It makes sense that they won’t allow their own skin to be ravaged (United States, Britain, Germany, France etc), but why not the Baltics and Poland, at this point?
I’m surprised they haven’t done so, after these long months
It helps to reframe what ‘winning’ means for NATO. It does want to weaken Russia. But kicking Russia out of Ukraine as fast as possible wouldn’t achieve that goal. In a war of attrition, imperialists can keep drip feeding weapons to Ukraine (bought with loans that will later be used to asset strip the country) and slowly bleeding Russia. (What NATO didn’t account for is that Russia would win the war of attrition, but that’s another issue.)
The longer the conflict, the more the US can prop up it’s domestic military employment figures. It doesn’t want to send soldiers to fight and die so much as it wants to create jobs in a way that lets the state funnel billions of taxpayer money (here, Ukrainian taxpayers’ more than USians’) into the military industrial complex. In other words, the longer the war, the more they line their own pockets.
Plus, thankfully, no other neighbour has been stupid enough to think it could defeat Russia in a conventional war on its own turf. Remember that Ukraine had one of the best militaries in the world before this fight, with recent, active military experience and a decade to stockpile arms and prepare for war with Russia. Imagine being tiny Latvia with 1.8m total population. Russia’s active military is over 1m and rising. Latvia wouldn’t stand a chance except as part of a whole NATO offensive. Even then, I would expect it to immediately consider withdrawing and becoming neutral to avoid being obliterated in that event.
As for Poland. Got to wonder whether Belarus would become engaged at that point. And if Poland gets involved, the war is going to get very close to Germany. And its politicians are cowards who are happy to send others to their deaths but have no interest in fighting themselves.
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Good point. Also got to keep the war going long enough for German industry to collapse.
Plus, thankfully, no other neighbour has been stupid enough to think it could defeat Russia in a conventional war on its own turf.
Speaking of. Comrade @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml, what’s the state of war propaganda like in your neck of the woods? I heard of the army size increase and some things that smell of preparation for annexing western Ukraine, but not much else.
About a state of reality, i can’t be certain, everything looks rather like just the typical mindless russophobic drive Poland always get aboard when happening, just this one is the farthest going yet. very much doubt if Poland will do anything drastic without USA approval, and i’m unsure if all the escalations are born in Warsaw or rather in the Washington. Saberratling is definitely local but Polish government had deserved reputation of being cowardly. Army size and arms increase is ongoing, but Polish army was tragicaly weak before and everything is mired in corruption and inefficiency.
About propaganda, i seen a mirror in toilet in market display proukrainian propaganda at me, it’s everywhere. It’s also month from parliamentary elections, the most important ones in Poland.
Thank you.
It’s also month from parliamentary elections, the most important ones in Poland.
Oh, nice. Now I know when to keep my ear to the news from Poland.
Regardless of who win the elections (i guess it’s PiS again, they will either just win or falsify it) i don’t see any change in bootlicking USA and UA, but if PiS lose, the actual intervention, not to mention annexation of Lwów is way less probable.
Later used to asset strip the country?
More like currently stripping assets. They started almost half a year ago.
Why do you say that Ukraine had a good military? I was under the impression that it was a poor military before the war began.
i think he meant because of the civil war, so there were a lot of battle tested people, and the soviet equipment and war doctrine they inherited.
i don’t entirely agree with him tho, the country was riddled with corruption, this probably hurts the effectiveness of army and the nato factor, ukranian personal were trained by nato, which led to a mishmash of training, war doctrines and equipment
Ukraine started off as the most well-armed European army besides Russia. Thousands of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, hundreds of jets, large stockpiles of artillery ammunition and small drones, etc. This was all backed by years of ideological hardening and training and the willingness to conscript right off the bat.
All of that has been whittled down and the delusion nurtured both by Ukraine and the Western media to dominate the (English-speaking) information sphere. This has the effect of the West sending minimal replacements for the equipment spent and lost because they believed they only had to kick in the door for the whole rotten structure to fall apart.
Because sending in a NATO country would start a new world war.
And NATO has no interest in doing that, they just want Ukrainians to die for making Russia weaker.
I mean, we could say the same of the Korean War, but that didn’t stop the U.S from bombing the hell out of the DPRK…
There is no money to be made from nuclear armageddon.
drpk tested it’s first nuke in the 2000’s, the us invaded in the 50’s thinking it would be a easy campaign since the country was recovering from japanese occupation, the general heading the campaign even fucking asked to deploy nukes on drpk
Even then, Socialist Russia and China were developing nukes that they could theoretically use on stand-by to counter U.S, not to say that they had necessarily planned for that all…
but why not the Baltics and Poland
Poland and who?) Balticshits combined have armed forces that number in around the population of my city block. Probably even if you add the laughable stationed NATO contingent.
That aside, military victory isn’t the point. That’s why they’re using a sacrificial pawn. Also, not even cartoon villains in Pentagon want to check if Putin will push the button.
I agree completely, if the number of people actively in the military was way higher they’d make the Baltics join. Currently things are too normal to warrant people joining the military out of desperation
Balticshits combined have armed forces that number in around the population of my city block.
All three have around 50000 military personnel combined including non-combat being probably majority. All three also have zero proper combat aircraft and ships. They also have (combined) zero tanks, few hundreds APC and similar armed vehicles, around 150 artillery pieces (including self-propelled mortars) and barely any anti-air defenses.
Well, alright, that’s a few city blocks, but not even a fourth of the whole district)
Because NATO terms still apply to the Baltics and Poland, and would instantly drag all of NATO into the war.
States can’t refuse an Article 5 call to arms, as that would defeat the entire purpose behind the treaty.
They absolutely could and would refuse to be dragged into a direct war over some backwater Eastern European states.
Firstly “Article 5” not some kind of automatic call to arms, it is sufficiently vague that the “aid” which it calls for to be provided by other alliance members (if that is even deemed necessary, which is another thing the article leaves open to interpretation) doesn’t have to look like boots on the ground. More likely it would look exactly like what Ukraine is currently receiving: weapons, money and intel. It’s why a lot of people have been saying that Ukraine is a de facto NATO member.
Secondly, it also wouldn’t apply if a NATO state actually was the one who attacked first, which would arguably be the case if they chose to get involved in Ukraine.
And lastly, all NATO members are not equal. The Eastern Europeans may like to believe they are equal and that the entire West would come to their defense but that is highly unlikely. Western Europeans have no desire to go fight and die for Eastern Europeans and neither do Americans if it means a risk of taking significant casualties. Oh sure if the enemy was a sufficiently weak country then they would all jump at the opportunity, but against a peer adversary like Russia you will see most of NATO chicken out finding excuse after excuse for not having to send their own soldiers.
So yes, if the disincentinve is strong enough, states can absolutely refuse to honor any treaty requirement which is against their interest. They will simply apply a “creative interpretation” of the treaty or claim extenuating circumstances. Treaties aren’t magic, they don’t bind sovereign states unless said states want to be bound by them. Of course Europe is vassalized to the US so they don’t really have the ability to make a sovereign choice; the choice will be made for them in Washington.
For instance, in 1974 when Turkey invaded Cyprus, a region claimed and occupied by the Greek Junta, the US told Greece essentially to pack it in, Turkey is a more important member, and neither party got military aid.
You can’t invade a country with nukes.
You could try fighting it outside the borders, now that there’s a convenient battleground available
But you can help its enemy (Ukraine) regain its territory, tho…
De jure, it’s because NATO is a defensive pact. In other words, they didn’t help the United Kingdom during the Falklands/Malvinas conflict or France during the First Indochina War and the Algerian conflict.
De facto, it’s because they fear that Russia could retaliate by using nuclear weapons or intercontinental missiles that could easily hit the US. What’s more, these troops would be of little use and would actually turn European public opinion against the war. And they would be used as propaganda for Russia to inspire Ukrainians to desert their army to fight a foreign enemy.
using nuclear weapons or intercontinental missiles that could easily hit the US.
If that happens, USian submarines retaliate and it’s game over for the planet
In other words, they didn’t help the United Kingdom during the Falklands/Malvinas
Argentina attacked then and there’s article 6, looks like it’s explicitly written so that NATO countries didn’t had obligations to participate into each other’s colonial wars.
Why would they? They have plenty of compradors left they haven’t used yet.
it’s too close to nuclear war
I think I’m going to rephrase the question, to not make it about invasion necessarily.
It makes sense that they won’t allow their own skin to be ravaged (United States, Britain, Germany, France etc), but why not the Baltics and Poland, at this point?
You mean because they’re cowards?
I mean, yes
Because that would be looked down on. You can’t just send in an army to take part in a war you are not a part of. That is only allowed if you have a defensive pact with said country. If NATO could just join any war it felt like it would have directly joined the chechen war in the 1990’s.
Then what part of the defensive pact did Libya violate to get a reprisal by NATO?
NATO didn’t send troops. Infact if you look at who supports who in the civil war, there are NATO members on both sides
Just to clarify, you are talking of the first civil war, right? Also, they may have not sent ground troops, but they certainly sent air support, through no fly zone and aerial bombings of the country.
Search the Brega dam bombing over here. https://theecologist.org/2015/may/14/war-crime-nato-deliberately-destroyed-libyas-water-infrastructure
Nonsense. They could and would if they thought they could get away with it. The real reason why they haven’t is because they know they would get absolutely wrecked and take horrendous casualties that their countries are simply not prepared for.
Ukraine has not requested any foreign military personnel to enter its borders.
You might notice that every country in the world except one has respected Ukraine’s desire to not have foreign military personnel inside its sovereign borders.
No Western power in modern times has put its troops inside the borders of a sovereign nation without being invited either by the nation itself or on behalf of an international coalition cooperating for what they believe to be the common good.
Obviously that last part has backfired a couple times. But so has just shrugging in the face of sovereign nations being invaded.
So we’re going with the approach of arming & training Ukraine’s military to hold the Russians to a standstill and maybe even push them back even though they are heavily outnumbered.
The fact that Zelensky can travel rather freely is going to be a pretty big smack in the face for Putin and his toadies.
Imagine being an adult and still believing in the geopolitical “common good”
+ Ukraine has tried three times to pin the blame of their failures on Russia so that NATO countries would invoke article 5. Remember the missile that destroyed an apartment in Poland?
No Western power in modern times has put its troops inside the borders of a sovereign nation without being invited either by the nation itself or on behalf of an international coalition cooperating for what they believe to be the common good.
USA. Syria. Literally still happening. Your statement is still technically correct, if you’re willing to go mask off. Feel free.
So we’re going with the approach of arming & training Ukraine’s military to hold the Russians to a standstill and maybe even push them back even though they are heavily outnumbered.
I’m not sure why you need “even though” there. Yes, Russian forces in country 404 are heavily outnumbered.
I don’t understand how people think that Ukraine is “holding” Russian forces anywhere.
How many of their total military personnel do they have deployed along the southern front, protecting their supply lines to Crimea? A tenth of their forces at most?
What is to stop Russia from deciding to take Kiev in the winter with another couple tenths?
NATO deliberately crossed Russia’s diplomaticly stated red lines by courting Ukraine, and now they are just milking the war profits until the inevitable outcome of Ukrainian depletion.
What is to stop Russia from deciding to take Kiev in the winter with another couple tenths?
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Logistics. There’s evidence to suggest last year’s mobilisation was limited because MOD did the math and figured they couldn’t supply a larger number. You can’t just grab a bunch of people and tell them to go kill. You need to provide uniforms (multiple sets each, at least for different weather), arms, ammunition, body armour, food.
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Possibility that NATO will start shit from another angle. You’ll the recent flare up in Karabakh. Last year there was an artillery skirmish between IIRC Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (conveniently at the time of SCO summit). There’s a new such skirmish brewing already. Georgia, Kazakhstan, etc. Don’t underestimate just how surrounded Russia is by NATO.
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What is to stop Russia
That’s a good question. Something clearly does. Can’t afford to keep some other borders and Syria unattended for one. Also, that’s pretty expensive and Russia is by no means unaffected by “sanctions”, even if they didn’t have the expected effect.
please go and tell your parents you’ve been accessing adult websites. they need to sit you down and have a serious talk
