There’s many of aging dictators around who’d see the fall of russia as being in danger themselves, or seeing NATO being temporally occupied there, thus acting irrationally. No one touches Iran for it’s stable and don’t put much trouble, even Syria is somehow not worthy attention now. And if there’d be a probability of waves of coups or perceived danger of being displaced, NATO risks the need to be deployed here too for it’d hurt way more than whatever these authoritarian regimes do now. It won’t be a symmetric warfare, but random acts of terror and civil wars, imagine Kosovo 2.0. Africa already have some of them, relatively bloodless, some like Houthis or Myanmar never really stopped and can be reignited anew. That’s one of the reasons NATO doesn’t act in full, they perceive this region as a keg of black powder. And they don’t want take responsibility for so much problems at once, as after WW2 when they semi-successfully deprogrammed Germany and Japan via occupation, they had a hard time in Balkans, and recently left Afghanistan for talibs.

Well with “unlocked NATO DLC” this operation would be swift one. Russia is barely making progress against Ukraine and loosing a lot of soldiers and equipment, what do you think will happen when a real threat enters the battlefield?

Total mobilization, zerg rushes until there’s no one to send, heavy losses on the superior army’s part too, and it counts it’s losses more strictly since Nam, a lot of budget spendings relocated towards replenishing stocks that would probably kill some candidates in democratic countries, weird position in terms of what to do with these two countries after the guns stop shooting that’s still far away from today, thus these politicians can sleep at night. You seem to downplay these things. Besides, current Ukrainian and Russian AF practice warfare now, and even without shiny toys, they manage to use cheap tech efficiently, while using the full might of the US MIC, even just one Abrams, is a logistical puzzle and a costy endeavour. Air and water superiority are examples of what none of them can manage, and there NATO can put it’s weight, but in the field those troops who are currently deployed and survived for years are more experienced than whoever NATO can send. They can teach how to use advanced weaponry right, but there weren’t a conflict like than in Europe for a long time.

I’ve seen some lingo in your answers that paints russian threat as a joke, so if you’d want to answer, first, tell me how ukrainians call opposing side’s soldiers, and how russians usually call them back. This two year massacre is a tragedy and I don’t want to talk to someone who sounds like they read to much /k/ another evening. With all due respect.