I honestly don't know much about warfare, but that seems like a pretty insane move to me.
First, it assumes the people of Belarus is willing to start a war with NATO and it's very grumpy neighbor to the south. There isn't a world in which the Suwałki gap it cut off without strikes and an invasion of Belarus. Lukashenko might want it, but given the last "election" there will likely be a 5th, 6th, and 7th column waiting for guns to be carried over the border from Poland and Ukraine.
Second, while Kaliningrad might be defensible (though I doubt that), the Baltic Sea is not. Sweden, Denmark, and Germany will shut down any ships entering and leaving the Baltic. Ukraine and Turkey cut off the Black Sea, and the Russian fleet is left in Murmansk (which is likely immediately destroyed), and Vladivostok... which as a single port as mostly useless, and can be mostly cut off in the Sea of Japan.
I just really don't see a way that Russia takes any NATO territory without the entire thing being a psyop against NATO not responding via far-right isolationists, and we're not there yet, or as an assist to help China take Taiwan, which likely means world war, and we're all fucked.
No it was not. Show me any military analyst that stated Ukraine could last longer than a few weeks or months after the invasion in 2022. And after the weak response from the West in 2014, I don't see how invading Ukraine was insane on Russia's part.
It's not up to military analysts to get this right, it is up to the aggressor to know their own and their opposition's capabilities to within a reasonable degree of error before going in on something irreversible like this.
With hindsight, we can conclude it was madness. Before the war we maybe could have concluded that it would be better to err on the side of caution because of what it will do to foreign relations.
>First, it assumes the people of Belarus is willing to start a war with NATO
I think there is a more than 50% chance that Belarus is reintegrated in some form into Russia within this century. It's very clear that there is no plan for sovereignty post-Lukashenko and all of the opposition(like in Russia) has been exiled(so powerless). This is probably the 2nd biggest miss of EU foreign policy in the 21st century after Ukraine, they basically put Lukashenko in the same basket as Putin even though up until 2020 he did everything he could to maintain his sovereignty and got hit with horrible sanctions. But IMO it's too late now.
>Second, while Kaliningrad might be defensible (though I doubt that)
Russian military doctrine is kind of nebulous, but the one thing it is extremely clear on is that Kaliningrad will be defended using nuclear weapons. Exactly because it's basically not defensible using conventional means.
The point is you don't have to attack Kaliningrad. A siege trivially collapses the place. The place is wildly vulnerable on all sides despite the short distance to Belarus. This isn't a "the Kerch Bridge is outside of missle range" situation. Literally every way in and out of the enclave can be exploded on a daily basis, even without striking the enclave itself.
So if the idea is to invade the Baltics, but "not allow an invasion of Kaliningrad, without nuclear retaliation"... well then we've going to have a nuclear war and everyone loses, simply because you can't retake the Baltics without Kaliningrad, and NATO isn't going to allow the Baltics to be lost.
Actually I think Lukasenko only plays dump & wants to wait it out, expecting Belarus to be left standing in a quite good position once Russia goes down the failed state route.
> I just really don't see a way that Russia takes any NATO territory without the entire thing being a psyop against NATO not responding via far-right isolationists, and we're not there yet, or as an assist to help China take Taiwan, which likely means world war, and we're all fucked.
I mean that's really the setup.
1. Get America to move towards a more isolationist setup / unwilling to help Europe or Taiwan. This is already in motion politically and via social media operations.
2. Get America stuck in a conflict with Iran. This is ramping up.
3. China takes Taiwan. Probably in the next 2-5 years.
4. Russia takes the Baltics and starts to carve further into Europe.
My further total crackpot theory on all of this is that most of this has been agreed upon by all the major powers involved.
1. Russia gets to claim over Europe in the future.
2. China gets Taiwan and control of Africa + APAC.
3. US gets control of North America and South America. This culminates in the annexation of Greenland once Russia takes Europe. This is the agreed upon transaction for America to back out of Russo-European affairs and China-Taiwan affairs. Canada and Mexico eventually are also merged into the US unwillingly but without any major allies left there isn't much to prevent it.
Russia started the full scale invasion with 190 000 troops (out of 1 M total active military personnel). Today they have 700 000 deployed in Ukraine. Casualties are probably 200 000 killed and up to a 1 M injured. At the same time they now have 1.3 M total active military personnel. Estimate that 1/3 of the injured are bad enough that they aren’t effective as soldiers. That is 500k unrecoverable losses, and a military that is 300k larger, so they have recruited another 800k to be where they are today.
If they stop fighting actively, then it becomes easier to recruit again without mobilising. Give it a few years and they could have another go at some other location. They clearly don’t care about casualties. Maybe not against NATO, but Georgia, Azerbaijan etc. And so it could continue for a very long time.
”Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
Citations for numbers from Claude, that are all best estimates.
In your mind what does a “Russian claim over Europe” mean. Do you really imagine a country with one third the population of the EU is going to dominate the EU + UK?
Hispanics and Mexicans would slauther every gringo and if your annexation attempt for Latin America and Canada happened to occur, Cuba and Venezuela would got Chinese and Russian nuclear missiles in the spot. Canada would just call the French for a good nuclear missile set. Either the USA steps back, or California gets turned into dust.
Texas would already had seceded and turned into a neutral state in order to avoid further issues. And OFC several states bordering Canada and Mexico would secede too joining Canada and Mexico themselves in order to fight Washington and Nevada. Because that's the way to avoid being a nuclear target. Similar stuff would happen in Russia too with states becoming independent so they aren't a target from both Europe and the USA.
China would just stare there thinking on the good chunk of money would get post war. It would just declare neutral too a la Switzerland asking for diplomatic agreements between the two sides.
The most probable war today with Russia would be an small one in the Arctic because of oil/gas, totally irrelevant and with few casualities.
There are biggest protests in Iran in years & they lost a war with Israel recently - I don't see them being a problem in a long term & with a bit of luck their horrendous regime that regularly slaughters their own citizens might be gone.
Thats what I meant. All I see from americans is apathy or feverish reverence for their leader. No american will intervene when the US government gives marching order towards Canada or Mexico.
US annexing Greenland is just an excuse for US to leave NATO, Trump or Vance might do it if Putin attacks Europe, and he will when China attacks Taiwan.
First, it assumes the people of Belarus is willing to start a war with NATO and it's very grumpy neighbor to the south. There isn't a world in which the Suwałki gap it cut off without strikes and an invasion of Belarus. Lukashenko might want it, but given the last "election" there will likely be a 5th, 6th, and 7th column waiting for guns to be carried over the border from Poland and Ukraine.
Second, while Kaliningrad might be defensible (though I doubt that), the Baltic Sea is not. Sweden, Denmark, and Germany will shut down any ships entering and leaving the Baltic. Ukraine and Turkey cut off the Black Sea, and the Russian fleet is left in Murmansk (which is likely immediately destroyed), and Vladivostok... which as a single port as mostly useless, and can be mostly cut off in the Sea of Japan.
I just really don't see a way that Russia takes any NATO territory without the entire thing being a psyop against NATO not responding via far-right isolationists, and we're not there yet, or as an assist to help China take Taiwan, which likely means world war, and we're all fucked.