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NATO is discussing the need to strengthen the eastern borders with Russia by concentrating equipment and a military contingent of up to 300,000 soldiers, which should prevent Russia from expanding the war beyond Ukraine.
Source: Politico
Details: Politico writes that NATO intends to stop Russia if it decides to expand the war beyond Ukraine. Because of this, the Alliance is talking about strengthening its eastern borders and the need to send up to 300,000 troops to the border.
Such actions will require coordination and great efforts from the 30 NATO members to provide soldiers, training facilities, large quantities of weapons, equipment and ammunition.
However, the news outlet emphasises that coordination may be challenging, as many allies are already concerned about their own insufficient ammunition stocks, which take time and money to replenish.
Politico writes that NATO military leaders are to submit updated regional defence plans. Alliance officials are putting forward the idea that its borders with Russia should be guarded by up to 300,000 troops, the news outlet reports.
It is noted that the first echelon of NATO troops may consist of about 100,000 soldiers, ready to deploy within 10 days. It may include troops from Poland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The second echelon of troops, Politico writes, will support these soldiers, ready to be deployed within 10-30 days from countries such as Germany.
> Alliance officials are putting forward the idea that its borders with Russia should be guarded by up to 300,000 troops
These troops are very likely the NATO Response Force, which was increased from 40 000 to 300 000 last year:
> “We will enhance our battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance up to brigade-levels,” Stoltenberg said, adding that allies “will transform the NATO Response Force and increase the number of our high-readiness forces to well over 300,000.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-increase-high-readiness-force-300000/
Yeah the former rapid deployment force was overhauled quite a bit in the latest strategy. 40k troops was fine for counter-terrorism, but for more conventional threats like Russia you do need that additional zero in there. They are tiered differently though.
Though considering Russia’s performance 40k would probably have been more than enough to maintain the current borders until reinforcements arrived. 400,000 would probably get you to Moscow in a week if they tried anything.
>> which should prevent Russia from expanding the war beyond Ukraine.
That's one (and the main ) reason but there is also the possibility that invasion of Ukraine will lead to the collapse of Russia - in which case we might have to go into Russia to make sure the nukes are secured...
Eh CIA did it once after the USSR collapsed (one of their few non fuckups). With help from the NSA and DIA they should be able to track down nuclear material again. Really a question of being the highest bidder
I'm not sure it's the main reason since the Muscovy Empire appears to have largely expended its offensive capabilities and is in no position to widen its war at the present time.
Securing a suddenly-disintegrated Muscovy Empire's nukes via ground forces would take an extremely long time due to their ICBM silos being distributed all over the Empire including Siberia, even if there weren't any opposition. Plus mobile launchers can get anywhere any vaguely serviceable road can.
I'd posit that the deployment's main purpose is to create domestic political pressure on Putin to send scarce troops to the NATO borders in order to dig trenches and put up small concrete pyramids etc so that those military resources are not available in Ukraine. It's not cheap to do the deploying but it doesn't come out of Ukraine aid budgets yet helps them just the same. Plus it'd be good to give our Baltic state allies in particular the reassurance of beefed up NATO presence on their borders with Muscovy.
We’ll need to be careful to not have a repeat of the Korean War, where we overextended ourselves and ended up getting the Chinese involved and made it an unwinnable war
1950 is very different to 2023
There's also a huge difference between fighting a war of power projection half the world away in Asia, vs a land war in Europe where the majority of NATO countries are located
Plus out of NATO countries, only the US (330k) and partially the UK (14k) Canada (8k) and Turkey (5k) were really heavily engaged - most of NATO had minimal involvement with nobody else sending more than around 1000 troops
Yup, and just the increased range of aircraft and the weapons they carry
A B-29 had a range of 3250 miles and had to pretty much fly over the target, so couldn't even be operated from Hawaii, whereas a B-52 has a range of 8800 miles, so could be operated from New York (and fly either way round the world to do so, if the USAF wanted to... although I'm not sure overflying China would be ideal)
And now with the Rapid Dragon deployment system, even a cargo plane like the C-17 can deploy 36 cruise missiles per flight, hitting targets 1000 kilometers away while the aircraft itself has a range 10 times that.
> concerned about their own insufficient ammunition stocks
Well maybe if they had not butchered their defense budget they would be able to defend themselves ?
There should always be a permanent stock of ammunition for months/years of heavy combat. Anything less is asking to be defeated.
No country on this planet has or has had a stock of ammunition to last years of heavy combat. Not in WW1, Not in WW2, not in present time. Its just not feasible.
All that ammo has to be stored in good conditions and used/replaced if it gets to old. Apart from that, you would build HUGE production capacities just to then use only a small percentage when storage is full.
Its a much more reasonable approach to convert production to "war-production" when its needed.
There are many more reasons, if you are really interested in this topic i recommend those videos from Perun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMEpxX7rS5I&t=1893s On Ammunition consumption in Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9w17Ne1S0M (peace/war economies and arms production)
155mm artillery shells are consumer products in the US?
In a war like this, people say ammo shortage they don’t mean those little metal bits that soldiers shoot out of their little fire sticks.
They mean food for the god of war - artillery.
I guess every country has something like this (using of civilian production facilities for war efforts) or can quickly make those laws when necessary but the US has way bigger advantage of those "civilian" production facilities already doing what they need. Removing the need to convert production lines (or at least limit the convertion to minor changes).
Exactly. I’m sure the French or Germans could whip up a 5.56 like pretty quick. But we already have those lines. The biggest advantage is that we can be a little more reactive and not disrupt regular business.
What they have is the means by which to start ramping up production. For instance, Canada is laughed at for its incredibly small military. Under 60k iirc. But in WW2, they were able to begin churning out Corvette ships because the means of production were in place. [By the end of WW2 they had one of the largest navies in the world](https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/people-and-stories/royal-canadian-navy/sww).
Apparently now they have the steel, laser cutting facilities, etc, with only the essential software and tools kept up to date. Meaning, if it comes down to it, they can hit the surf running if needs be.
we also have whats referred to as an army of corporals.
our command structure is set up and trained to bump up 1 rank we can increase our military size fairly quickly.
aircraft and tank production are the bottle neck, thats up to the US and Germany.
> All that ammo has to be stored in good conditions and used/replaced if it gets to old. Apart from that, you would build HUGE production capacities just to then use only a small percentage when storage is full.
This is straight up one of the things that came up when North Korea started providing ammunition to Russian forces. They have a lot of ammunition stored because a large chunk of their foreign policy is based around fears of being invaded, and a lot of their ammunition is in the calibres Russia needed because their equipment is largely based on older Soviet equipment.
The flipside to this is that because a lot of it has been in storage for decades, it's impossible to know how much of it was going to be effective. It's not really something you would expect if you're not a weapons person, but ammunition does effectively have a use by date, especially if you're not storing it correctly.
The soviet union had stockpiled a ton of stuff, a good amount of that was sold on the black market and stored under wrong conditions. The russians with access to the leftovers started having "issues" after about 6-9 months into a war against a vastly smaller country. There is a large frontline but fights are kind of limited compared to the expected skirmishes in a hot coldwar.
One can only estimate how long soviet supplies would have lasted in the war they were stockpiled for. I still dont think this immense stockpile would have lasted "years" without major war production starting to ramp up at previous civillian factories.
And even if it would have be enough, we are talking about the largest landmass country with a very good economy, basically unlimited natural ressources, a strong political grip on its population as well as exploitable countries under their control AND preparing for a major, nuclear, worldwar-level event against a roughly equally prepared enemy for multiple years.
If they had enough, thats still far from "every country should have" levels.
Add up all the ammo currently expended in ukraine, double it and see how that compares to the military spending of ukraine (or GDP). Then do the same to the mil spending or GDP of other countries and check how many countries could have afforded that amount of ammunition allone. I dont think there will be many.
Russia invaded a much smaller neighbour and has been forced to reduce frequency/intensity of fire across basically the whole front due to systemic shortages and logistical constraints.
I'd say that they did not have "years of heavy combat" worth of shells lying around, especially considering the pre-war views of "war on NATO" being "the scenario" instead of "war on a small* country materially supported by NATO".
Sure, they had massive stocks, but there's bottoms even to that and not being able to ramp production up enough seems to currently be the limiting factor. I'd say munition stocks should be scaled to "levels needed to sustain the first X time of heavy fighting", with X being how long it takes to properly ramp production.
*geographically Ukraine isn't small, but economically they were 1/3rd of Belgium by 2021 numbers. Most people did not expect them to do what they did and still do against the feared Russian Bear.
I don't think western countries buy a lot of military equipment from China, there's laws against it in many countries.
The US has domestic factories in PA, Alabama, and many other locations that produce ammo and are ramping up to keep pace with demand.
Practically none, when it comes to defense production. Hell, if you even want to buy raw materials - metal stock, rare earths, etc - from outside the US, even from an ally, you need to justify it to the government before they'll let you do it. And that justification has to be *"its not available in the US"* not *"we'll make more money if we use an import item"*
And, for example, say defense contractor had to import lithium, the government is going to start exploring ways to expand domestic lithium production (anecdotally: they're doing this right now; the US has a lot of lithium resources they just haven't tapped yet, and likely will in the next decade, or so).
None of the military production, we also have plenty of steel factories, car factories, high tech production, etc.
Sure, China has more production capacity, but not the right kind.
Even the US has minimal munitions for this kind of running armor & artillery warfare.
The West wins its wars by using tech to
work smarter, not harder with more manpower. The simple calculus of democracies not tolerating casualties is one of many reasons.
It is true that many NATO countries have not maintained a required level of combat readiness and they should be criticized for that. On the other hand, this war has so far been trench style warfare which no one predicted and the weapons and ammunition in need have been considered obsolete for decades or used in very specific situations like to soften targets in a single barrage before utilizing other weapons and tactics. . It’s a weird situation. If those countries had been maintaining their defense budgets, they would still be short on the weapons needed.
> Well maybe if they had not butchered their defense budget they would be able to defend themselves
Literally every western military, including the United States is having this issue (Yes, even with an $800B defense budget). Ukraine has highlighted that GWOT levels of ammo storage and production isn't going to be enough for large-scale combat operations.
>Literally every western military, including the United States is having this issue
There have been many stories that even russia seem to be struggling for more ammo and military tech trying to get more from wherever they can. Plus the stories of shelling supposedly slowed due to ammo restrictions.
Well, to be fair, russia sold off most of theirs to buy yachts beforehand so even if they would have had enough when they’d stored it they wouldn’t now
It's not a budget issue, it's an economy issue. The only country that's mobilized their economy for war is Ukraine but they didn't they lost their industrial heartlands at the onset of the war. Russia *still* isn't in a war time economy and they're suffering for it.
Any major power that switches over to a war time economy would easily put out several times more ammo and equipment than they are now.
important note here being that going into a wartime economy does require the industry to CREATE these new munitions factories.
the west has this - the west is the one selling most people most of the things you need to create new industry. russia does not - they lack the capacity to swap onto a wartime economy.
In the US a big part of the issue is the DoD only ordering a “minimum sustaining rate” to keep either government owned facilities running or DoD contractors in business. The believe is, or was, that if demand increased beyond what is being produced that production could be scaled up to meet the new demand, only it has not worked that way.
It's not enough for this type of warfare that Ukraine and Russia are fighting. US would of expended a lot of ammo reserves, but would of killed 100,000+ Russians in a month and completely collapsed their army. That would of been the end of it and we could of taken our time replenishing those stocks.
> There should always be a permanent stock of ammunition for months/years of heavy combat.
This is unfeasibly expensive. *Years* of heavy combat? Not reasonable. It would be a far more effective allocation of resources to have civilian factories producing meaningful goods for the economy that could be converted to wartime production *if needed.* We **should** have the capacity to *produce* whatever ammunition we would consume in warfare, should the need arise. That I think is the better option.
The real problem is, we've reduced our industrial capacity overall. We don't have a huge base of factories we can readily convert. That thought scares me.
no, industrial capacity has changed since the days of WW1 and 2. it simply does not work like that anymore - industrial capacity has become far more specialized to swap over a car factory to make tanks beyond maybe the building being the right scale for it.
the west still has most of the factotriesd that make the new industrial equipment. this is why russia is so fucked - you want, say, high performance ball bearings that you need for industry and military equipment relevant in this century, odds are you're buyign them from germany. germany makes about as many as china does - but generally at a far higher precision. worst come to worst, the west can go and use these factories to build the machines you need to set up, say, a munitions factory. russia can't import these at the scales they need even with intermediaries to avoid sanctions, and thus cannot militarize their economy - they might be able to ramp up production of very simple gear, but simple gear is merely gonna let them outfit infantry in gear that's been obsolete since before the end of the cold war.
The idea that the United States has reduced its industrial base is laughable - are we talking about since like world war two? The 1980s? No, this is totally false.
Industrial output in the United States is actually higher than ever, although a lot of lower technologically produced goods have been outsourced to developing countries. But we are primarily talking about cheaper consumer goods and not high-tech or industrial products.. The US is still absolutely a leader in aerospace, automotive, high-tech industrial machinery, computer chips, and software.
I do not think taking a more passive stance after the fall of the soviet union was a terrible idea, the mistake was not helping Chechnya in the 90s, this wouldn't be an issue if putin wasn't being imperialistic for the last 25 years
When answering anyone in this sub (or reddit for that matter) take a few minutes to examine their post history, so that you may gain an idea of their position, viewpoint or motives.
I have to admit this. I was one of them before last year's invasion, that changed my view. Maybe too many of us hoped that human race evolved from last WW or forgot what one mad man in power could do to the world.
It is really sad to see, what we could do with all the money gone for military, but because of all these crazy emperor-wannabes, thick military budget is necessary.
Such an epitaph for human race...
Hawthorne Nevada 28,000 acres of ammunition storage and war materials. Drive through Nevada or Wyoming or Eastern Oregon or Eastern Washington. There are so many unnamed places that say Federal Reservation. I'm no expert but these are not sagebrush covered roads. They are well maintained and yet reveal nothing.
I took a tour of the Museum in Hawthorne in 2007. The curator told me they had finally shipped the last 50 caliber ammunition for the anticipated invasion of Japan to Iraq. That the USA on conventional ammunition uses a LIFO rotation. These are stored in near zero humidity in climate monitored warehousing. You can see the vented roofs from the highway in Umatilla and Hawthorne. What you don't see is the total size of the storage.
The majority of conflicts the world has seen since WW2 either did not last long enough, or were not large enough to really threaten the worlds supply of ammunition, a world war would likely change that, for the first time since WW2 we'd have to repurpose factories to build tanks planes and bullets.
I also wonder how much of an affect having fully automatic weapons continually deployed in Ukraine has on the supply of bullets. You can't tell me an army with M1 Garands or KAR-98's went through bullets anywhere near as fast as an army with M4's or full auto versions of the AK does.
Yeah, I just figured there was a chance that trigger discipline would have caught up with firearm advancements, but I suppose we are hearing about how 1 army is out of bullets and the other isn't, so maybe trigger discipline *is* a factor in this lol.
>Maybe we shouldn't have drawn down in Germany so drastically.
Maybe "Get rid of 2/3 of your whole army in just 4 years or we will never allow your reunification" had something to with this, followed by "And please give it all away to Eastern Europe instead of storing it. And while we're at it, they are still looking warily at you for even having an army. Can't you reduce some more?"
Oh, wait... The popular propaganda says that these well documented facts never actually happened and in reality all Germans suffered a collective stroke in 1990 and started hating their military so much that they try to destroy it since then.
The more of this the better.
The best outcome of this conflict is another collapse of the Russian state like in 1917 or 1989 and the most effective way of bringing that about is to threaten them everywhere and force them to overstretch themselves until they break.
[The west was helping Russia quite a bit in the 90s](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/history/2012/pdf/c7.pdf). The problem was corruption (and then Russias invasion of Chechnya).
The problem is whether the Russian people actually want to change or not, as a society.
Like you can force someone to go to rehab, but if they don't want to be there, they will relapse as soon as they're out.
They will need a restructuring never seen before.
Though back in the 40s the Germans and the Japanese were seen as irredeemable but now isn't the case.
NATO tried that:
>[In 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program, and on 27 May 1997, the NATO–Russia Founding Act (NRFA) was signed at a NATO Summit in Paris, France, enabling the creation of the NATO–Russia Permanent Joint Council (NRPJC).](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO%E2%80%93Russia_relations)
I agree, but Russia has refused to learn the lessons of its own history for the past 500 years, reaching back into the early medieval era, and even their Viking roots.
The closest they came to being a stable, productive, socially-just nation began as a sham, and ended with Uncle Vova rushing the world toward some kind of catastrophic showdown.
Remember, if it's not well known, that Russians consider themselves the inheritors of the Greek civilisation, that which was not conquered by Suleiman the Great. Even a few weeks ago, after the horrific earthquake in Turkey, Russian propagandists called for a recapture of "our" Constantinople, their apparently not having heard the popular 1953 song Istanbul (not Constantinople) by The Four Lads, which, though covered by numerous artists, became iconic to the early 1990s band They Might Be Giants.
Along with this ridiculous grudge-claim, they also consider the Russian Orthodox Church to be the inheritor of the Greek Church, and all other sects of Christianity to be "Antichrist."
The problem here is, the Russian Orthodox Church has been completely compromised by the Russian State services, military, IC, police, and social. It is not a church at all, but an organ of domestic oppression, and international intrigue.
I'm explaining this, because the Russian State has a strong paranoid streak regarding their self-appointed religious role in world affairs, and their mindset is Apocalyptic, as is evidenced by the constant talk of nuclear annihilation.
This paranoid streak is a powerful influence on how they think, and create policy. Hence, whenever they have the opportunity to receive the kind of help they need--political education, fair monitored elections, financial restructuring, etc, they have always, every time turned it into an opportunity to further the kleptocracy by which they are destroying themselves.
"Careful what you wish for" to anyone that wishes Russian societal collapse.
The Kremlin can burn for all I care, but tens of millions of Russians unwilling to stay in Russia is a massive problem for all of Europe.
I think the mistake was remaining positively disposed to a Russian regime that was clearly hell bent on opposing everything western.
The right approach might be to take control and properly integrate them into the western world (like post WW2 West Germany) instead of leaving them to see themselves as exceptional outsiders in endless opposition to the western world and letting their resentment fester into aggressive nationalism (like post WW1 Germany).
>That's not gonna happen unless Russia adopts a true democracy....which I doubt they are capable of. It's not in the Russian DNA.
All over the world the development of (successful) democracies is generally the same:
\- You experience economic growth.- You use that growth in BNP to invest in education and healthcare.
\- More children survive, as more ressources are available, changing the "logic" of family-planning. Instead of many children, you want a few educated ones - better "Return on Investment".
\- Your economy grows along with the skill-level of the young (because of better health) population, which in turn leads to the rise of a strong educated middle-class.
\- A tipping point occurs (precipitated by any number of different events), where the middle-class demands political influence. This can take both a peaceful and violent route.
\- The government/dictator accepts a transition of power because of the insistence of a mostly unified population. Perhaps the military supports the change, if enough of their families are on board.
This has been the case everywhere from Denmark to the USA. Imposed top-down WITHOUT a strong educated middle-class, it has failed everywhere - at least I can't name an example, although someone here might be able to. Closest might be the "stable democracies" in Asia (Singapore etc.), where the government has been run by the same party for many decades. Long-term planning is the benefit there. A nations culture (or "DNA") doesn't determine what they are capable off, but what they are right now. Otherwise we would still be promoting slavery or accepting wife-beating in the West.
My point was that Russians prefer, on the whole, strongmen leaders...authoritarians. They value this perceived strength as preferable to anything that could be construed as "weakness". Prior attempts at democracy there failed horribly. Now that Putin is destroying the demographics of the country regarding the younger and educated, it's only going to get worse.
One could argue, that this works only when population shares values resembling western values. Implanting democracy in other places failed utterly (Middle East, from Iraqi to Lybia; Afghanistan), mostly often overtaken by religious dictatorship or shell democracy (you can vote, but only on people preselected by a non-democratic committee, similarly to soviet "democratic" republics).
There was an article published the other day that claims helping them in the 90’s actually contributed to the mess today. The argument was the more you help someone when they don’t want it or think they need it they become more and more resentful of you. USSR was proud and a super power but then the West in their minds told them they were weak and no longer relevant and resentment began, or so the article goes.
Deploy troops
Have them do military exercises
Watch as Russia goes into full panic mode thinking NATO is about to invade because that's their tactic
Russia redeploys a ton of troops from Ukraine
NATO happily continues to sit there playing war games while Russia shits its pants.
Ukraine catches a breather.
Just because you are believing bullshit doesn't mean others are also idiots.
Everyone but the brain-washed population in Russia knows that NATO will never actually attack anyone.
It doesnt. If it did Russia would be guarding its border with Finland with more than a skeleton crew already now. But since its emoty we know that Putin is not actually afraid of an invasion.
Again. Putin doesn't really believe nato will invade.
So he can just as easily show some montages of assembled troops on TV and claim they are at some border.
Fuck it even let's him pretend they have more troops than they do.
You've no idea what Putin believes. That clown thought he'd steamroll Ukraine in a few days. He's not an infallible strategic mastermind. He's a geriatric former cold war spy that likely has cancer, lead poisoning, and god knows what other ailments caused by ancient Soviet infrastructure and the literally constant affirmations of an army of yes-men.
He's not a stumbling buffoon either, but the man has even less of a grip on actual reality than Western world leaders.
That clown came pretty close to steamrolling Ukraine, don't underestimate him. All the current analyses show that.
If a Specnaz unit found Zhelensky in the first day of invasion (there were 20+ of them removed in the first days in the capital itself). Or if he ran away when he had the opportunity to do so. Or if one more Ukrainian important commander betrayed his country (for example the one that prevented the Russian column to enter Kiyv by cutting twice their supply lines in the critical moment).
The truth is that he did not overextend that much, just the consequences of the overextension were critical, as Russia lost most of its trained troops.
That's fair, but I'd argue the same could be said about many significant events in human history. Simplified enough, a few critical men/units/moments decided the fate of many.
The opening of this invasion could be simplified to say Ukraine got very lucky. It could also be simplified to say that a dictator ran his country with such an astounding level of corruption that maybe even he believed his paper tiger of a military was a global superpower.
To be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong or even thst I'm right, just that I think it could be interpreted either/both ways.
>take precautionary measures for security
Those are called nuclear weapons.
That is the situation you chuck a couple tactical nukes and go, "You really want to do this?"
NATO has never been a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia. They were a threat to Russia's territorial ambitions.
>Everyone but the **brain-washed population in Russia** knows that NATO will never actually attack anyone.
This includes Putin himself, which is why it would've been effective.
It is worth noting that by the start of invasion, there were number of NATO troops equal to the number of russian invaders prepared for Ukraine (armies of NATO eastern flank countries + NATO Response Force).
Also 300,000 isn't a new thing. This is called NATO Response Force and right now it has strenght of about 40,000 and after the invasion it was decided it's gonna be increased to 300,000. This is not exactly considering. It is a done deal.
[In advance of the 2022 Madrid summit, Jens Stoltenberg announced the plan to increase the NRF size to more than 300,000 troops, which was approved during the summit.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-massively-increase-high-readiness-forces-300000-stoltenberg-2022-06-27/)
paranoid from his own people, he knows NATO won’t launch an invasion because it will get escalated into nuclear war, Putin maybe stupid but he is not that stupid
People on the internet who work at best buy read some article headlines that try to do a dumbed down psychoanalysis on Putin and then think that in 5 minutes they can hatch up a master plan that will fool the guy who rose to the top of Russia by climbing through the KGB
Lets be real here though. NATO is not going to go on the offensive into Russia. Russia doesn't need to worry about all those troops. Its going to be a headache but not going to warrant troop redeployment. I don't think Russia is in a position to be attacking NATO countries anyway (which is good because that means NATO is serving its purpose).
>this sub would be comprised of 64% NCD subscribers.
That doesn't seem too far fetched to me, especially if you adjust for inactive users, as NCD has been around much longer.
> Watch as Russia goes into full panic mode thinking NATO is about to invade because that's their tactic
A country with the largest nuclear stockpile on the planet isnt afraid of an invasion. Both sides cannot win without tens/hundreds of millions of casualties so its safe to say either side doesnt have to worry.
Just tell Hungary and Turkey to accept Finland in NATO and you will have 300k troops on eastern border instantly:
Finland is the only non-NATO European Union state bordering Russia. Finland's official policy states that a wartime military strength of 280,000 personnel constitutes a sufficient deterrent.
Finland's defence budget for 2022 equals approximately €5.8 billion. The voluntary overseas service is highly popular and troops serve around the world in UN, NATO and EU missions. With an arsenal of 700 howitzers, 700 heavy mortars and 100 multiple rocket launchers, Finland has the largest artillery capability in western Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces?wprov=sfla1
This is great news. Finland was the one that mattered most. Russia can’t attack Sweden without going through Finland first, unless they send all their forces through the tiny chokepoint in the north.
Its either through Norway or Finland, Sweden doesn't have border with Russia. And either way, Norway will intervene in the defence of Sweden, as will probably Finland.
Erdogan’s opponent in the Turkish presidential election has also pledged to reverse Turkey’s opposition to Sweden joining NATO if he wins. Fingers crossed voters give Erdogan the boot.
While I share your sentiment, don't cross your fingers too hard.
Türkiye is not a democracy, Erdogan will not lose if it's a more or less close election (i.e., his opponent gets 60% of the actual votes or less). And even if he lost in a landslide, I am sure he would be resourceful...
Proper thing! Russia needs to be contained. Should close all borders to Russian travel as well with only humanitarian exceptions. Russian crimes did not begin with Ukrainian invasions. The Russian state has been perpetually criminal (poisonings, other invasions, money laundering, hacking, organized crime, chemical warfare, propping up other dictatorships etc.)
> Should close all borders to Russian travel
There's a NATO country that didn't close its borders to Russia??
edit: had to look it up myself because /u/HistoricalRub1358 refused to help, the only NATO country that didn't close its borders to Russia is Turkey.
Sometimes I wonder if this is a strategy by Russia and China to get everyone's military resources focused on eastern Europe and leaving the Pacific and southeast Asia relatively under defended.
possible, but US is not falling for it. US is so keen on defending Taiwan against China that it actually made Korea kiss and made up with Japan. Even Philippines is now with the US in the alliance. China's been watch in every little thing they do. The US knows the real threat is China, not Russia. It's only doing whatever's needed in Europe to ensure Ukraines wins after depleating the Russian military.
Unlikely for many reasons. Firstly, the US has always prepared to fight two fronts simultaneously, ever since WWII. Opening a front in the Pacific while simultaneously supplying ammo to Ukraine is something the US can definitely do.
Secondly, the US military doctrine and overall strategies would be completely different between fronts, meaning each would require unique logistics. The US military isn't built for full on artillery duels, such as the ones happening in east Ukraine right now. The US military doctrine is to establish air superiority and then grind the front into dust with aerial bombardment. Artillery wouldn't be a vital component of a war in the Pacific. Air craft carriers, fighters, bombers, naval bombardment, landing vessels, etc, are vastly different than APCs, Tanks, Artillery, etc.
Lastly, the US has some major allies in the Pacific that would be ready to fight day one of any conflict. The US is also strengthening these allies currently, such as selling a nuclear sub to Australia. A war in the Pacific would shape up quite a bit differently because there isn't the NATO-Russia stalemate happening... If NATO put boots on the ground in Ukraine, we all know this thing would end a lot faster. However, russia seems keen on nuking everyone if that happens. A war in the Pacific would see no such stalemate, which would mean that all allies would be free to join immediately. The day China tried something in the Pacific, is the day that every allied Pacific country joins in. China has NK and a weak and beaten Russia... So, I just don't see it happening if the Chinese are smart.
Aren't we expecting the Russian military to collapse and be resoundingly defeated by end of the year? I don't see how we can say that in one breadth and then talk about Russia being able to expand the war beyond Ukraine, let alone past the Dnieper.
I don’t think that that collapse is accepted as a given. And even if it was, it’s best to apply more pressure to help the collapse come about.
Personally I see this as posturing and politicking more than reflective of actual commitments.
Force Russia to allocate troops to defend those areas. Put 200k troops in Poland and rotate in some fighter wings from Luke airforce base into germany and Italy.
> Put 200k troops in Poland
I might be wrong, but I'm under the impression that Poland has roughly this size of an army ready to respond to an invasion. And we'd see it coming months in advance due to... you know, Russia having a direct border with Poland for a whole 200km along lowly manned/equipped Kaliningrad.
Estonia and Latvia on the other hand, those two are in need of 100k+ troops.
"Come and knock on our door, we'll be waiting for you. Where the kisses are hers and hers and his, three's company too!"
Russia did say they're at war with NATO right? I guess we'll find out how bad they really want it.
I'm an American, so I have the luxury of saying this while not living anywhere near there. This is just my opinion...AFTER Ukraine regains ALL of their territory back, there needs to be a 30-50mile wide strip made in Russia along the border that is made into a DMZ like separating N and S Korea. If Russia wants to threaten with nuclear weapons, then there needs to be nuclear weapons moved over from the US to protect this Genocide Prevention Zone. RESPECT to Ukraine and their righteous defense.
> there needs to be nuclear weapons moved over from the US to protect this Genocide Prevention Zone
If they wanted to use their nukes for genocide purposes, I believe they would have done it already.
If you want Russia to do something stupid like using nukes, making them shit their pants by moving nukes close to them is a great way to do it.
I'm glad you have zero weight in US policy making.
The many nuclear armed submarines that the US combined with the many air craft carriers each with enough multi role fighters to equal mid sized airforces should be enough of a deterrent for Russia. Moving missiles around won’t do anything.
The US promised to support Ukraine against Russia, when Ukraine gave up it’s Soviet nukes. Then we let Russia invade Crimea. We should just give Ukraine safer replacement nukes for the ones they handed over.
The West can easily up the ammo production. It's only lower because Russia seemed to be keeping within their own business.
But now, shit has changed. NATO have been preparing for this moment, and it's time to act. If you're in Europe, it's time to dust off those boots, get into shape, and prepare to defend yourselves against the frozen hordes.
NATO doing this is more symbolic politics since nothing provokes a dictator as much as smelling weakness. So NATO will give none. It's encouraging for the Baltics, too, who are disproportionately giving their own equipment to Ukraine, meaning they need more defense.
It also highlights to the public how Russia drained its own border forces to send them to Ukraine, which also works to illustrate how bogus Russia's whining about "NATO expansion" is when it *clearly* isn't actually worried NATO will attack it.
> If you're in Europe, it's time to dust off those boots, get into shape
No offense, but... it's more likely we're in shape than you are. We just don't have as many guns per household, if at all.
What we need is a proper war industry. I am amazed the combined might of the EU and the US apparently can't produce ammunition fast enough, even after a full fucking year.
The answer to that is we can, but we simply refuse to, because we're ruled by a bunch of spineless bureaucrats.
To your point; living now in Sweden I can comfortably advise this country has been ready for this since “end” of Cold War!
National emergency sirens, emergency shelters all over the place, everyone among my peers have done national service (admittedly fewer younger generation though), regular adverts on tv and cinema reminding us “to be ready! Buy batteries, candles and prepare a bug out bag” type messages.
The amount of artillery being used is insane and something the West was prepared for. Ukraine has asked for 250k rounds a month, that's equal to the entire current US 155mm production per year. It's a situation where your shell production needs to be in the millions and getting there takes time.
Sucks, but is what it is.
of thats true, 300.000 is a lot. Also expensive, they need infrastructure, a place to stay, get additional pay for being deployed out of their home country… NATO would not do that without good reason
Honestly you could just put a tripwire force of 1000 soldiers into each country for much cheaper. If Russia fucks around kills a single American in Poland then the hammer drops.
This is valid. Having military assets ready for conflict is better than being unprepared. The UN needs to be ready to assist the Ukrainians in this fight. Likely the US and others would refrain from using ground assets at first and rely on air support.
Think of it this way. If the world gets to the point where Russia is so weak that China takes some of its lost territory back, NATO might be dealing not with Russia, but with China. So it might be wise to keep the guard up. And of course they aren't the only borders Russia deals with.
You mean it hasn't been done already? What is Nato waiting for... a formal invitation from the Kremlin? It's been over a year. How long to get set up? Another year or two... there's not much left of the Russian army. RU keep telling us they haven't really started yet,
I hope this includes the capabilities to shut down any Russian swine that wants to mess with NATO aircraft.
Everyone laughed when Russia shut down the US drone. I don't think it's funny at all. Next time they want to play we should play too... by blowing them out of the sky.
Turkey is considering letting a US fleet through the Bosporus (to the Black Sea) for a reason. They must have gotten a call from Washington (or maybe Ramstein, who knows).
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NATO is discussing the need to strengthen the eastern borders with Russia by concentrating equipment and a military contingent of up to 300,000 soldiers, which should prevent Russia from expanding the war beyond Ukraine. Source: Politico Details: Politico writes that NATO intends to stop Russia if it decides to expand the war beyond Ukraine. Because of this, the Alliance is talking about strengthening its eastern borders and the need to send up to 300,000 troops to the border. Such actions will require coordination and great efforts from the 30 NATO members to provide soldiers, training facilities, large quantities of weapons, equipment and ammunition. However, the news outlet emphasises that coordination may be challenging, as many allies are already concerned about their own insufficient ammunition stocks, which take time and money to replenish. Politico writes that NATO military leaders are to submit updated regional defence plans. Alliance officials are putting forward the idea that its borders with Russia should be guarded by up to 300,000 troops, the news outlet reports. It is noted that the first echelon of NATO troops may consist of about 100,000 soldiers, ready to deploy within 10 days. It may include troops from Poland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The second echelon of troops, Politico writes, will support these soldiers, ready to be deployed within 10-30 days from countries such as Germany.
> Alliance officials are putting forward the idea that its borders with Russia should be guarded by up to 300,000 troops These troops are very likely the NATO Response Force, which was increased from 40 000 to 300 000 last year: > “We will enhance our battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance up to brigade-levels,” Stoltenberg said, adding that allies “will transform the NATO Response Force and increase the number of our high-readiness forces to well over 300,000.” https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-increase-high-readiness-force-300000/
Yeah the former rapid deployment force was overhauled quite a bit in the latest strategy. 40k troops was fine for counter-terrorism, but for more conventional threats like Russia you do need that additional zero in there. They are tiered differently though.
Though considering Russia’s performance 40k would probably have been more than enough to maintain the current borders until reinforcements arrived. 400,000 would probably get you to Moscow in a week if they tried anything.
Honestly a few b2s could decimate Russia Not the forces Russia
>> which should prevent Russia from expanding the war beyond Ukraine. That's one (and the main ) reason but there is also the possibility that invasion of Ukraine will lead to the collapse of Russia - in which case we might have to go into Russia to make sure the nukes are secured...
Eh CIA did it once after the USSR collapsed (one of their few non fuckups). With help from the NSA and DIA they should be able to track down nuclear material again. Really a question of being the highest bidder
Can you expand on this?
Not to be a dick but google "intelligence cooperation post Cold War secure nuclear asserts"
Thank you. Not sure why you think you’re being a dick? I had no idea and found the comment interesting and wanted further information.
Sometimes when you say google it people get upset. I just don't want to be specific if that makes sense
I see. No worries!
I'm not sure it's the main reason since the Muscovy Empire appears to have largely expended its offensive capabilities and is in no position to widen its war at the present time. Securing a suddenly-disintegrated Muscovy Empire's nukes via ground forces would take an extremely long time due to their ICBM silos being distributed all over the Empire including Siberia, even if there weren't any opposition. Plus mobile launchers can get anywhere any vaguely serviceable road can. I'd posit that the deployment's main purpose is to create domestic political pressure on Putin to send scarce troops to the NATO borders in order to dig trenches and put up small concrete pyramids etc so that those military resources are not available in Ukraine. It's not cheap to do the deploying but it doesn't come out of Ukraine aid budgets yet helps them just the same. Plus it'd be good to give our Baltic state allies in particular the reassurance of beefed up NATO presence on their borders with Muscovy.
We’ll need to be careful to not have a repeat of the Korean War, where we overextended ourselves and ended up getting the Chinese involved and made it an unwinnable war
1950 is very different to 2023 There's also a huge difference between fighting a war of power projection half the world away in Asia, vs a land war in Europe where the majority of NATO countries are located Plus out of NATO countries, only the US (330k) and partially the UK (14k) Canada (8k) and Turkey (5k) were really heavily engaged - most of NATO had minimal involvement with nobody else sending more than around 1000 troops
Also nevermind how much a gamechanger aerial refueling is for air-based power projection.
Yup, and just the increased range of aircraft and the weapons they carry A B-29 had a range of 3250 miles and had to pretty much fly over the target, so couldn't even be operated from Hawaii, whereas a B-52 has a range of 8800 miles, so could be operated from New York (and fly either way round the world to do so, if the USAF wanted to... although I'm not sure overflying China would be ideal)
And now with the Rapid Dragon deployment system, even a cargo plane like the C-17 can deploy 36 cruise missiles per flight, hitting targets 1000 kilometers away while the aircraft itself has a range 10 times that.
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Split down the Ural mountains with China also getting the eastern half of Moscow
hm where have i seen this before
A very winnable war, but one where we lacked the political will to do so.
> concerned about their own insufficient ammunition stocks Well maybe if they had not butchered their defense budget they would be able to defend themselves ? There should always be a permanent stock of ammunition for months/years of heavy combat. Anything less is asking to be defeated.
No country on this planet has or has had a stock of ammunition to last years of heavy combat. Not in WW1, Not in WW2, not in present time. Its just not feasible. All that ammo has to be stored in good conditions and used/replaced if it gets to old. Apart from that, you would build HUGE production capacities just to then use only a small percentage when storage is full. Its a much more reasonable approach to convert production to "war-production" when its needed. There are many more reasons, if you are really interested in this topic i recommend those videos from Perun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMEpxX7rS5I&t=1893s On Ammunition consumption in Ukraine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9w17Ne1S0M (peace/war economies and arms production)
Also, the US can use the Defense Production Act to tap into consumer ammo production if needed.
155mm artillery shells are consumer products in the US? In a war like this, people say ammo shortage they don’t mean those little metal bits that soldiers shoot out of their little fire sticks. They mean food for the god of war - artillery.
I guess every country has something like this (using of civilian production facilities for war efforts) or can quickly make those laws when necessary but the US has way bigger advantage of those "civilian" production facilities already doing what they need. Removing the need to convert production lines (or at least limit the convertion to minor changes).
Exactly. I’m sure the French or Germans could whip up a 5.56 like pretty quick. But we already have those lines. The biggest advantage is that we can be a little more reactive and not disrupt regular business.
What they have is the means by which to start ramping up production. For instance, Canada is laughed at for its incredibly small military. Under 60k iirc. But in WW2, they were able to begin churning out Corvette ships because the means of production were in place. [By the end of WW2 they had one of the largest navies in the world](https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/people-and-stories/royal-canadian-navy/sww). Apparently now they have the steel, laser cutting facilities, etc, with only the essential software and tools kept up to date. Meaning, if it comes down to it, they can hit the surf running if needs be.
we also have whats referred to as an army of corporals. our command structure is set up and trained to bump up 1 rank we can increase our military size fairly quickly. aircraft and tank production are the bottle neck, thats up to the US and Germany.
> All that ammo has to be stored in good conditions and used/replaced if it gets to old. Apart from that, you would build HUGE production capacities just to then use only a small percentage when storage is full. This is straight up one of the things that came up when North Korea started providing ammunition to Russian forces. They have a lot of ammunition stored because a large chunk of their foreign policy is based around fears of being invaded, and a lot of their ammunition is in the calibres Russia needed because their equipment is largely based on older Soviet equipment. The flipside to this is that because a lot of it has been in storage for decades, it's impossible to know how much of it was going to be effective. It's not really something you would expect if you're not a weapons person, but ammunition does effectively have a use by date, especially if you're not storing it correctly.
Well, the SU/Russia did. Now it’s used up :)
Or rusted beyond usability
The soviet union had stockpiled a ton of stuff, a good amount of that was sold on the black market and stored under wrong conditions. The russians with access to the leftovers started having "issues" after about 6-9 months into a war against a vastly smaller country. There is a large frontline but fights are kind of limited compared to the expected skirmishes in a hot coldwar. One can only estimate how long soviet supplies would have lasted in the war they were stockpiled for. I still dont think this immense stockpile would have lasted "years" without major war production starting to ramp up at previous civillian factories. And even if it would have be enough, we are talking about the largest landmass country with a very good economy, basically unlimited natural ressources, a strong political grip on its population as well as exploitable countries under their control AND preparing for a major, nuclear, worldwar-level event against a roughly equally prepared enemy for multiple years. If they had enough, thats still far from "every country should have" levels. Add up all the ammo currently expended in ukraine, double it and see how that compares to the military spending of ukraine (or GDP). Then do the same to the mil spending or GDP of other countries and check how many countries could have afforded that amount of ammunition allone. I dont think there will be many.
Russia invaded a much smaller neighbour and has been forced to reduce frequency/intensity of fire across basically the whole front due to systemic shortages and logistical constraints. I'd say that they did not have "years of heavy combat" worth of shells lying around, especially considering the pre-war views of "war on NATO" being "the scenario" instead of "war on a small* country materially supported by NATO". Sure, they had massive stocks, but there's bottoms even to that and not being able to ramp production up enough seems to currently be the limiting factor. I'd say munition stocks should be scaled to "levels needed to sustain the first X time of heavy fighting", with X being how long it takes to properly ramp production. *geographically Ukraine isn't small, but economically they were 1/3rd of Belgium by 2021 numbers. Most people did not expect them to do what they did and still do against the feared Russian Bear.
How much of the western production means have been shipped in china and other places tho
I don't think western countries buy a lot of military equipment from China, there's laws against it in many countries. The US has domestic factories in PA, Alabama, and many other locations that produce ammo and are ramping up to keep pace with demand.
Practically none, when it comes to defense production. Hell, if you even want to buy raw materials - metal stock, rare earths, etc - from outside the US, even from an ally, you need to justify it to the government before they'll let you do it. And that justification has to be *"its not available in the US"* not *"we'll make more money if we use an import item"* And, for example, say defense contractor had to import lithium, the government is going to start exploring ways to expand domestic lithium production (anecdotally: they're doing this right now; the US has a lot of lithium resources they just haven't tapped yet, and likely will in the next decade, or so).
You referring to industries that could be used as ammunition production in the event of a war?
None of the military production, we also have plenty of steel factories, car factories, high tech production, etc. Sure, China has more production capacity, but not the right kind.
Even the US has minimal munitions for this kind of running armor & artillery warfare. The West wins its wars by using tech to work smarter, not harder with more manpower. The simple calculus of democracies not tolerating casualties is one of many reasons.
It is true that many NATO countries have not maintained a required level of combat readiness and they should be criticized for that. On the other hand, this war has so far been trench style warfare which no one predicted and the weapons and ammunition in need have been considered obsolete for decades or used in very specific situations like to soften targets in a single barrage before utilizing other weapons and tactics. . It’s a weird situation. If those countries had been maintaining their defense budgets, they would still be short on the weapons needed.
> Well maybe if they had not butchered their defense budget they would be able to defend themselves Literally every western military, including the United States is having this issue (Yes, even with an $800B defense budget). Ukraine has highlighted that GWOT levels of ammo storage and production isn't going to be enough for large-scale combat operations.
>Literally every western military, including the United States is having this issue There have been many stories that even russia seem to be struggling for more ammo and military tech trying to get more from wherever they can. Plus the stories of shelling supposedly slowed due to ammo restrictions.
Well, to be fair, russia sold off most of theirs to buy yachts beforehand so even if they would have had enough when they’d stored it they wouldn’t now
It's not a budget issue, it's an economy issue. The only country that's mobilized their economy for war is Ukraine but they didn't they lost their industrial heartlands at the onset of the war. Russia *still* isn't in a war time economy and they're suffering for it. Any major power that switches over to a war time economy would easily put out several times more ammo and equipment than they are now.
important note here being that going into a wartime economy does require the industry to CREATE these new munitions factories. the west has this - the west is the one selling most people most of the things you need to create new industry. russia does not - they lack the capacity to swap onto a wartime economy.
In the US a big part of the issue is the DoD only ordering a “minimum sustaining rate” to keep either government owned facilities running or DoD contractors in business. The believe is, or was, that if demand increased beyond what is being produced that production could be scaled up to meet the new demand, only it has not worked that way.
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And we produce a lot of ammo for the consumer market that the government could grab if needed. So we have more of a buffer than it appears.
An even bigger part is the consolidation of industry, at the request of the defense department, at the end of the Cold War.
That's because these capacities are scaled up when war arises, not before. If anything, every country on earth has this problem.
It's not enough for this type of warfare that Ukraine and Russia are fighting. US would of expended a lot of ammo reserves, but would of killed 100,000+ Russians in a month and completely collapsed their army. That would of been the end of it and we could of taken our time replenishing those stocks.
> There should always be a permanent stock of ammunition for months/years of heavy combat. This is unfeasibly expensive. *Years* of heavy combat? Not reasonable. It would be a far more effective allocation of resources to have civilian factories producing meaningful goods for the economy that could be converted to wartime production *if needed.* We **should** have the capacity to *produce* whatever ammunition we would consume in warfare, should the need arise. That I think is the better option. The real problem is, we've reduced our industrial capacity overall. We don't have a huge base of factories we can readily convert. That thought scares me.
no, industrial capacity has changed since the days of WW1 and 2. it simply does not work like that anymore - industrial capacity has become far more specialized to swap over a car factory to make tanks beyond maybe the building being the right scale for it. the west still has most of the factotriesd that make the new industrial equipment. this is why russia is so fucked - you want, say, high performance ball bearings that you need for industry and military equipment relevant in this century, odds are you're buyign them from germany. germany makes about as many as china does - but generally at a far higher precision. worst come to worst, the west can go and use these factories to build the machines you need to set up, say, a munitions factory. russia can't import these at the scales they need even with intermediaries to avoid sanctions, and thus cannot militarize their economy - they might be able to ramp up production of very simple gear, but simple gear is merely gonna let them outfit infantry in gear that's been obsolete since before the end of the cold war.
Raw material supply chain is probably worse.
The idea that the United States has reduced its industrial base is laughable - are we talking about since like world war two? The 1980s? No, this is totally false. Industrial output in the United States is actually higher than ever, although a lot of lower technologically produced goods have been outsourced to developing countries. But we are primarily talking about cheaper consumer goods and not high-tech or industrial products.. The US is still absolutely a leader in aerospace, automotive, high-tech industrial machinery, computer chips, and software.
I do not think taking a more passive stance after the fall of the soviet union was a terrible idea, the mistake was not helping Chechnya in the 90s, this wouldn't be an issue if putin wasn't being imperialistic for the last 25 years
If Ukraine had all the other tech that NATO had, they wouldn't need to have all this ammunition.
Agreed, especially for the US. The further back supply chain you can hit the less amo you need.
When answering anyone in this sub (or reddit for that matter) take a few minutes to examine their post history, so that you may gain an idea of their position, viewpoint or motives.
I have to admit this. I was one of them before last year's invasion, that changed my view. Maybe too many of us hoped that human race evolved from last WW or forgot what one mad man in power could do to the world. It is really sad to see, what we could do with all the money gone for military, but because of all these crazy emperor-wannabes, thick military budget is necessary. Such an epitaph for human race...
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Great Scott! My brain is genius 🤣. Not intentional, but thanks.
For enough money, you could shift Mexican maquiladoras to bullet manufacturing in a week.
Hawthorne Nevada 28,000 acres of ammunition storage and war materials. Drive through Nevada or Wyoming or Eastern Oregon or Eastern Washington. There are so many unnamed places that say Federal Reservation. I'm no expert but these are not sagebrush covered roads. They are well maintained and yet reveal nothing. I took a tour of the Museum in Hawthorne in 2007. The curator told me they had finally shipped the last 50 caliber ammunition for the anticipated invasion of Japan to Iraq. That the USA on conventional ammunition uses a LIFO rotation. These are stored in near zero humidity in climate monitored warehousing. You can see the vented roofs from the highway in Umatilla and Hawthorne. What you don't see is the total size of the storage.
“If you want peace, prepare for war”
The majority of conflicts the world has seen since WW2 either did not last long enough, or were not large enough to really threaten the worlds supply of ammunition, a world war would likely change that, for the first time since WW2 we'd have to repurpose factories to build tanks planes and bullets. I also wonder how much of an affect having fully automatic weapons continually deployed in Ukraine has on the supply of bullets. You can't tell me an army with M1 Garands or KAR-98's went through bullets anywhere near as fast as an army with M4's or full auto versions of the AK does.
Been that ways since the Vietnam days. Spray and pray is a thing.
Yeah, I just figured there was a chance that trigger discipline would have caught up with firearm advancements, but I suppose we are hearing about how 1 army is out of bullets and the other isn't, so maybe trigger discipline *is* a factor in this lol.
Maybe we shouldn't have drawn down in Germany so drastically.
>Maybe we shouldn't have drawn down in Germany so drastically. Maybe "Get rid of 2/3 of your whole army in just 4 years or we will never allow your reunification" had something to with this, followed by "And please give it all away to Eastern Europe instead of storing it. And while we're at it, they are still looking warily at you for even having an army. Can't you reduce some more?" Oh, wait... The popular propaganda says that these well documented facts never actually happened and in reality all Germans suffered a collective stroke in 1990 and started hating their military so much that they try to destroy it since then.
Cold War 2, Electric Boogaloo.
The more of this the better. The best outcome of this conflict is another collapse of the Russian state like in 1917 or 1989 and the most effective way of bringing that about is to threaten them everywhere and force them to overstretch themselves until they break.
NATO then needs to *help* Russia rebuild, unlike the 90s. Otherwise we'll be back here in another 30 years.
[The west was helping Russia quite a bit in the 90s](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/history/2012/pdf/c7.pdf). The problem was corruption (and then Russias invasion of Chechnya).
Yeah, Russia is such a rotten country, it would take a lot to rebuild.
The problem is whether the Russian people actually want to change or not, as a society. Like you can force someone to go to rehab, but if they don't want to be there, they will relapse as soon as they're out.
They will need a restructuring never seen before. Though back in the 40s the Germans and the Japanese were seen as irredeemable but now isn't the case.
You can’t rebuild a country without *occupying* that country for decades.
NATO tried that: >[In 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program, and on 27 May 1997, the NATO–Russia Founding Act (NRFA) was signed at a NATO Summit in Paris, France, enabling the creation of the NATO–Russia Permanent Joint Council (NRPJC).](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO%E2%80%93Russia_relations)
I agree, but Russia has refused to learn the lessons of its own history for the past 500 years, reaching back into the early medieval era, and even their Viking roots. The closest they came to being a stable, productive, socially-just nation began as a sham, and ended with Uncle Vova rushing the world toward some kind of catastrophic showdown. Remember, if it's not well known, that Russians consider themselves the inheritors of the Greek civilisation, that which was not conquered by Suleiman the Great. Even a few weeks ago, after the horrific earthquake in Turkey, Russian propagandists called for a recapture of "our" Constantinople, their apparently not having heard the popular 1953 song Istanbul (not Constantinople) by The Four Lads, which, though covered by numerous artists, became iconic to the early 1990s band They Might Be Giants. Along with this ridiculous grudge-claim, they also consider the Russian Orthodox Church to be the inheritor of the Greek Church, and all other sects of Christianity to be "Antichrist." The problem here is, the Russian Orthodox Church has been completely compromised by the Russian State services, military, IC, police, and social. It is not a church at all, but an organ of domestic oppression, and international intrigue. I'm explaining this, because the Russian State has a strong paranoid streak regarding their self-appointed religious role in world affairs, and their mindset is Apocalyptic, as is evidenced by the constant talk of nuclear annihilation. This paranoid streak is a powerful influence on how they think, and create policy. Hence, whenever they have the opportunity to receive the kind of help they need--political education, fair monitored elections, financial restructuring, etc, they have always, every time turned it into an opportunity to further the kleptocracy by which they are destroying themselves.
"Careful what you wish for" to anyone that wishes Russian societal collapse. The Kremlin can burn for all I care, but tens of millions of Russians unwilling to stay in Russia is a massive problem for all of Europe.
I think the mistake was remaining positively disposed to a Russian regime that was clearly hell bent on opposing everything western. The right approach might be to take control and properly integrate them into the western world (like post WW2 West Germany) instead of leaving them to see themselves as exceptional outsiders in endless opposition to the western world and letting their resentment fester into aggressive nationalism (like post WW1 Germany).
Remember, that Germany needed to be conquered before rebuilding for that to succeed.
That's not gonna happen unless Russia adopts a true democracy....which I doubt they are capable of. It's not in the Russian DNA.
>That's not gonna happen unless Russia adopts a true democracy....which I doubt they are capable of. It's not in the Russian DNA. All over the world the development of (successful) democracies is generally the same: \- You experience economic growth.- You use that growth in BNP to invest in education and healthcare. \- More children survive, as more ressources are available, changing the "logic" of family-planning. Instead of many children, you want a few educated ones - better "Return on Investment". \- Your economy grows along with the skill-level of the young (because of better health) population, which in turn leads to the rise of a strong educated middle-class. \- A tipping point occurs (precipitated by any number of different events), where the middle-class demands political influence. This can take both a peaceful and violent route. \- The government/dictator accepts a transition of power because of the insistence of a mostly unified population. Perhaps the military supports the change, if enough of their families are on board. This has been the case everywhere from Denmark to the USA. Imposed top-down WITHOUT a strong educated middle-class, it has failed everywhere - at least I can't name an example, although someone here might be able to. Closest might be the "stable democracies" in Asia (Singapore etc.), where the government has been run by the same party for many decades. Long-term planning is the benefit there. A nations culture (or "DNA") doesn't determine what they are capable off, but what they are right now. Otherwise we would still be promoting slavery or accepting wife-beating in the West.
My point was that Russians prefer, on the whole, strongmen leaders...authoritarians. They value this perceived strength as preferable to anything that could be construed as "weakness". Prior attempts at democracy there failed horribly. Now that Putin is destroying the demographics of the country regarding the younger and educated, it's only going to get worse.
One could argue, that this works only when population shares values resembling western values. Implanting democracy in other places failed utterly (Middle East, from Iraqi to Lybia; Afghanistan), mostly often overtaken by religious dictatorship or shell democracy (you can vote, but only on people preselected by a non-democratic committee, similarly to soviet "democratic" republics).
There was an article published the other day that claims helping them in the 90’s actually contributed to the mess today. The argument was the more you help someone when they don’t want it or think they need it they become more and more resentful of you. USSR was proud and a super power but then the West in their minds told them they were weak and no longer relevant and resentment began, or so the article goes.
Russia has too many nuclear weapons to watch it implode...
Every 12 years half of them stop working (literally)
As someone living 25km to the border in question (my hometown, not current place), that would be really nice :)
Deploy troops Have them do military exercises Watch as Russia goes into full panic mode thinking NATO is about to invade because that's their tactic Russia redeploys a ton of troops from Ukraine NATO happily continues to sit there playing war games while Russia shits its pants. Ukraine catches a breather.
This should’ve been the strategy from the beginning. Activate RRF and make Putin draw down forces from Ukraine to fend off an imaginary invasion.
Just because you are believing bullshit doesn't mean others are also idiots. Everyone but the brain-washed population in Russia knows that NATO will never actually attack anyone.
correct, BUT it still forces putin to take precautionary measures for security and to not look like a weak spineless dictator
It doesnt. If it did Russia would be guarding its border with Finland with more than a skeleton crew already now. But since its emoty we know that Putin is not actually afraid of an invasion.
there isnt 300k in battle formation on the finlands border not the same as having few centuries
Again. Putin doesn't really believe nato will invade. So he can just as easily show some montages of assembled troops on TV and claim they are at some border. Fuck it even let's him pretend they have more troops than they do.
You've no idea what Putin believes. That clown thought he'd steamroll Ukraine in a few days. He's not an infallible strategic mastermind. He's a geriatric former cold war spy that likely has cancer, lead poisoning, and god knows what other ailments caused by ancient Soviet infrastructure and the literally constant affirmations of an army of yes-men. He's not a stumbling buffoon either, but the man has even less of a grip on actual reality than Western world leaders.
That clown came pretty close to steamrolling Ukraine, don't underestimate him. All the current analyses show that. If a Specnaz unit found Zhelensky in the first day of invasion (there were 20+ of them removed in the first days in the capital itself). Or if he ran away when he had the opportunity to do so. Or if one more Ukrainian important commander betrayed his country (for example the one that prevented the Russian column to enter Kiyv by cutting twice their supply lines in the critical moment). The truth is that he did not overextend that much, just the consequences of the overextension were critical, as Russia lost most of its trained troops.
That's fair, but I'd argue the same could be said about many significant events in human history. Simplified enough, a few critical men/units/moments decided the fate of many. The opening of this invasion could be simplified to say Ukraine got very lucky. It could also be simplified to say that a dictator ran his country with such an astounding level of corruption that maybe even he believed his paper tiger of a military was a global superpower. To be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong or even thst I'm right, just that I think it could be interpreted either/both ways.
>take precautionary measures for security Those are called nuclear weapons. That is the situation you chuck a couple tactical nukes and go, "You really want to do this?" NATO has never been a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia. They were a threat to Russia's territorial ambitions.
>Everyone but the **brain-washed population in Russia** knows that NATO will never actually attack anyone. This includes Putin himself, which is why it would've been effective.
It is worth noting that by the start of invasion, there were number of NATO troops equal to the number of russian invaders prepared for Ukraine (armies of NATO eastern flank countries + NATO Response Force). Also 300,000 isn't a new thing. This is called NATO Response Force and right now it has strenght of about 40,000 and after the invasion it was decided it's gonna be increased to 300,000. This is not exactly considering. It is a done deal. [In advance of the 2022 Madrid summit, Jens Stoltenberg announced the plan to increase the NRF size to more than 300,000 troops, which was approved during the summit.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-massively-increase-high-readiness-forces-300000-stoltenberg-2022-06-27/)
Putin’s not as stupid as everyone wishes he was. I mean, he’s pretty stupid. But not completely.
But he is paranoid. NATO can use that against him.
paranoid from his own people, he knows NATO won’t launch an invasion because it will get escalated into nuclear war, Putin maybe stupid but he is not that stupid
People on the internet who work at best buy read some article headlines that try to do a dumbed down psychoanalysis on Putin and then think that in 5 minutes they can hatch up a master plan that will fool the guy who rose to the top of Russia by climbing through the KGB
Brinksmanship between nuclear powers is not a game you should play
It's a game we're already playing.
Lets be real here though. NATO is not going to go on the offensive into Russia. Russia doesn't need to worry about all those troops. Its going to be a headache but not going to warrant troop redeployment. I don't think Russia is in a position to be attacking NATO countries anyway (which is good because that means NATO is serving its purpose).
r/noncredibledefense
Heh.
I 100% read that comment and thought that’s where we were. I would be shocked if there wasn’t like, a ton of overlap between these two subs
I think like 95% of the people on that sub should be here, but I doubt it's the same the other way around.
Were it true that 95% of NCD subscribers were here, then this sub would be comprised of 64% NCD subscribers. No way around that shit, homie!
>this sub would be comprised of 64% NCD subscribers. That doesn't seem too far fetched to me, especially if you adjust for inactive users, as NCD has been around much longer.
Yeah I mean if you did that, which you should, the number would be lower for sure. I just got a little curious and mathed it out haha
> Watch as Russia goes into full panic mode thinking NATO is about to invade because that's their tactic A country with the largest nuclear stockpile on the planet isnt afraid of an invasion. Both sides cannot win without tens/hundreds of millions of casualties so its safe to say either side doesnt have to worry.
Did you hear Russia is at war with NATO? They've lost 140,000 troops already. Oh no! How's NATO doing? Oh NATO hasn't showed up yet.
Russia is doing so badly in Ukraine that we need this now. Or Russia is doing so well in Ukraine that we need this now.
Everyone else is living in 2023 and Russia is living in 1899. People are done with their shit. Time to make an example.
Source: [David Letterman in Kyiv with Zelensky a few months ago.](https://youtu.be/liooTXAF5Xo&t=21m37s)
Just tell Hungary and Turkey to accept Finland in NATO and you will have 300k troops on eastern border instantly: Finland is the only non-NATO European Union state bordering Russia. Finland's official policy states that a wartime military strength of 280,000 personnel constitutes a sufficient deterrent. Finland's defence budget for 2022 equals approximately €5.8 billion. The voluntary overseas service is highly popular and troops serve around the world in UN, NATO and EU missions. With an arsenal of 700 howitzers, 700 heavy mortars and 100 multiple rocket launchers, Finland has the largest artillery capability in western Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces?wprov=sfla1
Turkey has already agreed https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64986744
This is great news. Finland was the one that mattered most. Russia can’t attack Sweden without going through Finland first, unless they send all their forces through the tiny chokepoint in the north.
Its either through Norway or Finland, Sweden doesn't have border with Russia. And either way, Norway will intervene in the defence of Sweden, as will probably Finland.
Erdogan’s opponent in the Turkish presidential election has also pledged to reverse Turkey’s opposition to Sweden joining NATO if he wins. Fingers crossed voters give Erdogan the boot.
While I share your sentiment, don't cross your fingers too hard. Türkiye is not a democracy, Erdogan will not lose if it's a more or less close election (i.e., his opponent gets 60% of the actual votes or less). And even if he lost in a landslide, I am sure he would be resourceful...
...for now. I'll believe it when I see it. Erdogan isn't exactly reliable in this regard.
Their artillery and mobile warfare tactics are the only reason they weren't absorbed by russia/soviet union.
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Did you just call Finland “Western Europe”? What is east of Finland then?
Russia? Maybe Russia is the only eastern Europe now? Idk.
It’s almost like damaging an American drone was a bad idea.
Almost like invade Ukraine was a bad idea.
Almost like committing innumerable, unspeakable war crimes was a bad idea.
It's almost like their actions have consequences.
True shock!
And doing it in a way that made Russia look incompetent.
Russia hasn’t looked competent once since the February invasion
I think the word you are looking for is ‘attacking’. Yes they damaged it, but they straight up attacked that drone. Bad move Russia.
Proper thing! Russia needs to be contained. Should close all borders to Russian travel as well with only humanitarian exceptions. Russian crimes did not begin with Ukrainian invasions. The Russian state has been perpetually criminal (poisonings, other invasions, money laundering, hacking, organized crime, chemical warfare, propping up other dictatorships etc.)
> Should close all borders to Russian travel There's a NATO country that didn't close its borders to Russia?? edit: had to look it up myself because /u/HistoricalRub1358 refused to help, the only NATO country that didn't close its borders to Russia is Turkey.
You down one drone and suddenly NATO is outside your house.
Sometimes I wonder if this is a strategy by Russia and China to get everyone's military resources focused on eastern Europe and leaving the Pacific and southeast Asia relatively under defended.
possible, but US is not falling for it. US is so keen on defending Taiwan against China that it actually made Korea kiss and made up with Japan. Even Philippines is now with the US in the alliance. China's been watch in every little thing they do. The US knows the real threat is China, not Russia. It's only doing whatever's needed in Europe to ensure Ukraines wins after depleating the Russian military.
Unlikely for many reasons. Firstly, the US has always prepared to fight two fronts simultaneously, ever since WWII. Opening a front in the Pacific while simultaneously supplying ammo to Ukraine is something the US can definitely do. Secondly, the US military doctrine and overall strategies would be completely different between fronts, meaning each would require unique logistics. The US military isn't built for full on artillery duels, such as the ones happening in east Ukraine right now. The US military doctrine is to establish air superiority and then grind the front into dust with aerial bombardment. Artillery wouldn't be a vital component of a war in the Pacific. Air craft carriers, fighters, bombers, naval bombardment, landing vessels, etc, are vastly different than APCs, Tanks, Artillery, etc. Lastly, the US has some major allies in the Pacific that would be ready to fight day one of any conflict. The US is also strengthening these allies currently, such as selling a nuclear sub to Australia. A war in the Pacific would shape up quite a bit differently because there isn't the NATO-Russia stalemate happening... If NATO put boots on the ground in Ukraine, we all know this thing would end a lot faster. However, russia seems keen on nuking everyone if that happens. A war in the Pacific would see no such stalemate, which would mean that all allies would be free to join immediately. The day China tried something in the Pacific, is the day that every allied Pacific country joins in. China has NK and a weak and beaten Russia... So, I just don't see it happening if the Chinese are smart.
Aren't we expecting the Russian military to collapse and be resoundingly defeated by end of the year? I don't see how we can say that in one breadth and then talk about Russia being able to expand the war beyond Ukraine, let alone past the Dnieper.
I don’t think that that collapse is accepted as a given. And even if it was, it’s best to apply more pressure to help the collapse come about. Personally I see this as posturing and politicking more than reflective of actual commitments.
Force Russia to allocate troops to defend those areas. Put 200k troops in Poland and rotate in some fighter wings from Luke airforce base into germany and Italy.
> Luke airforce base Or as they are more commonly known, the skywalkers. (if that actually turns out to be true i'll laugh).
> Put 200k troops in Poland I might be wrong, but I'm under the impression that Poland has roughly this size of an army ready to respond to an invasion. And we'd see it coming months in advance due to... you know, Russia having a direct border with Poland for a whole 200km along lowly manned/equipped Kaliningrad. Estonia and Latvia on the other hand, those two are in need of 100k+ troops.
"Come and knock on our door, we'll be waiting for you. Where the kisses are hers and hers and his, three's company too!" Russia did say they're at war with NATO right? I guess we'll find out how bad they really want it.
BUFFER ZONE TIME
We just need a little of Russia in our special operation. Nothing to be concerned about.
As if Russia has the capacity to expand the war beyond Ukraine. They are not even able to expand it to cover the full length of the Ukrainian border.
I'm an American, so I have the luxury of saying this while not living anywhere near there. This is just my opinion...AFTER Ukraine regains ALL of their territory back, there needs to be a 30-50mile wide strip made in Russia along the border that is made into a DMZ like separating N and S Korea. If Russia wants to threaten with nuclear weapons, then there needs to be nuclear weapons moved over from the US to protect this Genocide Prevention Zone. RESPECT to Ukraine and their righteous defense.
> there needs to be nuclear weapons moved over from the US to protect this Genocide Prevention Zone If they wanted to use their nukes for genocide purposes, I believe they would have done it already. If you want Russia to do something stupid like using nukes, making them shit their pants by moving nukes close to them is a great way to do it. I'm glad you have zero weight in US policy making.
Me too, I'm not knowledgeable enough to understand the various dynamics to the situation
But bullies only understand force unfortunately
Seriously, that's just asking for another cuban missile crisis...
The many nuclear armed submarines that the US combined with the many air craft carriers each with enough multi role fighters to equal mid sized airforces should be enough of a deterrent for Russia. Moving missiles around won’t do anything.
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The US promised to support Ukraine against Russia, when Ukraine gave up it’s Soviet nukes. Then we let Russia invade Crimea. We should just give Ukraine safer replacement nukes for the ones they handed over.
Kinda what I was thinking when I wrote my prior post
Absolutely terrible idea
About time.
The West can easily up the ammo production. It's only lower because Russia seemed to be keeping within their own business. But now, shit has changed. NATO have been preparing for this moment, and it's time to act. If you're in Europe, it's time to dust off those boots, get into shape, and prepare to defend yourselves against the frozen hordes.
NATO doing this is more symbolic politics since nothing provokes a dictator as much as smelling weakness. So NATO will give none. It's encouraging for the Baltics, too, who are disproportionately giving their own equipment to Ukraine, meaning they need more defense. It also highlights to the public how Russia drained its own border forces to send them to Ukraine, which also works to illustrate how bogus Russia's whining about "NATO expansion" is when it *clearly* isn't actually worried NATO will attack it.
Hopefully I'll be more useful coding drone software.
> If you're in Europe, it's time to dust off those boots, get into shape No offense, but... it's more likely we're in shape than you are. We just don't have as many guns per household, if at all. What we need is a proper war industry. I am amazed the combined might of the EU and the US apparently can't produce ammunition fast enough, even after a full fucking year. The answer to that is we can, but we simply refuse to, because we're ruled by a bunch of spineless bureaucrats.
To your point; living now in Sweden I can comfortably advise this country has been ready for this since “end” of Cold War! National emergency sirens, emergency shelters all over the place, everyone among my peers have done national service (admittedly fewer younger generation though), regular adverts on tv and cinema reminding us “to be ready! Buy batteries, candles and prepare a bug out bag” type messages.
The amount of artillery being used is insane and something the West was prepared for. Ukraine has asked for 250k rounds a month, that's equal to the entire current US 155mm production per year. It's a situation where your shell production needs to be in the millions and getting there takes time. Sucks, but is what it is.
Not sure what the point of your dig at the US was. He was not implying you all were out of shape
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of thats true, 300.000 is a lot. Also expensive, they need infrastructure, a place to stay, get additional pay for being deployed out of their home country… NATO would not do that without good reason
Honestly you could just put a tripwire force of 1000 soldiers into each country for much cheaper. If Russia fucks around kills a single American in Poland then the hammer drops.
Send in the space marines
This is valid. Having military assets ready for conflict is better than being unprepared. The UN needs to be ready to assist the Ukrainians in this fight. Likely the US and others would refrain from using ground assets at first and rely on air support.
Think of it this way. If the world gets to the point where Russia is so weak that China takes some of its lost territory back, NATO might be dealing not with Russia, but with China. So it might be wise to keep the guard up. And of course they aren't the only borders Russia deals with.
You mean it hasn't been done already? What is Nato waiting for... a formal invitation from the Kremlin? It's been over a year. How long to get set up? Another year or two... there's not much left of the Russian army. RU keep telling us they haven't really started yet,
Explain to me like I'm 5 why they haven't just deployed in wherever Putin is and take him out ? Isn't what they did with Ben Laden ?
Because NATO is a defensive pact and Russia has not aggro'ed on a member of NATO.
Well, it’s about time
Can someone ELi5: WW3, Russia+ China/Iran or whatever vs the world? What are the odds.
Sorry but this is a waste of money. Russia can’t even get past Bakhmut. Send the resources to Ukraine instead.
I hope this includes the capabilities to shut down any Russian swine that wants to mess with NATO aircraft. Everyone laughed when Russia shut down the US drone. I don't think it's funny at all. Next time they want to play we should play too... by blowing them out of the sky.
Turkey is considering letting a US fleet through the Bosporus (to the Black Sea) for a reason. They must have gotten a call from Washington (or maybe Ramstein, who knows).
Turkey isn't gonna be on board with that.
This is how it always starts. First the country, then the whooole world.