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United States44199 Posts
On May 11 2026 19:01 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2026 16:29 Silvanel wrote:On May 11 2026 05:41 Sent. wrote:On May 11 2026 04:45 GreenHorizons wrote:
Early on the popular idea was that Russia posed an existential threat to Europe if Putin wasn't stopped in Ukraine. Is that still a popular perception despite the frequent beclowning of the Russian military's effectiveness and assurances Europe would dominate such a conflict? Russia poses an existential threat to Europe as in the idea of THE EUROPE, the peak of European civilization and its values, etc. The last time Russia was a direct threat to Western Europe was in like the 50s and it stopped being an immediate danger to bigger Eastern countries like Poland, Hungary or Romania around 2004. Nobody is seriously afraid of Russia in those countries today. This doesn't make statements like "Russia poses an existential threat to Europe" wrong in proper contexts. Russia is still an existential threat in the way that it's a serious direct threat to smaller and most eastern countries like Estonia or Moldova and it's also a constant source of poison that has a small but not insignificant chance to turn voters in bigger states like Hungary (did happen) or Germany (did not happen yet) against European values. Pro-Russian governents in a single, non minor-country remain a big threat because the EU still has plenty of areas where unanimity is needed to pass laws. Imagine if California or Illinois could veto federal legislation in the US whenever Russian or some other foregin entity offered them slightly cheaper oil prices. Estonia is part of the EU. If we let Russia bully it, it's like letting Russia bully France. It's like letting China bully Hawaii or Alaska. The Europe as we know is not supposed to be something that can be threatened. I disagree. First a lot of people in Poland do fear Russia, secondly Russia is an existential threat to Poland. -There is no month that ABW/SKW/police doesn't announce that they arrested someone who planned, attempted, or perpetrated acts of sabotage -They are founding right wing nutjobs and parties in order to get us away from EU -They are funding anti government nutjobs to sow discontent -They are funding left wing nutjobs to polarize society. -They do so in other countries to put strain on foreign relations. -They do help organized crime... An existential threat doesn't mean they will take Warsaw next month. It means that their end goal is our subjugation, and they do work towards it. This is exactly it. No one in EU or NATO is truly worried about a direct invasion from Russia, but the world, not just Poland, has been at war with Russia's hybrid warfare for decades already. We're worried they are going to sow dissidence and part of the population suddenly "decides that they're now Russian", backed by the sudden appearance of little green men. We're worried our politics shifting hard right, backed by Russia funding and influenced by a huge social media network. Or that organized crime undervalues our nation's security to the point where we're no longer able to respond effectively to threats. These are very real threats, and the effect of which we've seen all too well so many times already.
I disagree, and pretty strongly. Estonia etc. should be worried about a direct Russian invasion on the grounds that NATO is currently leaderless and the US will simply not intervene. Had Ukraine not been able to pin Russia down it likely would have happened by now.
Remember Russia doesn't need to win to win, they just need to fracture the anti Russian defence pacts. If a single Russian soldier walks into Estonia and is forced back that can still be a Russian win due to the damage that it would cause NATO and the EU. Russia knows this, the short term objective of any direct invasion wouldn't be to take the land, it'd be to cause a crisis where the alliance fractures into factions that disclaim their obligations, postpone action in favour of scheduling talks, or recognize some kind of middle ground.
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On May 11 2026 21:38 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2026 19:01 Excludos wrote:On May 11 2026 16:29 Silvanel wrote:On May 11 2026 05:41 Sent. wrote:On May 11 2026 04:45 GreenHorizons wrote:
Early on the popular idea was that Russia posed an existential threat to Europe if Putin wasn't stopped in Ukraine. Is that still a popular perception despite the frequent beclowning of the Russian military's effectiveness and assurances Europe would dominate such a conflict? Russia poses an existential threat to Europe as in the idea of THE EUROPE, the peak of European civilization and its values, etc. The last time Russia was a direct threat to Western Europe was in like the 50s and it stopped being an immediate danger to bigger Eastern countries like Poland, Hungary or Romania around 2004. Nobody is seriously afraid of Russia in those countries today. This doesn't make statements like "Russia poses an existential threat to Europe" wrong in proper contexts. Russia is still an existential threat in the way that it's a serious direct threat to smaller and most eastern countries like Estonia or Moldova and it's also a constant source of poison that has a small but not insignificant chance to turn voters in bigger states like Hungary (did happen) or Germany (did not happen yet) against European values. Pro-Russian governents in a single, non minor-country remain a big threat because the EU still has plenty of areas where unanimity is needed to pass laws. Imagine if California or Illinois could veto federal legislation in the US whenever Russian or some other foregin entity offered them slightly cheaper oil prices. Estonia is part of the EU. If we let Russia bully it, it's like letting Russia bully France. It's like letting China bully Hawaii or Alaska. The Europe as we know is not supposed to be something that can be threatened. I disagree. First a lot of people in Poland do fear Russia, secondly Russia is an existential threat to Poland. -There is no month that ABW/SKW/police doesn't announce that they arrested someone who planned, attempted, or perpetrated acts of sabotage -They are founding right wing nutjobs and parties in order to get us away from EU -They are funding anti government nutjobs to sow discontent -They are funding left wing nutjobs to polarize society. -They do so in other countries to put strain on foreign relations. -They do help organized crime... An existential threat doesn't mean they will take Warsaw next month. It means that their end goal is our subjugation, and they do work towards it. This is exactly it. No one in EU or NATO is truly worried about a direct invasion from Russia, but the world, not just Poland, has been at war with Russia's hybrid warfare for decades already. We're worried they are going to sow dissidence and part of the population suddenly "decides that they're now Russian", backed by the sudden appearance of little green men. We're worried our politics shifting hard right, backed by Russia funding and influenced by a huge social media network. Or that organized crime undervalues our nation's security to the point where we're no longer able to respond effectively to threats. These are very real threats, and the effect of which we've seen all too well so many times already. I disagree, and pretty strongly. Estonia etc. should be worried about a direct Russian invasion on the grounds that NATO is currently leaderless and the US will simply not intervene. Had Ukraine not been able to pin Russia down it likely would have happened by now. Remember Russia doesn't need to win to win, they just need to fracture the anti Russian defence pacts. If a single Russian soldier walks into Estonia and is forced back that can still be a Russian win due to the damage that it would cause NATO and the EU. Russia knows this, the short term objective of any direct invasion wouldn't be to take the land, it'd be to cause a crisis where the alliance fractures into factions that disclaim their obligations, postpone action in favour of scheduling talks, or recognize some kind of middle ground.
If a single soldier walks into Estonia he would just get arrested. If a company of soldiers invade they'd get annihilated. If a full army group tries to invade maybe they would use article 5, but more likely the countries around them would help to repel it under EU mutual defence clauses (can't exactly hide it).
If the entire Russian army invades then Estonia would article 5 immediately. Maybe that doesn't work and NATO falls apart. But maybe it does work and Russia gets its ass handed to it. It's pretty risky.
Point is you don't call on NATO for something you can handle on your own and as long as Poland is willing to step in (and they would get help for sure from many countries) the baltics can easily handle anything up to a full scale invasion.
Not saying it couldn't happen but it's a pretty risky move.
No country has used article 5 yet on their own (allies called it for the US). As long as you don't trigger it the main part of the defence alliance stands.
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United States44199 Posts
On May 12 2026 05:15 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2026 21:38 KwarK wrote:On May 11 2026 19:01 Excludos wrote:On May 11 2026 16:29 Silvanel wrote:On May 11 2026 05:41 Sent. wrote:On May 11 2026 04:45 GreenHorizons wrote:
Early on the popular idea was that Russia posed an existential threat to Europe if Putin wasn't stopped in Ukraine. Is that still a popular perception despite the frequent beclowning of the Russian military's effectiveness and assurances Europe would dominate such a conflict? Russia poses an existential threat to Europe as in the idea of THE EUROPE, the peak of European civilization and its values, etc. The last time Russia was a direct threat to Western Europe was in like the 50s and it stopped being an immediate danger to bigger Eastern countries like Poland, Hungary or Romania around 2004. Nobody is seriously afraid of Russia in those countries today. This doesn't make statements like "Russia poses an existential threat to Europe" wrong in proper contexts. Russia is still an existential threat in the way that it's a serious direct threat to smaller and most eastern countries like Estonia or Moldova and it's also a constant source of poison that has a small but not insignificant chance to turn voters in bigger states like Hungary (did happen) or Germany (did not happen yet) against European values. Pro-Russian governents in a single, non minor-country remain a big threat because the EU still has plenty of areas where unanimity is needed to pass laws. Imagine if California or Illinois could veto federal legislation in the US whenever Russian or some other foregin entity offered them slightly cheaper oil prices. Estonia is part of the EU. If we let Russia bully it, it's like letting Russia bully France. It's like letting China bully Hawaii or Alaska. The Europe as we know is not supposed to be something that can be threatened. I disagree. First a lot of people in Poland do fear Russia, secondly Russia is an existential threat to Poland. -There is no month that ABW/SKW/police doesn't announce that they arrested someone who planned, attempted, or perpetrated acts of sabotage -They are founding right wing nutjobs and parties in order to get us away from EU -They are funding anti government nutjobs to sow discontent -They are funding left wing nutjobs to polarize society. -They do so in other countries to put strain on foreign relations. -They do help organized crime... An existential threat doesn't mean they will take Warsaw next month. It means that their end goal is our subjugation, and they do work towards it. This is exactly it. No one in EU or NATO is truly worried about a direct invasion from Russia, but the world, not just Poland, has been at war with Russia's hybrid warfare for decades already. We're worried they are going to sow dissidence and part of the population suddenly "decides that they're now Russian", backed by the sudden appearance of little green men. We're worried our politics shifting hard right, backed by Russia funding and influenced by a huge social media network. Or that organized crime undervalues our nation's security to the point where we're no longer able to respond effectively to threats. These are very real threats, and the effect of which we've seen all too well so many times already. I disagree, and pretty strongly. Estonia etc. should be worried about a direct Russian invasion on the grounds that NATO is currently leaderless and the US will simply not intervene. Had Ukraine not been able to pin Russia down it likely would have happened by now. Remember Russia doesn't need to win to win, they just need to fracture the anti Russian defence pacts. If a single Russian soldier walks into Estonia and is forced back that can still be a Russian win due to the damage that it would cause NATO and the EU. Russia knows this, the short term objective of any direct invasion wouldn't be to take the land, it'd be to cause a crisis where the alliance fractures into factions that disclaim their obligations, postpone action in favour of scheduling talks, or recognize some kind of middle ground. If a single soldier walks into Estonia he would just get arrested. If a company of soldiers invade they'd get annihilated. If a full army group tries to invade maybe they would use article 5, but more likely the countries around them would help to repel it under EU mutual defence clauses (can't exactly hide it). If the entire Russian army invades then Estonia would article 5 immediately. Maybe that doesn't work and NATO falls apart. But maybe it does work and Russia gets its ass handed to it. It's pretty risky. Point is you don't call on NATO for something you can handle on your own and as long as Poland is willing to step in (and they would get help for sure from many countries) the baltics can easily handle anything up to a full scale invasion. Not saying it couldn't happen but it's a pretty risky move. No country has used article 5 yet on their own (allies called it for the US). As long as you don't trigger it the main part of the defence alliance stands.
How do you imagine NATO working here in a way that is bad for Russia? I would think the most likely scenario would be US non involvement under Trump and a crisis of leadership due to the American led NATO command structure. Russia would start talking about nukes and there would be paralysis. Best case scenario Russia gets forced back pretty quickly but in any case the damage is still done because when tested NATO could not offer a unified decisive response. You don’t need to defeat NATO, you only need to defeat its credibility. With Trump in the White House there has never and will never be a better time to fight NATO, he longs for a chance to not be there for his allies.
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A nice interview with the chief of Polish agency ABW (which is a Polish equivalent of MI5): infosecurity24.pl
It's in Polish, but in this day and age it is easy to get the translation. He talks about Russia, China, lone wolves, radicalization, etc.
For those who do not think that Russia is a threat...
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On May 12 2026 08:48 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2026 05:15 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 11 2026 21:38 KwarK wrote:On May 11 2026 19:01 Excludos wrote:On May 11 2026 16:29 Silvanel wrote:On May 11 2026 05:41 Sent. wrote:On May 11 2026 04:45 GreenHorizons wrote:
Early on the popular idea was that Russia posed an existential threat to Europe if Putin wasn't stopped in Ukraine. Is that still a popular perception despite the frequent beclowning of the Russian military's effectiveness and assurances Europe would dominate such a conflict? Russia poses an existential threat to Europe as in the idea of THE EUROPE, the peak of European civilization and its values, etc. The last time Russia was a direct threat to Western Europe was in like the 50s and it stopped being an immediate danger to bigger Eastern countries like Poland, Hungary or Romania around 2004. Nobody is seriously afraid of Russia in those countries today. This doesn't make statements like "Russia poses an existential threat to Europe" wrong in proper contexts. Russia is still an existential threat in the way that it's a serious direct threat to smaller and most eastern countries like Estonia or Moldova and it's also a constant source of poison that has a small but not insignificant chance to turn voters in bigger states like Hungary (did happen) or Germany (did not happen yet) against European values. Pro-Russian governents in a single, non minor-country remain a big threat because the EU still has plenty of areas where unanimity is needed to pass laws. Imagine if California or Illinois could veto federal legislation in the US whenever Russian or some other foregin entity offered them slightly cheaper oil prices. Estonia is part of the EU. If we let Russia bully it, it's like letting Russia bully France. It's like letting China bully Hawaii or Alaska. The Europe as we know is not supposed to be something that can be threatened. I disagree. First a lot of people in Poland do fear Russia, secondly Russia is an existential threat to Poland. -There is no month that ABW/SKW/police doesn't announce that they arrested someone who planned, attempted, or perpetrated acts of sabotage -They are founding right wing nutjobs and parties in order to get us away from EU -They are funding anti government nutjobs to sow discontent -They are funding left wing nutjobs to polarize society. -They do so in other countries to put strain on foreign relations. -They do help organized crime... An existential threat doesn't mean they will take Warsaw next month. It means that their end goal is our subjugation, and they do work towards it. This is exactly it. No one in EU or NATO is truly worried about a direct invasion from Russia, but the world, not just Poland, has been at war with Russia's hybrid warfare for decades already. We're worried they are going to sow dissidence and part of the population suddenly "decides that they're now Russian", backed by the sudden appearance of little green men. We're worried our politics shifting hard right, backed by Russia funding and influenced by a huge social media network. Or that organized crime undervalues our nation's security to the point where we're no longer able to respond effectively to threats. These are very real threats, and the effect of which we've seen all too well so many times already. I disagree, and pretty strongly. Estonia etc. should be worried about a direct Russian invasion on the grounds that NATO is currently leaderless and the US will simply not intervene. Had Ukraine not been able to pin Russia down it likely would have happened by now. Remember Russia doesn't need to win to win, they just need to fracture the anti Russian defence pacts. If a single Russian soldier walks into Estonia and is forced back that can still be a Russian win due to the damage that it would cause NATO and the EU. Russia knows this, the short term objective of any direct invasion wouldn't be to take the land, it'd be to cause a crisis where the alliance fractures into factions that disclaim their obligations, postpone action in favour of scheduling talks, or recognize some kind of middle ground. If a single soldier walks into Estonia he would just get arrested. If a company of soldiers invade they'd get annihilated. If a full army group tries to invade maybe they would use article 5, but more likely the countries around them would help to repel it under EU mutual defence clauses (can't exactly hide it). If the entire Russian army invades then Estonia would article 5 immediately. Maybe that doesn't work and NATO falls apart. But maybe it does work and Russia gets its ass handed to it. It's pretty risky. Point is you don't call on NATO for something you can handle on your own and as long as Poland is willing to step in (and they would get help for sure from many countries) the baltics can easily handle anything up to a full scale invasion. Not saying it couldn't happen but it's a pretty risky move. No country has used article 5 yet on their own (allies called it for the US). As long as you don't trigger it the main part of the defence alliance stands. How do you imagine NATO working here in a way that is bad for Russia? I would think the most likely scenario would be US non involvement under Trump and a crisis of leadership due to the American led NATO command structure. Russia would start talking about nukes and there would be paralysis. Best case scenario Russia gets forced back pretty quickly but in any case the damage is still done because when tested NATO could not offer a unified decisive response. You don’t need to defeat NATO, you only need to defeat its credibility. With Trump in the White House there has never and will never be a better time to fight NATO, he longs for a chance to not be there for his allies.
I mean if they want to push it enough for article 5 they can't just walk over the border and then skeddadle back to safety immediately.
You are talking about an all out invasion with their entire army.
Even if it's 100% certain the US would sit it out worst case scenario is still all of the EU and Turkey.
Even using nukes as a shield and only hitting military targets so there are no strikes in Russia I imagine they would lose a significant part of their invasion force and air defence assets, the entire baltic and black sea fleet and have Kalininggrad and Transistiria occupied before the Russian army is back behind their borders.
I suspect it wouldn't feel worth it.
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I think you are both right: There is no better time than now but it's still not the right time. But you never know with Russia. I would have never imagine a full scale invasion of Ukraine and here we are 4 years later
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I'm lazy to look it up, but a few months ago I put a breakdown in the thread on how, form the numbers perspective a war between Poland and Italy or Poland and France vs Russia would look, so, basically 2 out of 3 biggest EU militaries vs Russia of 2025.
Russia might have a slight advantage in the number of air frames and a larger in the numbers of troops, but would be completely outclassed everywhere else.
Thinking that NATO would need USA to win a fight against a Russia that's been on the receiving end of a million casualties and tens of thousands of pieces of equipment lost, from tanks and ATVs to a quarter of it's fixed air frames and many, many other very expensive and not easily replaceable pieces of gear is laughable.
Yes, EU nations have neglected military spending and training, 5 years ago, since the full scale invasion a lot has been done, many of the systems ordered have been delivered and trained on and most countries have picked up slack with procurement and training, EU doesn't need USA to defend it from Russia.
And all of this speculation is not taking Ukraine in to consideration, if Russia wanted to start shit elsewhere, it would have to take those troops and equipment out of Ukraine, freeing up a few hundred thousand of best Ukrainian troops and all of their equipment and know how to come and help the allies that have been keeping them alive for 5 years.
That is one of the major reasons why EU has been supportive of Ukraine, a battle tested ally who hates your potential adversary more then anything is extremely useful.
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United States44199 Posts
On May 12 2026 23:19 Jankisa wrote:
Yes, EU nations have neglected military spending and training, 5 years ago, since the full scale invasion a lot has been done, many of the systems ordered have been delivered and trained on and most countries have picked up slack with procurement and training, EU doesn't need USA to defend it from Russia.
That's not the argument. The argument isn't over who would win on the field.
NATO is a defensive pact built on the idea of deterrence. It expands because it has a positive feedback loop that never involves it actually fighting
NATO is powerful -> I don't want to be attacked so I'll join NATO -> NATO is more powerful
This is great for everyone involved because they don't really have to do much, you don't need to win the fight, you're so obviously going to win that nobody will fight you which means that everyone wants to join you. The perception of an overwhelming unified response does most of the heavy lifting for you.
Defensive pacts are absolutely the worst area to have strategic ambiguity because then you end up in an accidental escalatory cycle. You want all potential adversaries to be 100% sure that they know where the line is and that they will get a coordinated joint response if they cross it.
The problem we have is that right now there is an awful lot of ambiguity in NATO. On the one hand we have 70 years of US foreign policy and the actual text of the document but on the other we have Trump's statements that he believes that NATO expansion is a mistake, that the US shouldn't be involved in defending Eastern Europe, that he believes Eastern Europe is basically part of Russia's sphere, and that he wants to punish American allies for disobedience. Given the central role of the US in providing key and irreplaceable components to the alliance this is a pretty massive issue.
NATO has, in theory, a response plan to a Russian invasion. Within that response plan there's a lot of jobs filled by the US and if the US decided it wasn't interested in fulfilling the obligation then you get a fairly significant problem.
No other NATO ally has the US logistics capabilities, the US manufacturing capabilities, the US nuclear arsenal (obviously there is Britain and France but they don't have a thousand MIRV ICBMs), the naval capabilities, LEO satellite constellations. And even if they did, the US is central to the entire command and control of the alliance because it was considered a given that in any alliance operation the US would be doing the heavy lifting.
There's also the diplomatic element to it. Key NATO allies like Turkey have fairly close relations with Russia, if the US twisted their arm they could be counted on to commit to the NATO side but if the US is simultaneously leading NATO and stating "not our war, it's permissible to stay out of this one" then you're not getting Turkish involvement either.
So you get a shitload of dislocation and a leadership crisis. You get confusion. You get Russia insisting that if Kalingrad is violated then they'll use nukes and people are trying to work out how they can get the required hardware to Estonia through the corridor in Lithuania without controlling Kalingrad. You get a leadership vacuum filled with three different candidates with three different messages, Germany asking for a pause while Britain talks a big game without mobilizing while France declares that the US was always the true enemy and de Gaulle was a genius.
Let's say that Poland eventually goes "this is fucking ridiculous" and drives Russia back across the Estonian border by itself. It doesn't matter. NATO is still dead. Nobody joins NATO for strategic ambiguity over defence.
Right now NATO is a house built with rotten wood that is more termite than not. The individual nations may be strong but the confidence in the alliance has never been weaker. Trump is not only disinterested in collective defence, he sees it as a burden upon America and he is actively looking for a way to "punish" NATO by refusing to support them. He wants it to fail because he wants European countries to come to him as vassals rather than NATO allies. That is what I'm talking about when I'm saying Russia can win if it challenges NATO, and honestly I'd be amazed if they didn't win because the most powerful country in NATO would be on their side (not in terms of sending American troops alongside Russian troops occupy a sq km of Estonia but in terms of a shared goal of undermining the alliance).
And that's the victory Russia is after. Russia is coercive. Russia likes to go to Eastern European states and go "it's a shame about what happened in Ukraine, wouldn't want that to happen to you would you" and "that Russian speaking separatist movement sure came out of nowhere, hey, don't you have a lot of Russian speakers within your borders?" If an Eastern European country has absolute confidence in the deterrence value of the NATO alliance they can go "fuck off troll". But if they think that Russia might actually try some shit then things get a lot more complicated because even if you might ultimately win you don't want to go down that road. And so you give a little and now you're back in the Russian sphere.
It can simultaneously be true that Russia can't defeat Poland but Russia can absolutely defeat NATO. In a world in which Ukraine collapses and becomes another Belarus I think Russia makes a "limited scope no need for nuclear exchange if you nuke us we'll nuke you back and anyway all we want is the Sudetenland what kind of monster would deny us the Sudetenland lets talk this out in Munich" invasion in the Baltics to seize and occupy a square mile of NATO land. And I think it probably works.
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On May 13 2026 00:04 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2026 23:19 Jankisa wrote:
Yes, EU nations have neglected military spending and training, 5 years ago, since the full scale invasion a lot has been done, many of the systems ordered have been delivered and trained on and most countries have picked up slack with procurement and training, EU doesn't need USA to defend it from Russia. That's not the argument. The argument isn't over who would win on the field. NATO is a defensive pact built on the idea of deterrence. It expands because it has a positive feedback loop that never involves it actually fighting NATO is powerful -> I don't want to be attacked so I'll join NATO -> NATO is more powerful This is great for everyone involved because they don't really have to do much, you don't need to win the fight, you're so obviously going to win that nobody will fight you which means that everyone wants to join you. The perception of an overwhelming unified response does most of the heavy lifting for you. Defensive pacts are absolutely the worst area to have strategic ambiguity because then you end up in an accidental escalatory cycle. You want all potential adversaries to be 100% sure that they know where the line is and that they will get a coordinated joint response if they cross it. The problem we have is that right now there is an awful lot of ambiguity in NATO. On the one hand we have 70 years of US foreign policy and the actual text of the document but on the other we have Trump's statements that he believes that NATO expansion is a mistake, that the US shouldn't be involved in defending Eastern Europe, that he believes Eastern Europe is basically part of Russia's sphere, and that he wants to punish American allies for disobedience. Given the central role of the US in providing key and irreplaceable components to the alliance this is a pretty massive issue. NATO has, in theory, a response plan to a Russian invasion. Within that response plan there's a lot of jobs filled by the US and if the US decided it wasn't interested in fulfilling the obligation then you get a fairly significant problem. No other NATO ally has the US logistics capabilities, the US manufacturing capabilities, the US nuclear arsenal (obviously there is Britain and France but they don't have a thousand MIRV ICBMs), the naval capabilities, LEO satellite constellations. And even if they did, the US is central to the entire command and control of the alliance because it was considered a given that in any alliance operation the US would be doing the heavy lifting. There's also the diplomatic element to it. Key NATO allies like Turkey have fairly close relations with Russia, if the US twisted their arm they could be counted on to commit to the NATO side but if the US is simultaneously leading NATO and stating "not our war, it's permissible to stay out of this one" then you're not getting Turkish involvement either. So you get a shitload of dislocation and a leadership crisis. You get confusion. You get Russia insisting that if Kalingrad is violated then they'll use nukes and people are trying to work out how they can get the required hardware to Estonia through the corridor in Lithuania without controlling Kalingrad. You get a leadership vacuum filled with three different candidates with three different messages, Germany asking for a pause while Britain talks a big game without mobilizing while France declares that the US was always the true enemy and de Gaulle was a genius. Let's say that Poland eventually goes "this is fucking ridiculous" and drives Russia back across the Estonian border by itself. It doesn't matter. NATO is still dead. Nobody joins NATO for strategic ambiguity over defence. Right now NATO is a house built with rotten wood that is more termite than not. The individual nations may be strong but the confidence in the alliance has never been weaker. Trump is not only disinterested in collective defence, he sees it as a burden upon America and he is actively looking for a way to "punish" NATO by refusing to support them. He wants it to fail because he wants European countries to come to him as vassals rather than NATO allies. That is what I'm talking about when I'm saying Russia can win if it challenges NATO, and honestly I'd be amazed if they didn't win because the most powerful country in NATO would be on their side (not in terms of sending American troops alongside Russian troops occupy a sq km of Estonia but in terms of a shared goal of undermining the alliance). And that's the victory Russia is after. Russia is coercive. Russia likes to go to Eastern European states and go "it's a shame about what happened in Ukraine, wouldn't want that to happen to you would you" and "that Russian speaking separatist movement sure came out of nowhere, hey, don't you have a lot of Russian speakers within your borders?" If an Eastern European country has absolute confidence in the deterrence value of the NATO alliance they can go "fuck off troll". But if they think that Russia might actually try some shit then things get a lot more complicated because even if you might ultimately win you don't want to go down that road. And so you give a little and now you're back in the Russian sphere. It can simultaneously be true that Russia can't defeat Poland but Russia can absolutely defeat NATO. In a world in which Ukraine collapses and becomes another Belarus I think Russia makes a "limited scope no need for nuclear exchange if you nuke us we'll nuke you back and anyway all we want is the Sudetenland what kind of monster would deny us the Sudetenland lets talk this out in Munich" invasion in the Baltics to seize and occupy a square mile of NATO land. And I think it probably works.
All this might be true but you still fail to realise that NATO won't fall because article 5 won't even be invoked. At the moment Europe beats Russia in a conventional fight with or without the US. Trump may be Trump but the powers that be would force him to still offer non-combat support like intel or weapon sales.
No one, not even China is interested in a world where a weaker country can use nukes to just grab stuff from an enemy that can beat you in a conventional figth and it's not going to happen. The nukes can shield you from invasion and regime change if you fail but thats about it.
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United States44199 Posts
On May 13 2026 02:15 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2026 00:04 KwarK wrote:On May 12 2026 23:19 Jankisa wrote:
Yes, EU nations have neglected military spending and training, 5 years ago, since the full scale invasion a lot has been done, many of the systems ordered have been delivered and trained on and most countries have picked up slack with procurement and training, EU doesn't need USA to defend it from Russia. That's not the argument. The argument isn't over who would win on the field. NATO is a defensive pact built on the idea of deterrence. It expands because it has a positive feedback loop that never involves it actually fighting NATO is powerful -> I don't want to be attacked so I'll join NATO -> NATO is more powerful This is great for everyone involved because they don't really have to do much, you don't need to win the fight, you're so obviously going to win that nobody will fight you which means that everyone wants to join you. The perception of an overwhelming unified response does most of the heavy lifting for you. Defensive pacts are absolutely the worst area to have strategic ambiguity because then you end up in an accidental escalatory cycle. You want all potential adversaries to be 100% sure that they know where the line is and that they will get a coordinated joint response if they cross it. The problem we have is that right now there is an awful lot of ambiguity in NATO. On the one hand we have 70 years of US foreign policy and the actual text of the document but on the other we have Trump's statements that he believes that NATO expansion is a mistake, that the US shouldn't be involved in defending Eastern Europe, that he believes Eastern Europe is basically part of Russia's sphere, and that he wants to punish American allies for disobedience. Given the central role of the US in providing key and irreplaceable components to the alliance this is a pretty massive issue. NATO has, in theory, a response plan to a Russian invasion. Within that response plan there's a lot of jobs filled by the US and if the US decided it wasn't interested in fulfilling the obligation then you get a fairly significant problem. No other NATO ally has the US logistics capabilities, the US manufacturing capabilities, the US nuclear arsenal (obviously there is Britain and France but they don't have a thousand MIRV ICBMs), the naval capabilities, LEO satellite constellations. And even if they did, the US is central to the entire command and control of the alliance because it was considered a given that in any alliance operation the US would be doing the heavy lifting. There's also the diplomatic element to it. Key NATO allies like Turkey have fairly close relations with Russia, if the US twisted their arm they could be counted on to commit to the NATO side but if the US is simultaneously leading NATO and stating "not our war, it's permissible to stay out of this one" then you're not getting Turkish involvement either. So you get a shitload of dislocation and a leadership crisis. You get confusion. You get Russia insisting that if Kalingrad is violated then they'll use nukes and people are trying to work out how they can get the required hardware to Estonia through the corridor in Lithuania without controlling Kalingrad. You get a leadership vacuum filled with three different candidates with three different messages, Germany asking for a pause while Britain talks a big game without mobilizing while France declares that the US was always the true enemy and de Gaulle was a genius. Let's say that Poland eventually goes "this is fucking ridiculous" and drives Russia back across the Estonian border by itself. It doesn't matter. NATO is still dead. Nobody joins NATO for strategic ambiguity over defence. Right now NATO is a house built with rotten wood that is more termite than not. The individual nations may be strong but the confidence in the alliance has never been weaker. Trump is not only disinterested in collective defence, he sees it as a burden upon America and he is actively looking for a way to "punish" NATO by refusing to support them. He wants it to fail because he wants European countries to come to him as vassals rather than NATO allies. That is what I'm talking about when I'm saying Russia can win if it challenges NATO, and honestly I'd be amazed if they didn't win because the most powerful country in NATO would be on their side (not in terms of sending American troops alongside Russian troops occupy a sq km of Estonia but in terms of a shared goal of undermining the alliance). And that's the victory Russia is after. Russia is coercive. Russia likes to go to Eastern European states and go "it's a shame about what happened in Ukraine, wouldn't want that to happen to you would you" and "that Russian speaking separatist movement sure came out of nowhere, hey, don't you have a lot of Russian speakers within your borders?" If an Eastern European country has absolute confidence in the deterrence value of the NATO alliance they can go "fuck off troll". But if they think that Russia might actually try some shit then things get a lot more complicated because even if you might ultimately win you don't want to go down that road. And so you give a little and now you're back in the Russian sphere. It can simultaneously be true that Russia can't defeat Poland but Russia can absolutely defeat NATO. In a world in which Ukraine collapses and becomes another Belarus I think Russia makes a "limited scope no need for nuclear exchange if you nuke us we'll nuke you back and anyway all we want is the Sudetenland what kind of monster would deny us the Sudetenland lets talk this out in Munich" invasion in the Baltics to seize and occupy a square mile of NATO land. And I think it probably works. All this might be true but you still fail to realise that NATO won't fall because article 5 won't even be invoked. At the moment Europe beats Russia in a conventional fight with or without the US. Trump may be Trump but the powers that be would force him to still offer non-combat support like intel or weapon sales. No one, not even China is interested in a world where a weaker country can use nukes to just grab stuff from an enemy that can beat you in a conventional figth and it's not going to happen. The nukes can shield you from invasion and regime change if you fail but thats about it.
If the threat to the alliance is erosion of the certainty in an absolute alliance level response I don’t think refusing to invoke it because you think it will fail is much better.
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On May 13 2026 05:07 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2026 02:15 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 13 2026 00:04 KwarK wrote:On May 12 2026 23:19 Jankisa wrote:
Yes, EU nations have neglected military spending and training, 5 years ago, since the full scale invasion a lot has been done, many of the systems ordered have been delivered and trained on and most countries have picked up slack with procurement and training, EU doesn't need USA to defend it from Russia. That's not the argument. The argument isn't over who would win on the field. NATO is a defensive pact built on the idea of deterrence. It expands because it has a positive feedback loop that never involves it actually fighting NATO is powerful -> I don't want to be attacked so I'll join NATO -> NATO is more powerful This is great for everyone involved because they don't really have to do much, you don't need to win the fight, you're so obviously going to win that nobody will fight you which means that everyone wants to join you. The perception of an overwhelming unified response does most of the heavy lifting for you. Defensive pacts are absolutely the worst area to have strategic ambiguity because then you end up in an accidental escalatory cycle. You want all potential adversaries to be 100% sure that they know where the line is and that they will get a coordinated joint response if they cross it. The problem we have is that right now there is an awful lot of ambiguity in NATO. On the one hand we have 70 years of US foreign policy and the actual text of the document but on the other we have Trump's statements that he believes that NATO expansion is a mistake, that the US shouldn't be involved in defending Eastern Europe, that he believes Eastern Europe is basically part of Russia's sphere, and that he wants to punish American allies for disobedience. Given the central role of the US in providing key and irreplaceable components to the alliance this is a pretty massive issue. NATO has, in theory, a response plan to a Russian invasion. Within that response plan there's a lot of jobs filled by the US and if the US decided it wasn't interested in fulfilling the obligation then you get a fairly significant problem. No other NATO ally has the US logistics capabilities, the US manufacturing capabilities, the US nuclear arsenal (obviously there is Britain and France but they don't have a thousand MIRV ICBMs), the naval capabilities, LEO satellite constellations. And even if they did, the US is central to the entire command and control of the alliance because it was considered a given that in any alliance operation the US would be doing the heavy lifting. There's also the diplomatic element to it. Key NATO allies like Turkey have fairly close relations with Russia, if the US twisted their arm they could be counted on to commit to the NATO side but if the US is simultaneously leading NATO and stating "not our war, it's permissible to stay out of this one" then you're not getting Turkish involvement either. So you get a shitload of dislocation and a leadership crisis. You get confusion. You get Russia insisting that if Kalingrad is violated then they'll use nukes and people are trying to work out how they can get the required hardware to Estonia through the corridor in Lithuania without controlling Kalingrad. You get a leadership vacuum filled with three different candidates with three different messages, Germany asking for a pause while Britain talks a big game without mobilizing while France declares that the US was always the true enemy and de Gaulle was a genius. Let's say that Poland eventually goes "this is fucking ridiculous" and drives Russia back across the Estonian border by itself. It doesn't matter. NATO is still dead. Nobody joins NATO for strategic ambiguity over defence. Right now NATO is a house built with rotten wood that is more termite than not. The individual nations may be strong but the confidence in the alliance has never been weaker. Trump is not only disinterested in collective defence, he sees it as a burden upon America and he is actively looking for a way to "punish" NATO by refusing to support them. He wants it to fail because he wants European countries to come to him as vassals rather than NATO allies. That is what I'm talking about when I'm saying Russia can win if it challenges NATO, and honestly I'd be amazed if they didn't win because the most powerful country in NATO would be on their side (not in terms of sending American troops alongside Russian troops occupy a sq km of Estonia but in terms of a shared goal of undermining the alliance). And that's the victory Russia is after. Russia is coercive. Russia likes to go to Eastern European states and go "it's a shame about what happened in Ukraine, wouldn't want that to happen to you would you" and "that Russian speaking separatist movement sure came out of nowhere, hey, don't you have a lot of Russian speakers within your borders?" If an Eastern European country has absolute confidence in the deterrence value of the NATO alliance they can go "fuck off troll". But if they think that Russia might actually try some shit then things get a lot more complicated because even if you might ultimately win you don't want to go down that road. And so you give a little and now you're back in the Russian sphere. It can simultaneously be true that Russia can't defeat Poland but Russia can absolutely defeat NATO. In a world in which Ukraine collapses and becomes another Belarus I think Russia makes a "limited scope no need for nuclear exchange if you nuke us we'll nuke you back and anyway all we want is the Sudetenland what kind of monster would deny us the Sudetenland lets talk this out in Munich" invasion in the Baltics to seize and occupy a square mile of NATO land. And I think it probably works. All this might be true but you still fail to realise that NATO won't fall because article 5 won't even be invoked. At the moment Europe beats Russia in a conventional fight with or without the US. Trump may be Trump but the powers that be would force him to still offer non-combat support like intel or weapon sales. No one, not even China is interested in a world where a weaker country can use nukes to just grab stuff from an enemy that can beat you in a conventional figth and it's not going to happen. The nukes can shield you from invasion and regime change if you fail but thats about it. If the threat to the alliance is erosion of the certainty in an absolute alliance level response I don’t think refusing to invoke it because you think it will fail is much better.
I mean we're mostly waiting out the next 2 1/2 years to see what happens. Russia is unlikely to fuck around during that time. If Trump gets a third term NATO is over regardless and I guess the uranium mining industry in northern Sweden will really kick off.
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The war bloggers I have been watching have just been upping the positivity for Ukraine pretty consistently the last few months and lately have been starting to show clips of Russian military bloggers talking about how poorly Russia is doing, that even mobilization won’t help and even surprisingly some are suggesting a new leader. Which was completely unheard of or usually caused jail time or death.
Is this how Russians are feeling now that Ukraine is hitting targets even in Moscow? Or are the bloggers just cherry picking small moments before they get back to the glory of the empire?
If any of our Russians want to comment it would be appreciated.
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No, the mood shift appears to be real. It's not just military bloggers. It's also military experts appearing on TV, TV hosts/other propagandists, former commanders, industry leaders, and a bunch of MPs aligned with the Kremlin (but not from United Russia).
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United States44199 Posts
There’s not a whole lot to hope for from the russian side. For a while there was “it’ll change when the US aid stops”, then “it’ll change when Trump is elected” etc. but Ukraine is fighting back harder than ever and the European aid packages include multi year commitments. There’s no obvious “it’ll all change when…” coming up, just more of this. Sure, they may take a trench, but behind that is another trench, and another. There’s no path to Russian victory at this point, only to another day of fighting.
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An interesting stat, provided by Ukraine. Their goal is to have each square km taken by Russia cost at least 200 soldiers. In Oct it was 67 , in Jan it was 245 Feb 254 and April 179.
Fairly disturbing way of looking at things but it does make sense from a military perspective. If Ukraine can take out more than Russia can recruit, Russia is only left with really unpopular options.
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On May 21 2026 23:37 Billyboy wrote:
An interesting stat, provided by Ukraine. Their goal is to have each square km taken by Russia cost at least 200 soldiers. In Oct it was 67 , in Jan it was 245 Feb 254 and April 179.
Fairly disturbing way of looking at things but it does make sense from a military perspective. If Ukraine can take out more than Russia can recruit, Russia is only left with really unpopular options.
Don't make mistake, they will take mobilization over peace talks any day. They are under sunken costs falacy since mid 2022.
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Ukraine has found themselves a new gold mine with their drone tech.
But a lot would depend on how much Russia wants to open up to China's support, and how much more China wants to help.
The US visit didn't yield much, and the timing with Putin coming right after is very ambiguous.
Nor there were many big trade deals happened.
China is currently doing the usual "neutral" stance, but it's definitely being tempted to lean in one way over the other right now.
The few big roadblocks would be just how strong US sanctions could become.
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On May 22 2026 16:03 ETisME wrote:
Ukraine has found themselves a new gold mine with their drone tech.
But a lot would depend on how much Russia wants to open up to China's support, and how much more China wants to help.
The US visit didn't yield much, and the timing with Putin coming right after is very ambiguous.
Nor there were many big trade deals happened.
China is currently doing the usual "neutral" stance, but it's definitely being tempted to lean in one way over the other right now.
The few big roadblocks would be just how strong US sanctions could become.
You forget to put agency into the European nations there. If China takes a strong pro Russian stance and the US ignores it, well the EU won't. So even if Trump doesn't care it would be costly for China.
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On May 23 2026 05:16 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 16:03 ETisME wrote:
Ukraine has found themselves a new gold mine with their drone tech.
But a lot would depend on how much Russia wants to open up to China's support, and how much more China wants to help.
The US visit didn't yield much, and the timing with Putin coming right after is very ambiguous.
Nor there were many big trade deals happened.
China is currently doing the usual "neutral" stance, but it's definitely being tempted to lean in one way over the other right now.
The few big roadblocks would be just how strong US sanctions could become. You forget to put agency into the European nations there. If China takes a strong pro Russian stance and the US ignores it, well the EU won't. So even if Trump doesn't care it would be costly for China.
European nations can't do too much I am afraid.
They haven't decouple with China like the US has been, trade deficit is at 350billion euro.
The US took 8 years to reduce the deficit by 45%, and china isn't even on top 2 trade partners anymore.
Wasn't a great idea to move manufacturing to a country with opposing ideology and especially one that blocks western firms entry without some special arrangement.
Literally funding the enemy while celebrating US tech firms lawsuits wins.
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On May 23 2026 08:51 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2026 05:16 Yurie wrote:On May 22 2026 16:03 ETisME wrote:
Ukraine has found themselves a new gold mine with their drone tech.
But a lot would depend on how much Russia wants to open up to China's support, and how much more China wants to help.
The US visit didn't yield much, and the timing with Putin coming right after is very ambiguous.
Nor there were many big trade deals happened.
China is currently doing the usual "neutral" stance, but it's definitely being tempted to lean in one way over the other right now.
The few big roadblocks would be just how strong US sanctions could become. You forget to put agency into the European nations there. If China takes a strong pro Russian stance and the US ignores it, well the EU won't. So even if Trump doesn't care it would be costly for China. European nations can't do too much I am afraid. They haven't decouple with China like the US has been, trade deficit is at 350billion euro. The US took 8 years to reduce the deficit by 45%, and china isn't even on top 2 trade partners anymore. Wasn't a great idea to move manufacturing to a country with opposing ideology and especially one that blocks western firms entry without some special arrangement. Literally funding the enemy while celebrating US tech firms lawsuits wins.
Economically speaking the enemy because they're better at competing and bought US bonds for years. Doesn't sit right with the US that it makes them able to buy tons of stuff with their currency, but it's fair game.
Before the war, it wasn't hard for the EU to find a compromising stance with Russia. It ramped up the complexity in just having a bunch of nations coexisting next to each other. The only guys profiting from a conflict here are the US and China, for everyone else nearby it's a threat.
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EPT
