Give me a scenario that isnt irrational fantasy then. Address the 5 points I brought up. No one has been able to do that yet.
(Sorry, transferred it here, where it belongs)
Why are you insisting on full scale invasion? I truly do not get it. The United States considers Russia to be one of the greatest threats to the country. Is there an invasion in the books? Cuban missile crisis: was there a full scale invasion in the books? According to your logic, the United States has no threats because full scale invasion is literally impossible by anyone. In case of the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Union could not have possibly invaded the USA and, thus, was not a threat and should not have been feared, according to your reasoning.
Aegis in Romania and Poland, greatly opposed by the Russians, meant to intercept missiles from the Middle East, particularly Iran, but not Russia (the Russians say in cases like this “you should tell this story to your grandma”) is not a threat to Russia because there are too few and so on, but also because Russia cannot be currently (and definitely not at that time) be invaded, according to your reasoning. The same/similar/better complex(es) in “allied” Ukraine at some point, for example, I presume would also not be a threat to Russia.
Both Nato and US officials have attempted to reassure Russia that the shield in Romania, and a similar one in Poland, does not undermine Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent.
The US formally activates its land-based missile defence station in Romania, which will form part of America's controversial European shield.
www.bbc.com
There was a reason for the ABM Treaty, for example.
Furthermore, we have now found out that Russia has nothing to show against NATO but their nukes. They lack technology, resources, proper training (at scale), planning, intel (and counter-intel) capabilities, and basically most of everything else. Yet we, and Europe in particular, see it as the greatest threat, which some nonsensically call existential and others call for learning Russian. So should we stop worrying and do nothing, start spending a ridiculous 5% on defense, something reasonable in the middle or just above, or what? Russia is clearly not a threat because they cannot possibly invade Europe (even according to your questionnaire they would face the same challenges if their capabilities were at the level perceived on the brink of the invasion of Ukraine, but mainly due to the complete lack of strategic goals that could be accomplished by such an action).
The weirdest thing though is that this debate of wether Russia fears NATO or not denies the many, many years of study of and numerous careers of very smart people dedicated to studying security competition, security dilemma, international relations, geopolitics, etc. It’s nonsense, clearly.
Here are some excerpts from my post in this thread way back in 2022, citing an interview with Gen. Milley:
About Iraq invasion:
That in and of itself is not justification for an invasion of the sort that we did. It has to be defensive in nature, and we thought at the time that we were defending ourselves.
About “interests of the United States” and “the rule-based international order”:
And rule number one, if you will, was that you can't conduct wars of aggression, and large powers cannot attack smaller powers without some sort of justification that justifies the defense of themselves.
About the Russian motivation for invasion:
And he [Putin] argues that when the wall came down, the NATO boundary shifted from the inter-German border all the way to the east. So, now you have Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and other countries as members of NATO, and in their mind—in Putin's mind and Russia's mind—Ukraine was attempting to become a member of NATO. And he perceived that to be a threat. Fear, pride, and interest are what Thucydides tells us are the fundamental causes of war. And I'd say that's still pretty much true after two-and-a-half millennia from when he wrote it.
So, in the case of Russia, They don't have large oceans on either side of them. They don't have massive mountain ranges. So, there's not obvious physical barriers to invasion from the West. So, fear plays a fundamental role, I think, to explain—not excuse, but explain—Russia's actions.
I am not sure why this isn’t clear as day to anyone.
Edit: the post is actually from April 2023, not 2022, as indicated above. Apologies. Post
#1,837 in this thread.
