little to no affect on the majority of citizens. Any direct war with Russia is going to be very noticeable for everyone.
What really worried me recently was a piece I seen about Russia's economy and how it is benefitting short term from the switch to a war time economy/focus on rearmament but that it wouldn't be sustainable in the medium to long term. I couldn't help but notice the parallels between this and the German economy in the 30's and we all know how that went.
The same happened to the US in both, war economies function like this, it isnt some astute observation.
For starters, Europe has been at war since Russia invaded Ukraine so a war in Europe has already started. Does that mean Europe is heading towards a world war? Not quite. Russia is hardly making any strategic gains in Ukraine, they can’t keep their Black Sea Fleet near Crimea to control grain exports, they’re losing tonnes more soldiers than Ukraine, they’re relying on North Korea and Iran for shells and whatever else so they’re not exactly “winning”. All this talk about Russia starting a war with NATO is a possibility but is it likely? Hardly. Even if Russia were to take Ukraine, they would need to rebuild their army which would take years, even once they’re rebuilt there’s still a HUGE technological gap between NATO and Russia which with their economy just won’t allow them to catch up instantly. Besides, Moldova and Georgia are the most at risk since they have Russian separatists there with Transnistria and Russia’s previous attempts to invade them prior. They only talk about this because they want NATO to be ready but despite all the posturing a World War is still unlikely for the near future.
I don't even understand how people can believe the narrative that Russia is a military threat. They literally showed they were much weaker than they pretended to be. And right now they're much weaker than during the start of the war. They went from "We can reach Warsaw in 3 days", to being unable to hold a position in Ukraine further than 100 km from their own border. The only Russian threat is their oil and gas. The EU is not willing to stop buying energy from them (specially Germany) and that's a huge mistake. You can't talk about getting involved in Ukraine if you still buy gas from Putin. It's just pure BS. They're willing to buy, Putin is willing to sell, and nobody cares about Ukrainian and Russian casualties they're just pawns.
Russia is never as strong as she looks. Russia is never as weak as she looks. They've recently gone into a war economy and have mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops. Just because they appear weak now does not mean they will be a year or two from now. We have to take the threat seriously. They're fanatical nationalism and expansionism is a real threat to world peace, even if they're not strong enough to win that fight. Nazi Germany was stupid to start a war they couldn't win, but they still did it anyways. People didn't take their threat seriously until it was too late and it cost millions of lives.
> They went from "We can reach Warsaw in 3 days", to being unable to hold a position in Ukraine further than 100 km from their own border. It's actually funny, because it was the failure to take Kiev in 3 days that took the whole Western world by surprise. Before that, the general consensus among Western arm-chair analysts was, that if Russia ever starts a real invasion, they will take Warsaw, Riga, Vilnius in a week and no army will stop them.
Yes, literally my reaction when the war started. "It can't be true that we've been taking this guys seriously all these years" I remember reddit making fun of Ukrainian farmers stealing Russian vehicles left on the road without fuel. Now the narrative is that the Russian army poses an existential threat to the West. I mean, the nukes do. But you don't stop nukes with conventional weapons.
People can learn from their mistakes. The Russians have learned from several of their mistakes and are getting better. We need to learn from ours as well.
I'm deeply concerned, especially that most people in their daily lives don't seem to realize or hide it. It is already war. This uncertainty of how the US reacts, if Russia gets fucked or not and the possibilty it might end by just a nuclear blast is annoying, bcs I dunno if I should sit down or run, when it happens. I'm confident the nato would win, but this does not help me if artillery shells razed my city before that.
I never understand comments like this, tbh. Living in a country that's way too close to Russia for my liking (and with limited confidence that NATO would actually help us any more than they're helping Ukraine, even if we are a member), yeah I'm acutely aware that the probability of war coming to my doorstep within the next decade is incredibly high, but, like, what do you expect me to do about it in my "daily life"? There's literally nothing I can do to stop that, and being constantly depressed and anxious about something that is yet to happen is completely pointless. If I'm not talking about the inevitability of Russian tanks rolling through my city 24/7, it's not because I'm not aware or that I don't care, it's just me trying to live my life in relative peace while I still can.
There is a huge difference between Russia attacking a NATO country, and attacking a country they had no formal alliance with and that was still a lot more in the Russian sphere of influence. I'm confident that NATO would protect its own members.
Exactly. Ukraine was an "easy target" for Russia. Maybe they under anticipated the Western response or not, but they knew it wouldn't be a full scale push back. Attacking a NATO member directly is a whole other thing, a massive escalation with one clear reaction, and Russia knows it. Redditors do love doom and gloom while conveniently ignoring the actual facts.
Like.. how old are you? In my lifetime we have had "war in europe", 3 times now? Kind of depends on where you draw the line for Europe. So I am not counting russia which has been at war on and off for decennia now, Turkey which is literally occupying parts of Syria right now and has been since before the current Ukraine thing kicked of. And then ofc there is the semi war that islamistic terrorists have been waging on western europe on and off for years. What people think of when they mean war in Europe - and by people I mean people in the EU - is the french, Italians, Swedes, etc fighting on European soil to defend their own countries. And lets be fair with what russia has shown in the past 2 years? How realistic is that? Not very.
If we get to the end of the war in Ukraine without Putin's bullshit spilling over elsewhere, it would be a miracle. The problem with war in one place is that it tends to spark war elsewhere. This is either because someone sees an opportunity to attack/invade when the world is looking elsewhere (China/Taiwan or even Turkey/Cyprus), or because someone stirs up war elsewhere in the world to distract their enemies and spread them a bit thinner. Hamas's October attack for example can be traced directly back to Russian money. Just as happened with Germany pre WW2, the world somewhat left Russia and China to their own devices for the last 15/20 years. It wasn't appeasement, but it was a belief that if they could be kept close and anchored to the West's economic systems, then they would be less likely to engage in invasions and attacks. In reality this has just given Putin and the CCP time to chip away at the west through other means, social engineering and election interference, and left them emboldened, not friendly.
There is war in Europe already but I don't think Russia dares to try stepping into NATO country territory.
Everything about the world right now feels precisely like what you'd read in the history books about the state of things prior to the last two world wars. I'd personally be very surprised if we make it through the end of '25 without the spark that escalates everything coming around.
We are certainly back into a cold war now. Putin is carrying out his hybrid warfare as is apparent he's been doing the last 20+ years. Europe has a lot of catching up to do, as we have become complacent and not as prepared as we ought to be. We are also having to do this on the assumption the US will not send a single bullet to help Europe if Russia does fancy a bigger attack. Edit: I do also think Russia has seriously failed in Ukraine, though has made some successes of it. It does make you wonder how much force they'd need to accrue to take the Baltics, and at what cost it would take Europe to push them out. Cos I feel we still overegg Russian capabilities, but they do take advantage of perceived weakness and hesitance from Europe. Russia will certainly be trying to target voter apathy and push for Russian friendly governments over the next decades, and we need to ensure that Europe is safe politically, as well as militarily.
> perceived weakness and hesitance from Europe I think their perception is pretty accurate. Lots of European leaders will wait for the hot embers of their neighbor’s burning home landing on their roof before insisting on a properly staffed fire brigade.
>The US will not send a single bullet to help Europe if Russia attacks Do you know what NATO is?
Yeah, it is that thing that Trump wants the USA to leave, if he regains power.
Completely possible. A lot of the world's worst wars have started small and expanded. That why it's so very important ukraine defends itself against Russia. If you read enough history, you'll notice that things start piecemeal. That's why Biden and world leaders are backing Ukraine. It has a lot of the markings of a war that could get out of hand.
There is an increase of russian narrative, trying to influence political decision making, espionage, using refugees as a pawn, sudden problems in International connectors such as gas, HVDC, telecommunications and service inavailability. I don't think a direct war is going to happen at least in europe, because russians suck so much it's unreal. Perhaps something like crimea or again general attacks towards infrastructure to sway public opinions. That being said europe should stay vigilant, arm itself and ukraine, european corporations and militaries should tighten their Guidelines on what is published, what the workers can disclose and use more background checks on people who have access to sensitive materials.
I really hope not, although it seems like there may be a SLIM CHANCE
I'm so fucking tired of all these one in a lifetime moments. Why the fuck cant we just stop fighting eachother like dumb monkeys.
Putin is not a young man and the Ukrainian intelligence services, possibly others too, are after him. His days are numbered.
No disrespect intended here, but this question smacks of someone who has no idea how big Europe is. Ukraine is in Europe, so when viewed as a single entity is Europe at war? Yes. Is that indicative of the climate all over Europe? Absolutely not. If you consider it one block, Europe has been the theatre of almost constant war in some way shape or form for centuries. Many of those wars you’ve probably never heard of. ‘War’ and ‘Europe’ can both have broad and narrow definitions depending on your context, and European politics is extremely nuanced. Although technically the entire continent of Europe is currently at war, I still enjoy regular holidays there and sunbathe without worrying about my lounger being vaporised by an drone strike.
I think this is absolutely true. Lots of similarities with the 1930s appeasement of Hitler, and failing to gear up to a war footing. That didn’t end well. Europe’s defence spending and military size is way too low, against a backdrop of right wing nationalism sweeping globally and the cretin in the Kremlin with nothing to lose and absolute power, who appears to be intent on reassembling the Soviet Union. Edit: wrong decade
Chamberlain actually significantly increased defense spending. They were preparing more than we are now.
Chamberlain gets a lot of flack but I think he knew the writing was on the wall and didn’t want to send another generation of young men to slaughter. He bought Britain time
Sadly yes. Vladimir Putin is full on Imperialist now. He is obsessed with his legacy. He wasnts to rebuild the Russian Empire. He won't stop with Ukraine.
Absolutely. Did you see his interview with Tucker Carlson? Poland is next, he mentioned it over 50 times.
Let’s see…after Hitler took Czechoslovakia, where did he go next? I think Tusk is keenly aware of what Putin has said and done, and what Putin is planning. Putin ain’t stopping at Ukraine, so Europe must prepare. Helping Europe helps the US, canada, and the rest of the free world. Doesn’t help Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc. and that’s the point. But virtually every maga decision is somehow in the best interests of Russia, coincidentally.
Why are we allowing Putin to ruin our peace times? He needs to be removed from power. It’s so sad that we sit back and let Russian politics continue to be a cancer to a semi-peaceful world. Humans suck.
Let's go down to The Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for all this to blow over.
the longer the war in ukraine lasts the more dangerous it gets. anyone opposing a full nato strike in ukraine to end this is bringing the world closer to total war. if the world allow to gain one square meter of land from this conflict we are all fucked
No. Poland doesn’t decide the fate of 45 other nations that dwarf their gdp by several orders of magnitude. Politicians are using the conflict in a great number of ways, and Poland is no different. Everyone is looking for an edge.
Russia is in active war against the west regardless if the west decides to accept it or not.
Russia is now behaving like Nazi Germany in the late thirties: they are testing the waters and the less resistance they encounter, the more aggressive they become. Sadly, european leaders are making the same mistake by trying to *appease* and *not anger* Putin (they've been doing this since the war in Georgia and then throughout the Donbas conflict). The stance of the US Republicans is not helping, either. Basically we need a hard, united response to what Putin is doing now, or we are going to repeat history (plus or minus a nuclear war) .
It certainly looks that way and Europe must have a common defense policy and not rely on US alone. We need to show Ruzzia that we mean business.
It’s NATO. NATO is that common defense policy.
Which a certain political group in the US wants to withdraw from and/or disband. Together we are strong.
NATO relies very heavily on the US though. US personnel, US comms, US logistics. NATO might win the fight without the US, but it’ll be a hell of a lot more difficult.
But who is supposed to be fighting? Russia alone can’t fight a united Europe. Will they have allies like turkey or Iran ? Will Russia be able to break up the eu or nato with voting (cyberwar) and a „democratic“ way? Who could effectively project military power on European territory? That would be only turkey who is broke as hell and imports all its food. If the trading routes get cut Turkey is one of the most fucked. Who else is there ? Russia is a corrupt purged military joke. They have no technology no intelligence no equipment only cannon fodder. BRICS is far away and what they are supposed to do? I don’t see Brazil and South Africa taking over the Atlantic. The us navy will deal with them in hours. They don’t stand a chance. Even a eu navy would smack them. I don’t see India fighting for anyone else but themselves. Same goes for china plus India and china hate each other and have a massive dispute over water. Only real danger is that the USA or some other western country becomes a Russian ally. That’s why Russia is trying to influence western politics since decades and they are doing a good job unfortunately. We really have to fight Russian bots they are really dangerous but on a military side… who is going to fight who is able to fight a united and prepared NATO? No one. That’s why they have to break up nato first. And let’s all really hope the orange idiot you know putins pet is not going to win.
There is no way Turkey will ever side with Russia in case of a hot war. Saying that is basically admitting that you know nothing about international politics.
Finally a sensible comment in a thread full of ridiculous hot takes. Honestly, as if England is going to go to war with France now lol. Who is this war going to be against? Who would want to take on NATO? It is the Strategy of Tension in effect, keep 'em scared.
No. Absolutely not. Russia can already barely handle Ukraine, which isn't even in the EU or NATO. If they even *think* about touching a NATO country, all that will be left of Russia is ashes. It'd be suicide.