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- cross-posted to:
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“It is not we, the West, who should fear a clash with Putin, but the other way around,” Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said.
A war between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and NATO would end with Moscow’s “inevitable defeat,” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Thursday.
"It is not we, the West, who should fear a clash with Putin, but the other way around,” Sikorski said during a speech to the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament. “It is worth reminding about this, not to increase the sense of threat in the Russians, because NATO is a defensive pact, but to show that an attack by Russia on any of the members of the Alliance would end in its [Russia’s] inevitable defeat.”
Sikorski, who was laying out Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s vision for the new government’s foreign policy, said Russia’s military and economic potential “pales in comparison to that of the West,” as NATO has three times as many military personnel, three times the aerial resources and four times as many ships as Russia.
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Western allies and top military officials have become increasingly worried about a potential spillover of violence from Putin’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine — as the Russian leader continues to issue veiled nuclear threats toward the West and stashes atomic weapons in Belarus, which borders NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
By not going to full war but using hybrid warfare. Trump might get elected tomorrow, he will want to promote isolationism. Without the US, the EU is not that much stronger than Russia, in terms of military.
Just because you are richer, doesnt mean you can magically create tanks and ammunition by burning money. We can already see how hard it is to get artillery ammunition for Ukraine, even though EU is willing to overpay for it. These things take time(to build factories, train people, etc) and a major policy adjustment(ie cut funding on things in order to redirect it to defense spending).
Tomorrow Russia might “want to protect the rights of oppressed russians” in the estonian city Narva, that has 90% ethnic russian population. And they just march some “peacekeepers” in, like they did with Crimea. Would the rest of Europe go to war over an estonian city that has 90% ethnic russians(dont ask how it got so many russians, that is not kosher)?
What if the initial reaction is to actually go to war but then Russia goes “ok, my bad, i just wanted to help my people, i am out of Narva”. Even in this “ideal” scenario, the original dilemma would have created some friction and fractures within EU. Hungary and Slovakia would be extremely reluctant in opposing Russia.
Keep repeating this, increasing friction in the EU, forcing EU to redirect funding to defense spending(thus degrading social services in EU) and eventually there will be enough resistance. Eventually enough german citizens would go “Why are we part of this bullshit? We could have been spending those billions to improve german lives, instead of this. It’s not as if Russia will ever invade Germany”. And thats Russia’s winning scenario.
You can do a lot of things, if you dont care about your own population. North Korea is a great example of this. They are poor as fuck but they got nukes and missiles and a huge military. As long as your population thinks that this is necessary for the survival of the country, humans can tolerate a lot. And people in charge of authoritarian countries like this, think that people in other countries are soy cucks who will surrender the minute they cant get their daily avocado toast.
I’m seeing a lot of hypotheticals here that seem to ignore the reality that Russia is already bogged down in a war with a country that shares an enormous border with it and is effectively on its own diplomatically, not being a member of the EU or NATO. Your scenario implies that Russia will somehow wrap up this current war or be able to open up a second front, which is a stretch to put it mildly. I also struggle to imagine a scenario where Russia puts boots on Estonian ground and the other Baltics, Poland, and Finland don’t step in to help. Czechia would also not be far behind.
As for your North Korea example, that’s actually a very instructive one, because they have practically zero power projection aside from their hit-and-miss missile program.
Their psyops have also reached their apex, I think. Trump will not win and people are (slowly) becoming more wise to foreign influence online.
Without US and EU support Russia would wrap up the war in Ukraine quite quickly. That would be the death of Ukrainian morale.
And if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bicycle.
So wildly irrelevant as to be stupifying…
Trump is ahead in polls. If the US doesnt provide help to Ukraine, Ukraine has 0% chance of winning. Europe does not have the military inventory or production to provide meaningful longterm help to Ukraine, only the US has that.
If Ukraine is mostly out and US is mostly out, then these countries dont have enough to resist Russia. Poland might have enough, combined with Finland and Sweden, in 5+ years but not atm.
Do not underestimate North Korea. Their missile program is legit. In fact, probably some of the ballistic missiles Iran launched were based on North Korean designs. And some were modern iranian designs that are a lot better. These things are expensive and hard to shoot down.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-20-how-us-allies-are-working-iron-out-bugs-2024-04-24/
“Germany is waging a charm offensive inside the Republican Party. Japan is lining up its own Trump whisperer. Mexican government officials are talking to Camp Trump. And Australia is busy making laws to help Trump-proof its U.S. defense ties.”
"Britain’s Labour party, now in opposition but strong favorite to win elections expected by year-end, may have a steeper hill to climb to reach a good relationship with a Trump administration.
Labour’s nominative foreign minister, David Lammy, once wrote in Time magazine, opens new tab that Trump was a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sociopath”. Lammy is now working to build ties with Republicans, said a Labour official."
Even if Trump loses, Europe is still in big trouble. Putin only has to wait (or coordinate) till Xi attacks Taiwan. This will focus the US military on that area leaving them with very little incentive and capacity to also support Europe in a war against Russia. And even if Russia attacks first, Xi can ramp up the rhetoric, threats and provocations. This will force the US to focus their efforts in Asia, leaving Europe to the Russians.
Remember also that Brexit was a huge victory for Russia. With the EU no longer being able to count on GB in times of conflict, the chance of going to war over the Baltics gets even smaller. And even if NATO is a no-go, if GB would commit surely the US would support them. Brexit fucked it up for Europe and shows how far in advance Russia was planning this.
Russia is doing everything they can to destabilize the EU and get the far right in power in Europe. Even if those far right parties aren’t in Putins pocket, they will still promote isolationist policies and destabilize Europe further. Plus all the far right politicians seem to primarily be in politics to get rich and divert public money away from things like defense and into the pockets of themselves and their sponsors.
The trouble is, we can see this happening and are powerless to do anything about it. Misinformation campaigns, populism, false promises, hate and racism seem to drive politics these days. Elections are held fair and in time, but the people are so blinded, they vote for the things that will ultimately prove to be very bad for them.
While Brexit definitely was a massive win for Russia, I disagree with the characterisation of it meaning the EU can no longer rely on the UK in times of conflict. The UK has been pretty consistent with wanting to increase security cooperation with the EU since then (sadly the only thing they do seem to want to cooperate on) and have done things like forge mutual defense treaties with Finland and Sweden when the decision to join NATO was made but not yet formalised.