All this talk of EU and NATO countries needing to spend more on defense to counter the imminent Russian threat is obviously not the real motivation behind increased spending.
If one were to imagine such a world, for the sake of useless navel gazing, what else would need to be true for Russia to not only want to use military force to annex or occupy or even conduct limited air strikes on a NATO member or one of their allies but be confident that it’s military could meaningfully conduct such a massive operation while defnding from the inevitable retaliation from the entire west?
Idk I’m baked at work and can’t really understand why people are so easily sold on this idea that Russia is about to conduct full scale war on Europe
There is a small part of me that knows that even EU countries are too paranoid about each other to commit too hard. After all, historically, every single time one of them ever fights Russia (barring WWII) they may fight Russia to a draw, but then end up getting their teeth kicked in by another European power.
That said, I don’t think Russia has the morale or internal justification going on enough to make something like that palatable to the Russian populace, without a previous invasion. Even though Russia is an oligarchy, much like our oligarchy, it does require popular buy in to do this kind of stuff.
You never know, the EU leaders might be requesting aid from Poutine to deal with the riots after December price hikes.
This is the secret ending no one had foreseen.
Holy Alliance 2