The time of peace in Europe is over, now everyone lives in pre-war times, and some friends of the EU live in the period of full-scale war. — Ukrinform.
"The times of peace are over, the post-war era is over. We live in new times - in the pre-war era; for some of our brothers, this is no longer even the pre-war era, but the period of full-scale war in its most cruel version," Tusk said.
I wonder what everyone's thoughts are on this. Personally I think Russia is spent and would need at least 5 years to train new troops, build new tanks, etc to the point of waging an effective war at any scale, let alone against NATO. Could easily be 10 with continued sanctions. By that time Putin could easily be dead and I see nothing structural that could lead to the next Russian President wanting to wage a war. Just have to wait out Putin with sanctions.
Europe's main worry is that the USA pulls out of NATO. Without the USA, NATO becomes a lot weaker and may have issues projecting power on Europe's frontier for an extended period of time.
And as we've seen with Ukraine, Putin seems to have a decently firm grasp of Russia.
I always find this odd that people think that European Nato is weak and couldn't take on Russia, especially when one of the poorest countries in Europe (Ukraine) fought them into a stalemate.
You are right in that way, but Russia is now in war economy and that can't stop quickly. They will gain weapons and troops and the ability to deploy them effectively. They won't attack NATO directly, but they didn't attack Ukraine directly either, at first. First they sent unmarked troops to stir troubles, then marked "to solve" the troubles. They are more than able to sustain paramilitary groups in various border areas for decades. No such activity will be enough to create an article 5 situation and all of it will degrade NATO and resolve of the members.
They saw in 2014 that the international community will just ignore a fucking invasion if they simply remove the insignia from their uniforms and pretend Russia has nothing to do with it. Phew, thank God this invasion happening in plain view is just some big misunderstanding and we don't actually have to go help our ally defend themselves from unprovoked expansionist agression
Doesn't matter when he threatens to nuke you if you fight back. He's banking on using nuclear deterrence offensively, hoping that neither the UK nor France would really risk mutual destruction over some eastern European states. And the US is probably gonna elect Trump again and solidify their downfall.