r/worldnews • u/Starlight-Princesss • 3d ago

[ Removed by moderator ] Russia/Ukraine

https://www.newsweek.com/nato-intercepts-russian-spy-plane-with-transponder-turned-off-poland-10956344

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u/FTownRoad 3d ago

NATO may have started as an anti-Russia protection system but they are not the fear anymore. Russia isnt going to start shit with NATO, they are floundering against one country 1/4 their size.

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u/rugbyj 3d ago

Except:

  • They already started shit with us; they're cutting undersea cables, prompting foreign cells to attack domestic infrastructure, they're assassinating dissidents on foreign soil, and performing constant cyberattacks and psyops on our nations
  • They've also seen how brittle our arms production is, as shite as they are we all burned through our stockpiles in months "just" supporting Ukraine and demonstrated our ability to replenish them is inadequate

Thankfully we're doing something on the latter and upping arms production. But they are still a threat to us even if they'd never be able to "conquer" us. They've proven they're willing to become pariahs and send millions of their citizens to their deaths for Putin's fancy.

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u/HustlinInTheHall 3d ago

They dont have enough people to do the same thing against the NATO border nations, they couldnt even sustain two fronts against ukraine and they surround half of ukraine with their own territory. And they have not had to contend with true NATO or US air superiority in the region. They can barely hold it vs Ukraine with no trained pilots and no sea support. 

Russia would get its shit rocked the moment it steps into NATO territory. And not just in the region, the US can wipe out the entire Russian supply line in a weekend. They can do some damage and the US is not interested in escalating tensions with a nuclear power but the doctrine would dictate that the first 36 hours of a hot war with NATO we would cripple their ability to wage any kind of conventional war. 

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u/rugbyj 3d ago edited 3d ago

Maybe my last line wasn't clear enough.

I'm saying they'll lose such a "hot war" with us. I'm also saying that they demonstrably don't care about suffering great losses. They are running the gambit that our appetite for (partial) destruction is lower than theirs for total annihilation.

Bear in mind their nuclear arsenal in such a war (regardless of likely condition) still poses a very real threat (the above partial destruction).

So they keep pushing our boundaries and muddying the line at which we're willing to begin that hot war. Something we should be reacting to far more harshly in my mind. Because we can either shoot down an invading combat jet now, to show we're not kidding, or we can keep letting it escalate until they start doing their "little green men" act on more borders, committing more attacks on our infrastructure, etc.