We're stuck between having to do timid actions and full NATO escalation. This feels like constant creep.
Were it not for the nuclear concern, Russia could be dispatched by a modern military in short order. They're having enough of a challenge with Ukraine. Against a real military with SEAD/DEAD, you would witness an Iraq 1991-style collapse within weeks, perhaps less.
Of course, the problem is the nukes. Which is exactly why you see these countries work so hard to get them.
False. NATO Command led the bombing of Libya in 2011 (taking over from the French).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unified_Protector
You can search for "NATO Libya Lessons" and get a ton of articles by analysts, many published in US military journals and/or written by US think tanks on the subject. For example, here's one from RAND:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2014/11/natos-campaign-...
Priceless. Naturally, the only way to prove Russia wrong about NATO aggression is to prove them right about NATO aggression.
Other than the US....can you name some "real militaries with SEAD/DEAD" that actually have deep enough ordnance stockpiles, sufficient basing/aerial refueling to support a sustained air campaign against a country as large and well-equipped as Russia, etc..?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
See my response to sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42177029
Which NATO member was NATO defending when it bombed Libya into oblivion?
No, it's not; 9/11 was the only event that has led to invocation of the mutual defense commitments under Article 5.
It has, however, gotten involved in other conflicts, both in response to UN calls and as a result of regional security consultations under Article 4. These include, most notably, Libya beginning 2011, Kosovo beginning in 1999, and Bosnia beginning in 1992,
We don't want to invade Russia. In fact, we don't think about Russia at all.
Unfortunately russia has the strength to rape & pillage through neighbors once in a while.
Russia has enemies because for centuries it has attacked its neighbours repeatedly.
And then imposed its own idea of peace that involves tanks rolling through Budapest and soldiers executing students and poets.
Tiananmen square shocked the world, but that kind of behaviour was already familiar to Eastern Europeans. It was the same old song, different orchestra.
Russia is not your friend, no matter what the propaganda tells you and your countrymen.
You’re just momentarily useful to a warlike mafia controlling a country.
To be fair, historically Russia has also been a target of attacks and invasions repeatedly. (Generally not by the same smaller neighbours it has been attacking, of course.)
That history has nothing to do with the present-day conflict, though, except that it might be a part of what gives some Russians a feeling of being threatened. And Soviet-style aggression is of course just imperialism by any other name.
That’s not what NATO says: “NATO’s essential and enduring purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members. It does this through political and military means, ensuring the collective defence of all Allies, against all threats, from all directions. [...] NATO strives to secure a lasting peace in Europe and North America, based on its member countries’ common values of individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_68144.htm
Furthermore, I would suggest that the history of actual NATO action, particularly since “Russia” came back into existence as a sovereign entity not under the umbrella of the USSR, is more consistent with the offically-stated purpose than “to unite a front against Russia.”
It's true that in the last decade or so Russia has become, as the USSR had been for most of NATO’s existence, the primary threat to NATO’s purpose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechen_genocide
NATO has engaged in a dozen wars and conflicts as aggressors.
A careful examination of the list below suggests that, in terms of your choice of the words "dozen" and "aggressor", the way they are usually meant in English -- you're definitely stretching things, here.
We have this thing going on in the west where we are the good guys, and every war we start is an anti-terrorist operation. For Russia, the term just now was “special military operation”.
It’s hilarious when you realise how the world works. Controlling words means controlling minds. We’ve grown quite good at it.
We went to Korea and took any of our allies who wanted to fight with us. We were already NATO then. Then we went to Vietnam. Then we meddled with some civil wars here and there. Did some “interventions” and took our NATO allies with us each time. Then we started proper pummelling the Middle East.
To our adversaries, every single bullet that is shot by a NATO country is a NATO operation. It doesn’t take a full scale mobilisation, and it doesn’t matter what we call it internally. NATO is a military alliance, and our militaries are NATO’s militaries.
Of course each time it was communists or terrorists we were killing so it doesn’t matter, right? It’s like these things happen in a vacuum and aren’t a result of our intrusive foreign policy. We don’t ever speak of the events leading up to 9/11. Crazy terrorists doing their thing, savages that they are? For some reason the Ukrainian neo-nazis killing people in Donbas aren’t that, though. Wrong side of history, I guess.
And to be fair, I’m no pacifist. What I detest is trying to change the cold realities of life and making them seem like something they are not.
The same can be said of the French, English and Germans, that only stop destroying themselves after they united to fight Russia (which ironically saved the first 2 against the last one otherwise they would not even exist as sovereign states anymore).
I think you're forgetting somebody important? Another country that was actually on the beaches in Normandy?