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Putin doesn't really want a war with NATO because 'Russia will lose and lose quickly,' UK military chief says
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2024
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nobody wins or loses. it's decades of civilian deaths and economic devastation, until someone decides to quit. people think everything is ww2 it's just not like that.
Good job repeating russian propaganda.
Edit: Not that I care about internet points.
But the thought that opposing russia would lead to nuclear war is exactly what Putin wants people in the west to think to keep bullying and suppressing everyone around him.
He is bluffing though and he knows it.
He said delivering supplies to Ukraine was the red line.
He didn't react when we did.
He said delivering arms to Ukraine was the red line.
He didn't react when we did.
He said delivering tanks to Ukraine was the red line.
He didn't react when we did.
He said delivering planes to Ukraine was the red line.
He didn't react when we did.
Because he can't. He knows he would lose everything.
Both parties have nukes
Like I don't know that, like anyone doesn't know that.
Still noone, not the winning side, and especially not the losing side has any real incentive to launch them first.
It's basic game theory, you never choose the option that has you lose absolutely everything, even if the alternative has you lose something big (like a war, or even your life).
Even crazed dictators like Putin know this.
And not even Putin can launch a nuke on his own. Even he needs generals and engineers that all know that not only they themselves will die if they obey, also their families will die, everyone they know will die if they obey.
We will never see full scale nuclear war, because noone at all could ever want that.
But Putin benefits from rubes just letting him bully everyone around him because, boo hoo he is so crazy and scary and after so many crossed red lines the next one surely is the one that makes him suicide himself, his wife, his daughter, his country, his place in history and anyone or anything he ever valued or cared about.
Right and neither side has an incentive to push the other side to launch them so before a deciding victory a stailmate will occur and after a year or two the fighting will beginning again with no real problems solved and thousands of innocent young men paying for it
That's just wrong for the simple reason that NATO is vastly superior in any form of conventional warfare.
NATO against russia would be nothing like WW2.
It would be a one sided beating.
And russia would lose and lose fast.
But russia would still have no incentive to be the first to launch nukes, because that would change the situation from bad to total annihilation.
Like NATO in Afghanistan.
NATO sucks at occupation. (As does everyone) Clashing armies are another matter. A war with Russia would be quick and decisive. The following occupation of Russia would be a quagmire.
All I've heard till now is your opinion that Russia wouldn't launch nukes, your statements have as much weight as a fart in the wind an Russia has threatened to use nukes so idk man
Everyones Favorit powerpoint artist Perun did an video calling Russias nuclear bluff .
Yea I'm not convinced a lot of this is based on a history in which Russia has had very little personal loss and assumes Russia's use of military doctrine is static and will continue to stay static also if Russia is aware that nuclear threats have low probability of effectiveness it would speak more towards it being an actual threat and not a bluff
Russia won't dare to use nukes as long as the fighting happens within Ukrainian borders. Putin and the oligarchs aren't willing to lose their kleptocracy over a piece of land they only tried to get because they felt it was a safe move. An actual NATO intervention would be a way out of the conflict for them without losing face.
You see, this is the entirely wrong and often cited cliché that people think of when talking about war between Russia and NATO, but in reality, no such war between superpowers would be fought with nuclear weapons because there is no incentive for it, conventional warfare is much more desirable, even for the losing party. That's why I think that we shouldn't be afraid of openly opposing and fighting the People's Republic in the Taiwan Strait in the defense of the actual China. And even if these autocracies would be stupid enough to use nuclear weapons then we've still got systems for intercepting ballistic missiles in-flight in the upper atmosphere. A war between superpowers would not nearly be as disastrous as the Russians and Chinese want you to think.
Hol' up. We've got systems. None that actually work. Hitting an ICBM is like hitting a needle in a haystack with a needle in a haystack. I'm sure we've made progress since the 80s Star Wars programs. But even if a fraction of the nukes detonate where they are supposed to, that's the end of civilization.
The Losing Party tends to be The people though not the ones in charge
There's a pretty long list of people in charge that aren't here to disagree with you.
We have systems for intercepting ballistic missiles, but they aren't nearly effective enough.
I tend to agree that a nuclear exchange is unlikely but, the consequences of being wrong are pretty severe.
I'm not convinced Russia's nukes haven't been sold off for vodka.
russia has a massive population and a wartime economy. in some ways it's bigger than all the european nato countries combined. the idea that they would just fall over is absolutely western propaganda.
putin can suck my balls but he's not an idiot.
Russia can't even take on a former client state, their military is a joke compared to any single NATO member. They're not a near peer for the US, maybe a near peer for some of the lesser NATO members. Russia would lose any conventional war against NATO without question. They barely have the personnel to fight Ukraine, they're not going to be able to go after NATO. Hell, how much of their black sea fleet is left above water? And that's against a country that doesn't even have a goddamn Navy.
The only way they would bring out nukes is if we invaded Russia proper. Which I don't think anyone is stupid enough to do.
NATO vs Russia would be like the Iraq War on steroids. All of their planes would be grounded and their troops in Ukraine would surrender in huge numbers. Drones would not help Russia because NATO troops would move too quickly.
Look at what happened in the first Gulf War. Saddam's elite Republican Guard troops were destroyed by air and artillery fire, then mopped up in the largest tank battles since WW2.
Saddam had 1 million troops dug in defensively, fighting in territory they knew well, using many of the same weapons the Russians have now. His casualties were like 20% - 30%. Russia would be worse.
Their population is already war weary.
The weapons manufacturer win!
Also, the west gets to get rid of the old weapons that would otherwise have to be destroyed, while also burning through Russia's materiel.
Don't forget the nuclear waste and banned cluster bombs
China would win. China is supplying Russia but China is not an ally of Russia. China would stop Russia the moment it's no longer beneficial, which would be when NATO and Russia start fighting. China doesn't care who wins, they win either way. If Russia loses China can take eastern Russia. If NATO loses, China can take Taiwan. If both wipe each other out China becomes the sole superpower.
Firstly, Pretty sure Russia's nuclear weapons work just as well against China as they do against the West. Barring a complete collapse of Russia, China isn't going to be taking vast swaths of Siberia, even if they wanted. They can take some already disputed territory (in fact the already have) because of Russia's current weakness. But that's about it.
Secondly, it's no exaggeration that a conventional war between NATO and Russia would be over quickly. Ukraine with just a small percentage of NATO's air power could defeat Russia. With Russia in the weakened state it's in right now, it's likely just Poland alone could defeat Russia. The Full force of NATO? They'd be done in less than a week. But that's only if Russia doesn't use nukes. In which case see the previous, but then ask why would China want to invade a nuclear wasteland? Probably just be hunkering down and dealing with the fallout.
Thirdly China doesn't currently have the capability to take and hold Taiwan. Likely fail even to invade. If they tried that now it would go about as well as Russia's attempt to invade Ukraine. Who knows, maybe Xi is as dumb as Putin, but I don't think so.
Maybe in 10 years China might have the capability to make a move on Taiwan, but it's likely the whole Putin situation will be resolved long before then.
I don't know for certain what China would do but I very much doubt China wouldn't try to benefit from a war between NATO and Russia. I also think you're also severely underestimating how big Russia is. NATO could maybe take Moscow in a week, that's only about 600 km from the Baltic states (which would be the closest point for NATO). But Russia has a lot of land to fall back to. From Moscow onward (just going east, but to keep in mind NATO would also need to go south) you'd have to take Novgorod, Samara, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk (and then Russia still has more land to fall back to but let's just say Novosibirsk would be the final stand). Now we're no longer talking about ~600km, now we're talking about 4000km. We're talking about the equivalent of taking the whole of United States. In a week? Yeah, that's not happening.
It would be a long and tiresome war and would give plenty of time for China to come up with ways to benefit from it.
I think you're underestimating how effective air power is. As bravely as the Ukrainian Air Force has been using what they have against Russia, it's a very tiny fraction of what NATO has. And yeah Russia has a lot of land, but none of it is outside of the range of NATO air power. This isn't the Napoleonic wars, Russia can fall back from ground offensives all they want but they'd be hit from the air while they're making strategic retreats.They didn't really have the accuracy needed to target individual tanks for the air (despite claims to the contrary) in WWII. NATO can do that now. They didn't have mid air refueling in WWII, but that's something NATO does have. So the range is effectively unlimited, they'd have tanks being destroyed during their their retreat and would have no way to replace them.
Yeah that indeed isn't happening because there's an insane number of air superiority fighters that would prevent anyone from getting close. An attempt for anyone to try to gain air superiority over the US would be over in minutes. NATO gaining air superiority over Russia would take longer than that because Russia would have ground based air defenses to deal with, but it wouldn't take that long.
As with all wars in modern times, the long and tiresome part would be the occupation, not the invasion. Well all wars except the failed Russian invasion of Ukraine. But in the the event of a hypothetical war between NATO and Russia, Ukraine would be behind NATO while the Russia (the country that failed to accomplish the easy part of an invasion) would be in front of NATO.
And yeah China would find ways to benefit, as all nations look for ways to benefit from any situation. If it came down to it (though hard to see it happening because nukes exist) most likely outcome would be the Russian Federation being broken up. There are many groups that aren't happy about being ruled over by Moscow and granting them independence means less area to occupy. China would do shenanigans to get puppets installed in the newly formed countries close to them. In fact if there were a conventional war between NATO and Russia, it's likely China would side with NATO so they could invade from the east while NATO invades from the west. Then they'd be in a good position to set up puppet governments post war. Because there is zero question who would win.
But since nuclear weapons do exist, none of this will happen.
I'd better get back to studying Mandarin.