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.
Don’t forget the goal of increasing European dependence on the USA for energy too. A lot of the work is done but maintaining the rift between Russia and the NATO countries is probably a lot easier if those countries are actively supporting a proxy war.
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 @[email protected], 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.
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.
Later used to asset strip the country?
More like currently stripping assets. They started almost half a year ago.
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.
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)
You can’t invade a country with nukes.
But you can help its enemy (Ukraine) regain its territory, tho…
You could try fighting it outside the borders, now that there’s a convenient battleground available
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
Why would they? They have plenty of compradors left they haven’t used yet.
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 nukes are terrifying, and Ukraine has no defense pact with NATO. Russia has also officially annexed the Donbas area, they now consider it Russian territory. If NATO armies surged onto that territory, it is quite possible for tactical nukes to start flying.
This would be best avoided. For everyone.
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.
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.
