Estonia considers itself a front-line state, a Nato member where its border guards stare across the Narva River at the Russian fortress of Ivangorod.
This tiny Baltic state, once a part of the Soviet Union, is convinced that once the fighting stops in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin will turn his attention to the Baltics, looking to bring countries like Estonia back under Moscow’s control.
To help stave off that possibility, Estonia’s government has poured money and weapons into Ukraine’s war effort, donating more than 1% of its GDP to Kyiv.
Not to be too snide, but we do have a plan B of sorts. It’s just Estonia, that’s all. Sorry Estonia. Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are all right there with you.
Poland’s army is getting pretty impressive too, and this time they get plenty of prep time and only one direction to worry about. Assuming they can keep influence operations from undermining their defensive posture.
Well the plan B is NATO article 5. It’s a shame Ukraine wasn’t in it.
For all the bluster there’s no way Russia would take on NATO.
And that’s why Putin really wants Trump to win, because I’m pretty sure that shitstain would decline to respond to an Article 5 invocation, even if he hadn’t already started to withdraw from NATO at that point.
Trump would leave NATO no doubt. But from what we’ve seen NATO without US can easily take Russia.
That’s far from a foregone conclusion. NATO without the US is roughly the same size military as Russia, but Russia is currently massively outproducing NATO without the US and has more soldiers.
And then you have the possibility that when article 5 happens that the NATO allies pussyfoot around again and worry more about their own defense than the NATO alliance defense. In such a case, Putin can go pick off country by country and use them for cannon fodder against the next.
Russia couldn’t go against fucking Ukraine, one of the poorest countries in Europe. Russia couldn’t do much against NATO minus US. The only problem is the baltics have no depth.
I think everyone learnt plenty from Hitler that appeasement and country and country doesn’t work. That’s the whole point of NATO. Your view is antithetical to the entire doctrine of NATO.
Russia couldn’t go against fucking Ukraine with the help of the entire NATO (including US) stockpile backing it up.
Imagine what those early days would have looked like without MANPADs and man portable anti tank weaponry. Imagine the rest of the war without tanks and artillery systems and air defense. It wouldn’t have lasted long.
The narrative that Russia just sucks is prevalent and fun, but the reality is that it only sucks when the entire West works together to counter it. Fracture that support and it’s a lot more formidable. And it’s learning and becoming much more battle hardened.
Ukraine held off the initial invasion all on their own until the supply started. Then it’s stalemate with slow, surplus weapons. Entire stockpile? Lol no. Ukraine is getting crumbs.
I’m not having fun with this. It’s just fact that Russia couldn’t do much against one of the poorestcountries in Europe. Apparently full of corruption. Hard to imagine they had any decent training over large parts of their military (a Canadian sniper went over and came back because he effectively thought they had no idea what they were doing). There’s simply no comparison with any proper military.
I wonder why you’re on this drumbeat of yours (doesn’t take much to figure it out). Ciao.
Edit: Here is a 2019 article outlining the billions in lethal aid provided to Ukraine before the 2022 invasion. My guess is that more or less all the anti tank and anti aircraft systems you saw being used in 2022 were provided by the west.
I think you are uninformed, friend. This is the equipment that was supplied to Ukraine in the first 4 months of the war. It’s nice to think that they are doing this all on their own, but it’s no truer now than it is when Russia talks about winning WWII. In both cases, it’s only true in the context of massive donations of arms from the west.
Ukraine had tiny amount of MANPADS and man portable anti tank weapons of it’s own. They used orders of magnitude more from the west than they had on their own. Yes, the West’s donations could have been more, but compared to what Ukraine had on their own, it dwarfed it in most areas where it mattered like air defense and anti tank weaponry, which is what turned the tides. Don’t confuse the standard media talking points about the west not doing enough with the reality that it’s still orders of magnitude more than Ukraine could do on their own, even if it is just the West’s old leftovers.
Granted, Russia would have had to fight against a long guerrilla war, but without support from the west, Ukraine would have been ground down over time. I mean even without the US support for just 6 months you started to see the tides turn. Momentum has a way of increasing over time given the same situation. Even for 6 months, all of NATO without the US wasn’t really able to achieve parity with Russia.
I hope this changes. In 3-4 years of grinding down Russia and building up production in Europe, it could. But it’s is dangerously delusional to think that NATO without the US is at all ready for this fight on their own at the present time. No serious expert in the subject that I’ve heard from believes this is the case. NATO’s abilities rest heavily on the US who accounts for 70% of the NATO defense spending. Without it, you are dealing with a bunch of small militaries, all subject to their individual political situations, many who are being taken over by far right parties sympathetic to Russia rather than Ukraine.
I understand that you want to delude yourself there. Ukraine managed to fight off the initial Russian push, that was run like they expected to be handed over the keys to Kiev by the third day and were suprised when their columns just endlessly running on the streets got attacked all of a sudden.
But Ukraine acknowlegdes that they would have been defeated without the western equipment over the past two years. We saw how just the US delaying their aid for a while thanks to the Republicans pushed Ukraine limits hard.
Then let’s hope that Trump won’t be president… For him, Article 5 seems to be kind of optional…
Article 5 is only a can-do, not a must-do. Which is also why NATO partner armies are stationed in those countries. If one of those partner soldiers gets hurt, it should make NATO’s decision to intervene easier.
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The “as it deems necessary” is the escape hatch for those who don’t want to intervene. It isn’t as wishy-washy as the EU’s mutual defense clause, but it certainly isn’t absolute.
I don’t know why someone down voted you. Given the current political environment. Trump if he wins would absolutely use that as a loop hole if the US is even still in NATO at that point.
People here will downvote the most objectively factual statements… I’ve stopped wondering what goes through their head.
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“such action as it deems necessary” could be no action at all.
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Well, we can also look at precedent. Article 5 was applied only once in NATO’s history, despite multiple other occasions where NATO could have done so. I do think that a deliberate Russian attack on a NATO member would trigger a response, but history shows it clearly isn’t mandatory.