cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59867996

German media outlets Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR, and NDR also cite the report, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears intent on testing NATO’s Article 5 guarantees. The alliance’s mutual defence clause obliges member states to come to one another’s aid if attacked. The assessment suggests Putin may seek to challenge how seriously that commitment would be honoured.

  • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    With what? I read yesterday they were not able to keep up with the losses from just fighting the ukraine.

  • ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
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    Honestly, I believe Europe needs to go on the offensive, we need a single unified offensive against Moscow with the intent of crippling the KGB and arresting Putin. They are both too dangerous to be left to their own devices.

  • LuckyPierre@lemm.ee
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    Elsewhere on Lemmy today;

    Russia has depleted its tank stocks: the industry is not covering combat losses

    Both of these cannot be true.

    • SSNs4evr@leminal.space
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      8 hours ago

      Soon to be seen on the battlefield: Reinforced, armored attack-Ladas, with turrets mounted on the roof.

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      Hmm who do we know that will sell anything that isn’t tied down and currently controls the US government and is buddy buddy with Putin? No, not Satan, but you are close!

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      Well they can both be true, It just depends on Putin’s mental state.

      There was a rumor going around that he is dying and he is basically just doing this to try and make a name for himself, he will rebuild the USSR and it will stand for a thousand years as him as its founding father, and all that rubbish. Of course it’s impossible for that to happen, but if he’s dying anyway why not try?

      • Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org
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        He has definitely made a name for himself. Can we just tell him it’s positive and let him die so that the rest of the world can move on?

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    Taking how successful Russia was on the battlefield of Ukraine, I’m going to go ahead and say “try us”

    I know that Europe is a bit behind on military spending but that is rapidly changing and in the meantime Russia lost nearly a million soldiers on the frontline. That alone is enough to cripple the nation for the next two decades.

    It’s hard to see how Russia is going to do anything of that. The only “strength” it currently has is misinformation which works well for the US right now but that will have its limits soon enough

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      Nuclear exchange. Yeah it’s possible they nukes were maintained about as well as their tanks. It’s also possible that we’re entirely fucked.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        It’s not just whether or not the missiles were maintained, they probably weren’t, but due to the amount of corruption it’s also possible they are lacking critical components that Russia thinks they still have.

        Every bad guy in every movie gets his nuclear material from some corrupt Russian military official. Maybe it’s true.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          Yeah? And if you’re wrong we’re fucked. To be clear it’s not that you or I could do anything about it. We’re just either fucked or going to have the world’s biggest laugh at the Russians.

          • aphonefriend@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            What’s the alternative alternative? Roll over and let Russia invade? Then we’re all fucked anyway. Might as well take the chance of standing up instead of dying lying down.

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    Germany has to pump out these messages because they live so far from the critical border. It’s easy to not understand the risk.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      Germany is still so uncertain of the risk that they still use Russian gas even 4 years after saying they were going to stop.

  • KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee
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    Take out putin now and set the stage for a world at “peace” with humanity’s eye back on a civilized future.

    • floofloof@lemmy.caOP
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      Problem is the people waiting to take over from Putin. They’re not at all nice.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        None of the candidates are nice and most are much, much worse. Don’t recall the name, but one of them basically is ready to drop the h bombs and push us all straight into WWIII because reasons.

        If anyone takes out Putin, they’ll have to take out the entire military top and government of Russia with it or we’re all fucked

        • Paddzr@lemmy.world
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          Eh, it’s the sword rattling. Common tactic to make himself look strong and to be feared. He could still be spineless or once not under watchful eye of Putin, a drastically different person.

          Putin isn’t known for keeping people around if they’re a threat to him.

  • atthecoast@feddit.nl
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    They burned through their Soviet stockpiles of artillery and tanks in 3 years fighting Ukraine, what makes anyone think they could fight NATO?

      • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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        US has a sizeable advantage in terms of sheer firepower but lacks the collective will to side with Russia in a conflict with NATO. To be clear, the Trump administration might try to side with Russia and the initial consequences of that would be very serious. But, long term, I think that would bring a swift end to the US’ global dominance. Potentially even bringing us to the point of total collapse.

        That’s just one American’s perspective though.

        • RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com
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          As an European, could you please collapse before siding with Russia over us? That would be great, thanks.

          Alternatively, and much preferred, just kick the whole Trump administration into the ocean, hold your own Nuremberg trials and start refreshed into the future. K thx bye.

          • Azal@pawb.social
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            I really would love the kicking the Trump admin in the ocean, but living in a red state that is cheering for this, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

            Collapse, that’s far more likely and will look rather middle east 2.0. Our biggest states money wise are on the west coast and more politically aligned with Canada than anyone, and our east coast is more European minded. There’s a reason in the US a constant whining is “Coastal elites” so the political fight is going to go after them, especially if they resist any wars for expansion which is going to be the case. If things get bad enough, they potentially would secede which would lead to another civil war, which was caused by the last batch of secessionists.

            The thing is, the people who are aligned with this administration are the ones that still support the southern secession, now if the Republicans didn’t have double standards they’d have no standards at all so I don’t expect them to take the will of blue states breaking off as “See, we were right all along” and instead go for an attack instead.

            The trouble with… all of that… and why I say it’ll look like the middle east is when that goes down, we’re going to lose our nice dividing “red/blue Republican/Democrat left/right” divisions… which normally would be great, except it’s going to be all sorts of ideological areas in active combat. Those that have fully shoved the current administrations rhetoric down their throat will be pro-expansionisitic. They’re actually a pretty tiny minority, I’m surrounded by Trump voters at work and when I tell them about the “51st state” or annexation of Greenland rhetoric they’re horrified. Partially because the draft has always been in our mind and now they’re considering their kids going to war with a former ally… these guys mock Canada, but invading has never been in the thought process in our lives to the point that most people forget the war of 1812 happened.

            But the largest church in the United States is the Catholic church, which until the last decade has really seemed to have been politically out of it, but now it’s been putting pressure on Rome to the point the Pope has called it out. I’ve been waiting to see if we’d end up with a US Anti-Pope. The trouble is, the MUCH MORE politically powerful church is the second biggest single church in the US, AND the biggest of the current religion in the US, Protestantism, headed up by the Southern Baptist Church. The Southern Baptists were created pre-Civil War literally over the purposes of slavery, and while they have shut up about slavery they keep their southern roots and having grown up down there… they’ve been ready to go to war for years against the “Mary Worshipers” and “Jesus killers” (Catholics and Jews) to turn the country into the “Rightful Christian country it should be.” So now we potentially might be getting a nice religious civil war going down, we’ve got waiting in the wings the Mormons, they’re an odd bunch, very insular. One of their tenants is to be prepared for the end times and build communities together, effectively it’s a religion of doomsday preppers. They’re by far a smaller group, but far less infighting and as I say, are prepared for “The Collapse”. And the biggest concentration of them is in Salt Lake City, Utah… where the great salt lake is drying up and the dirt under it is toxic and being blown over the city. But that’s fine… their holy land where they expect Jesus to descend is just East of Kansas City in Missouri… where the reason they’re not really there in force is because Missouri literally had a law to legalize hunting Mormons in the 1800s, so surely no bitterness there. The Southern Baptists is biggest concentrated from Florida to Texas, the Catholics have the biggest gathering in Chicago so that nice North/South thing will come up again, now with a potential holy crusade in the middle from a third group.

            OKAY, so we’ve got the religious fights I’ve been hearing rumblings my entire life going, but religion is taking a back seat, lets see what else we have happening. The South wants to bring back Jim Crow against the blacks, but surely that’d be localized, the South has never attempted to pressure states to do what they want to do (see the Fugitive Slave Acts to see how dripping with sarcasm that is.) Frankly the South has been ready to restart its Civil War for the past 160 years, and I’ve been saying the Trump administration is them winning it, so you’ll have a racial war going down in the same time, and if you look up the Tulsa Race Riots, you’ll see the US really knows how to go all out on a race war.

            Now just political ideology wars. Sure, as I said, only the most hard core MAGAts want to go to war with other countries, but this country has been spending the last 20 years splitting the political ideologies from each other to a point I have no idea how we can come together. I have had to keep my mouth shut politically in jobs because I’m always outnumbered and retaliation can happen. Because of such I get to hear such wonderful things about how they believe Democrats are pedophiles and believe the Pizzagate thing. Now of course I think Republicans are unforgiveable fascists… but holy fuck it’s not like I don’t have a massive pile of evidence on that one, but that shows even the bias of I have no idea how I can ever trust one again. For the most part, the left is in the cities and the right is in the country. So of course the right wingers keep saying “Fine, we can cut off cities out of food” but dont’ realize the numbers of people and guns do outnumber in the cities, and when people start starving they will invade. It won’t save the cities, people will die if that goes down as people in this situation tend to not think in the long term and will destroy instead of trying to grow… and but the country folk won’t make it through any better… yet seem perfectly willing to think they can try.

            And finally, the one that’s more theoretical as I only have some historic perspective to work off of, but I’ve heard no rumblings about it, however movements seem to show it. Company towns. We did have some history of towns owned entirely by companies, where you were paid in company scrip and the company owns your home. I grew up in the hometown of WalMart, and I’ve made “jokes” about the Walmart military being the security, but Arkansas has weak gun laws, walmart has a massive security operation, has made it a point that if you want to do business with them you have to move to their home area and has made sure to clear out any competition. There are surrounding towns that papers are finding that the Walton family ends up owning 75%+ due to shell corporations to buy up the land of the towns. Amazon has been trying to take over towns with their distribution centers, running anything out and running on low taxes but they’re really decentralized, and President Musk has outright stated wanting to bring back company towns. Now, there aren’t many willing to fight and die for a company here. Left and Right, most people hate these major corporations (but not enough hate to stop giving them money and power), but thinking about Bentonville, if things go down like I’m predicting above, you’ll have these very powerful companies that have consolidated land and people and has enough money to effectively buy a military… well security becomes a “militia” to protect the stability of the town, now people can get on board with that. Once the militia has stabilized the area around where it’s not in danger from the fighting… now what? People belong to that company. And then while the others are fighting, they can expand. We may see a rise of feudalism within the US.

            I realize this is all tin foil hattery, but this is a perspective of someone in the middle of it watching some of my tin foil hat predictions coming true and listening to what people are willing to yell about. This would probably be “entertaining” as in watching a train crash entertaining for all of you across the world, if it weren’t for the part I never mentioned… the US military. Their ideologies are as split as the US… so all of the above will be trying to scoop up the military. Even companies have been some of the biggest hiring of former military for security, both digital and physical. Again, probably not so bad if we weren’t bristling with nukes and at least a couple of these groups I mentioned in fighting are outright doomsday cults.

            Thoughts from someone who lives in a state where the general populace, police and political leaders all are in agreement with the current administration and the nearest bastion that isn’t completely surrounded is over 500 miles away. I’d say send help but if we get to that point, I’ll be in the ground before yall get here.

            • RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com
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              Let me just start with: holy fuck, that’s a lot of text.

              I hope you’re paranoid and everything will be fine, but I fear you’re not, and at least part of that will become reality. I would send thoughts and prayers, but I’m an atheist, and thoughts and prayers is what got you in that situation.

              Good luck, and I mean that. I’m glad not to be in your situation.

              • Azal@pawb.social
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                I appreciate it. I really wish I weren’t in my situation either and if I had the means I’d be getting me and my parents the fuck out of here. But stuck with it and just trying to figure out the best way to help those that will be in more danger than I. I’ve got at least the luck of looking like the people that are taking over (the downside is that’s why I can discuss the way I do, I get to hear it from them because they look at me and think “Oh he’ll be on our side.”) but I know I will never be safe.

                When you say part of it will be reality, that’s the point I’m really going down. Even with the wall of text, it still looks neat and tidy how the battle lines will be drawn, and the US has a bad habit of thinking like that, all our wars have been pretty “This side vs This side” even back to our civil war. But what will be coming is a war where the sides will be best expressed as a “gagglefuck of people.” Hopefully when blood is spilled there may get some sense and we figure out how to pull out of the nosedive, but to have hope would make me an optimist.

                At least I did laugh about the thoughts and prayers, and appreciate you not sending any more. Thanks to the Republicans after every shooting we have so many that we’re swimming in them.

            • wewbull@feddit.uk
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              First… I’m not reading all that, but are you aware that there are 2 congressional districts up for re-election this week to replace members who accepted cabinet positions (e.g. Mike Waltz). They were +20 red districts, both of them. Now they are competitive. Trump has also withdrawn his appointee for UN ambassador because of fears they would lose her seat (also a very secure Red win previously).

              It’s not November anymore, and there’s been a torrent of things to change people’s minds in the meantime.

          • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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            Don’t worry, we would.

            The south would demand we side with the champions of (white) Christian culture.

            The coasts would finally have enough and we’d continue the civil war we should have finished 160 years ago.

            • finder@lemmy.world
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              Reconstruction ending the way it did was a national tragedy.

              Second times the charm as they say. . .

              • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
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                I’m honestly ready for Civil War 2. Let the south rise again so I can kick some fascist ass. It’s what they’ve always fantasized about anyway.

          • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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            Alternatively, and much preferred, just kick the whole Trump administration into the ocean, hold your own Nuremberg trials and start refreshed into the future. K thx bye.

            I like the way you think.

      • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Bingo.

        And also depends on which side China is on. Their war production dwarfs even the US, and I find it difficult to believe that it will all be spent fighting the US and Taiwan.

        There is a very real possibility that these three countries gang up together and divide the world among themselves.

        • Hubi@feddit.org
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          At this point it seems much more likely that the US sides with Russia than China. The EU is their largest trading partner, they’d never risk losing that market.

            • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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              The problem is China is right there, and a lot of parts of Russia used to have Chinese names.

              Mostly, Siberia is literally infinite resources, the kind of thing China desperately needs.

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              Russia has alienated China already by being an unstable and unpredictable mess of a country.

        • hairyfeet@lemmy.ml
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          Why would either need to side with Russia? They only have 140m people, a untrustworthy and soon to be unstable government. If you’re aim is to carve up territory then you don’t give a potential long term adversary access to half a billion people.

          • floofloof@lemmy.caOP
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            Alliances aren’t forever. Hitler and Stalin made an agreement not to fight each other, which worked to the benefit of both for a while, and the Trump admin and Putin are more closely aligned ideologically than those two ever were. Alliances can be made for expedience and short-term gain, even with a potential long-term adversary.

            • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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              The only thing worse than having Russia as an enemy is having them as an ally.

              They’re a catastrophe in nation form, the best thing we can do is push them as close to China as possible and watch them shoot themselves in the dick.

              That’s why Trump is such a nightmare, he’s showing them our dicks.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        China doesn’t want to war between Europe and Russia.

        It would force Europe to rapidly develop military capability and when Europ inevitably won that war, it would still have a vast military and might be feeling a bit touchy about dictatorships. China likes the world as it is right now, they have a lot of long-term plans and Russia suddenly ceasing to exist would mess all those plans up.

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        I don’t think Russia has money either from all the sanctions. This all strikes me as extremely unlikely. They can’t even get through Ukraine lol.

        But maybe they’re just exaggerating to justify war spending just in case.

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    So I just looked into the numbers quickly and am probably off by a bit

    NATO has 3.2m active military personnel and 2.2m in reserve

    Russia has 1.5m active and 2m reserve

    BUT, American forces make up 1.3m of NATOs active and 800k reserve

    If I were to randomly combine the American army with Russia rather than NATO for no particular reason,

    NATO would have 1.9m active 1.4m reserve and the Axis-sorry I mean Russia and America would have 2.8m active 2.8m reserve…

    • Tryenjer@lemmy.world
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      Maybe this is a suicidal plan, Putin is going to die and wants to take the world with him. From what we know about him, he is megalomaniacal and sadistic enough to want something like this.

      He must also be counting on the United States being out of NATO by then, maybe Trump will even send some soldiers to help his Russian allies.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        Just based on Trump’s previous administration I’m confident that if he actually tried to do that it would cause serious arguments between the military and the executive branch. The military already decided to pretty much ignore him when he was going on in his last term about nuclear weapons, fortunately it never came up.

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        It has nothing to do with wanting to actually fight NATO. The idea is to manufacture a carefully crafted situation where Article 5 is triggered, but due to internal disagreement and individual risk, it is not fully honored.

        Needless to say, any such move would be very risky.

        • Tryenjer@lemmy.world
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          And Trump’s United States will be one of those not to honour Article 5, if they are still part of NATO at that time.

    • Giorgsen@lemmy.world
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      The number of personnel won’t really matter here past a threshold. Looking at Ukraine Russian war it’s clear most of the fighting will be done with suicide drones, ones that can be produced en mass by any country more or less.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      There’s no way the US military would side with Russia, even if ordered to.

      • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        I agree. People underestimate how our perspectives of war have shifted tremendously in the past century. The ideological shift towards xenophobia and nationalism in recent years is undeniable, but it lacks the context of the world prior to the world wars.

        War was the default state. It was expected. Not just colonization, oppression, or revolution. No. Prior to the 20th century, humanity had experienced a nearly constant stream of full-scale, all-out, nation-making and nation-breaking wars.

        In the modern day, American “wars” happen in deserts and distant places. There is a level of cognitive dissonance in the public and military consciousness, a separation of “us” vs. “them”, a facade of bringing “justice and peace”. There is, always, a one-sidedness to the engagement. Even when America “loses”, it has no fear of a counterattack, because in every case it is merely “protecting democracy”, as opposed to actually being at war.

        The implicit biases against empathizing with other people - especially impoverished non-white refugees - have kept the nation from properly grappling with its history of tyranny. Many people have always believed in the greatness of the Land of the Free, simply because they could physically and emotionally distance themselves from the victims of “freedom”.

        An American invasion of Europe would completely shatter the Union. Full stop. No amount of xenophobic lies can prepare the troops and civilians fast enough for such a dramatic cultural and ideological shift. The rhetoric will ramp up, the core supporters will rabble rouse, and the soundbites will be bloodthirsty, but the actual bloodthirst won’t be there among the rest of the population or the military.

        War was easy to sell to Germany because it was billed as the only way out from the under the oppressive burdens of the last war. War was in the public mind. It was living memory of everyone else on the planet banding together to screw over Germany in particular.

        War will not be so easy to sell here. Americans literally identify themselves as European Americans. They’re italian and irish and german. They want to visit, they want to find love, they want to dine in Paris and party in Dublin and see the Vatican. American soldiers are literally stationed all across the region partying with the locals.

        We don’t remember war as a culture. We remember oppression, and “police actions”, and Vietnam. But we don’t remember world war, and we can’t imagine London or New York falling. That will all change if we attack our friends, and the cultural and ideological whiplash would tear the nation to pieces.

      • Darkmoon_UK@lemm.ee
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        Would you say they’re at the top of that slippery slope, or part way down it already?

        Maybe today’s top brass wouldn’t, but there are probably enough JD Vance types among the MAGA lovin’ grunts to promote, to structure an army that’ll take Trump at his word. If he says ‘Europe were the enemy all along’, enough times, with enough conviction…

        Wouldn’t have believed it myself until this year.

        • floofloof@lemmy.caOP
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          George W. Bush convinced Americans that France was an enemy for a while, and his supporters lapped it up. Today Trump has large chunks of his cult believing that Canada is an enemy. There’s apparently no limit to the absurdities and poison people will swallow if their beloved cult leader tells them to.

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            Big difference from renaming French fries to actual boots-on-the-ground fighting.

  • orclev@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Considering that Putin got his ass absolutely beat by a small country using second hand and surplus military hardware he’d have to be an absolute moron to pick a fight with NATO. Literally the only card he has to play is nukes and that’s kind of an all or nothing sort of move. If nukes are off the table any concerted push by NATO is going to be mopping up in moscow within a few months.

    That’s also assuming the US doesn’t get serious about it, but considering Putin’s puppet in the Whitehouse there’s a pretty good chance the US would quit NATO and so wouldn’t factor in. Even without the US though Russia has demonstrated the rest of NATO is far more than sufficient to handle Russia.

    • Sundiata@lemmy.world
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      Poland + Ukraine is enough to practically destroy Russia.

      Honestly I really hope putin just croaks over and dies at this point, the old fuck has practically killed endless amounts of his own people just for land. He can’t use the excuse of “Hur dur NATO is encroaching on my borders via Ukraine” because Finland is in NATO now thanks to his stupidity.

      He’s gambling with WW3 with a high chance of losing it.

      And he can’t keep America under his grasp forever, by the end of the decade trump could lose the election or get couped by anyone.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      Then again he’s going on with cable cutting and other idiocies. I’m not sure some kind of stupid “test run” could be ordered by him, like attacking one of the Baltic countries or Finland.

      If the war stops BTW then his days are probably numbered so maybe he’ll need some stupid war just to stay in power/alive.

    • floofloof@lemmy.caOP
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      Redo the calculations with the USA fighting on Russia’s side, and things start to look different.

      • WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
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        Trump seems to be consolidating to focus on Iran (and it’s allies) and China. He’s not going to fight Europe. If anything, he’ll try to get them to help by threatening NATO membership or something.

      • orclev@lemmy.world
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        Trump doesn’t have enough pull yet to make that happen, and it’s unlikely he will anytime soon. He could manage to get the US to sit out the fight, but actively committing US forces to help Russia isn’t going to happen.

        • nekbardrun@lemmy.world
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          What about Putin and Trump working together the rhetoric of nuclear deterrence?

          IIRC, Russia+USA = 90% of all nuclear weapons in the world.

          A big whammy hammer if they (hypothetically) fight together.

          • orclev@lemmy.world
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            Possible but it would be an incredibly risky move on Trump’s part as nukes are a very touchy subject and frankly Trump doesn’t have either the brains nor the charisma to pull it off. He’s as likely to make things worse and unite the rest of the world against Russia (including China who won’t want to see nukes deployed in essentially their backyard) as he is to help in a meaningful fashion. Putin knows how limited a tool Trump is and wouldn’t want to risk that. Trump is essentially useless for international purposes and limited to only domestic affairs.

            Despite his claims he is not and never has been a negotiator, he only ever “wins” when his opponents are at an overwhelming disadvantage. It’s why he prefers working with companies on the verge of bankruptcy because they’re desperate and easier to push around.

            As for deploying nuclear weapons, not only would that unit the entire world against the US, it would ignite the biggest shit storm within the US in its entire history, assuming the military even went along with it in the first place. If anything was going to convince the US military to stage a coup against Trump, giving the order to nuke a recent ally in a war the US is only tangentially connected to would.

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
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    10yrs? That long? Is Putin really that healthy? He looks like he has Cushing’s.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      End of the decade is 31-12-2029, which is about 4.7 years away, not 10.

      10 years would be “within/in/over a decade”.

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    My opinion is if they have any proof of this just declare article 5 now and attack them before they are prepared.

    Waiting for Putin strikes me as stupid just get organised and crush them as brutally as possible.

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      Article 5 states that an armed attack against one member will be treated as an attack against all members.

      There has been no armed attack against a member state.

      • Teknikal@eviltoast.org
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        A planned attack is still an attack. Waiting is stupid we should hit them with everything now if there’s proof.

        If I see a local nutter known for stabbing people staring at me with a knife and bragging about he’s going to stab me later I’m stabbing him first to protect myself. Same thing imo.

        • slackassassin@sh.itjust.works
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          You’re missing the point. It’s not a strategical decision that’s being made here.

          NATO is a defense treaty, not a warfare alliance. It has specific language describing it as such.

          Interestingly enough, you are paroting Kremlin talking points by treating it as anything other than a defensive agreement.

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            Well if I was the country that knew it was being attacked I’d not be waiting for the Russians to build up their equipment. This could be Ww3 if you wait until they’re ready or their buddies to arrive.

            Might be time to end Nato and make a new alliance that is willing to do what is necessary.

            • slackassassin@sh.itjust.works
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              You are advocating for a group of countries party to a defensive pact, going on the offensive, to perform a preemptive strike on a nuclear armed country. And arguing that the alternative could be ww3.

              That is the same as saying starting ww3 is the only way to avoid ww3.

              Might be time to end Nato

              Increasingly less interestingly enough, also a Kremlin talking point.

              • Teknikal@eviltoast.org
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                Putin thinks we are weak we need to give him a bloody nose, Russias the one that’s weak and they’ve been proving it for 3 years.

                I understand it’s a defensive pact but it still make no sense to wait in my opinion and why give the Americans a chance to switch sides then it is really ww3.

                • slackassassin@sh.itjust.works
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                  Starting wars, especially world wars, is bad. I don’t know what else to tell you.

                  Other than individual countries can take action if they decide to.

                  Perhaps you could drum up popular support amongst your citizenry and convince them to start a war.

                  Certainly been done before, you’d be in good company.

            • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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              Well if I was the country that knew it was being attacked I’d not be waiting for the Russians to build up their equipment.

              Given that most of the countries in Europe have been relying heavily on their now-compromised former ally America for security, the smarter move would be to also spend the intervening years building up equipment.

    • RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com
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      Hey, some years ago we said the same about Russia invading Ukraine. Maybe Russia’s actions aren’t directed by logic.

    • floofloof@lemmy.caOP
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      If Russia knows the USA won’t respond, and may even help, this may work differently. It would take a lot to get any NATO country to fire a nuke, especially if they didn’t have US support, and Russia knows this.

    • spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Lol, imagine thinking the USA and Russia would be on opposite sides when we have multiple Russian assets in the White House. And in Congress. And probably in the supreme court.

      • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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        France has nukes too.

        One day Russia is flat broke and losing the war.

        The next they are preparing to invade Europe with their epic weapons stockpile

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    Honest question. If Russia nuked Krakow, would America retaliate with nukes? Would France? England?

    I don’t think so. It’s not even clear nato would declare conventional war.

    Mutually assured destruction only works for countries with nukes. Am alliance is no real deterance.

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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      You are being downvoted but you are asking a very legitimate question.

      If Russia nuked a NATO country, what would really happen ?

      Would the US respond ? It’s extremely uncertain, especially with the recent election of space Karen and cheetos.

      Would France or the UK respond ? It’s a big question and a big discussion is happening currently in Europe.

      France nuclear doctrine states that their nuclear arsenal will be used of France’s “vital interests” are at stake. Is Europe part of France’s vital interest ?