Until your scenarios are a real threat, nothing will change. Who really believes that the Russian state that can't reach the Dneiper could reach the Oder?
What you reference as "socio-political inertia" is a product of kriegsschuld and decades of mea culpa and ambivalence about anything German. Bundeswehr recruiting ads get vandalized. The Germans walked like zombies into shutting their nuke plants down because that's what they protested for back in the 70s when their hair was tinted with henna. They're not going to give up their nice life to mobilize.
But they screamed like a little baby when Trump threatened their free candy and withdraw US troops. (They should be thankful the despised untermensch of Poland at least have some balls.)
That's easy. USA stops - pick the reason; political, Yellowstone supervolcano blows, Alvin Canyon Fault slips, etc - sending weapons to UKR. Europe soon follows suit because they can't keep up. CHN sees an opportunity and significantly backs RUS play. UKR falls. POL fights hard but sues for peace when they can't hold Warsaw. France wants nothing to do with it due to internal issues, GBR's government just fell, and as the SDP refuses to join in a Grand Coalition CDU/CSU government as a 3rd wheel due to RUS influence operations, the Germans don't know if they want a SDP/GRN/FDP/Die Linke government or a CDR/CSU/AfD government ... so the RUS pivot west at the gates of Warsaw.
We've been in Cold War II for several years now and it wasn't anyone in Washington who brought it back. Not that the establishment chickenhawks don't want one 'cause there's money to be made.
No longer enough NATSEC GenXers with their hands on the levers of power in Mordor. Of the top 100 Administration officials, Millennials and Gen Z combined outnumber Boomers and Gen X. The institutional memory of the Cold War is fading fast and remains only in the minds of those sliding into their dotage. The existential crises of the current and rising leaders are not national states but foibles and flaws of human nature and the destruction of the Earth itself. To them, autocrats have long since been relegated to the dustbin of history and it is time to turn to the proper function of navel gazing.
From the POV of rising young political glitterati, the current Administration offers a once-in-a-career opportunity. Seeding tumor cells always look for compromised or disrupted tissues.
Actually, the Russians made honest efforts to establish peaceful relations between itself and Europe (even talk about joining NATO). They were rebuffed at almost every turn.
The Russians were given an opportunity to join the rest of the world. Western companies invested in Russia (lotsa natural resources to be exploited), we partnered with them in space and their navy exercised with NATO. Clinton got along fine with Yeltsin. Then an ultra-nationalist former KGB officer with delusions of a new Russian Empire got into power.
You're missing the point about Cold War II. Russia is a minor player this time. If it wasn't for their nuclear arsenal mostly left over from Soviet times, nobody would pay Russia much mind. This time the 'Evil Empire' is China. The roles have reversed.
Well, that's one interpretation of it. Another is that Russia was flat broke, everything was for sale (even subs for cartels) and, under vast corruption, Western corporations teamed up with local oligarchs to carve up the country. Yeltsin stood by drunk watching it happen, which is why he got along with Clinton. Russia was not going to go the way of India & China in earlier centuries, which is why someone like Putin arose and changed the country's trajectory.
China the new "Evil Empire" is a joke. Even the Military Industrial Complex says we can't decouple, our supply chains run there too deep. If only the US had an ultra-nationalist leader to cut that Gordian knot...
Except that Poland is a NATO member, Ukraine is not. If NATO won't back Poland, what good is it and why should we take up the slack? If it will, Warsaw will not fall. Russia just does not have the capability of defeating NATO, weak as NATO may currently be.
sort of like how the germans had a deal with the soviets to divide poland. I wonder once we run out of money to keep the ukrainians fighting if russia can do a deal to divide up ukraine with poland and hungry for peace
GER in 1939 - approximately 6.5M males between the age of 20 and 30. GER in 2020 - approximately 5M males between the age of 20 and 30. RUS in 1941 - approximately 9M males between the age of 20 and 30. RUS in 2022 - approximately 9M males between the age of 20 and 30. RUS has found itself in a position over the last 18 months of having to scale up industrial armament production. The rest of NATO? Best case, placing enough orders to fill the magazines as they are emptied. While it is possible that the UKR offensive will spend the next three months driving RUS forces into a headlong retreat across the Kerch Strait and all the way back to Ukrainian speaking enclaves in Abkhazia, I think we will have to wait and see.
So far all they are doing is exchanging small settlements and open farmland between each Nation and only gaining more craters, ruins and an ever growing pile of expended Armor UXB, Mines and bodies.
It is a stalemate, My thinking is it becomes the 21st century version of Palestinians and Israelis. a Forever war.
I think the western elite want the russian goverment to break themselves with this war in ukraine think about it we feed in just enough to keep the ukraines fighting but not enough to win so the russians have to feed more and more of their society into the fight with no end it sight i believe our elite hope russia will collapse like it did during ww1 if they push hard enough and just like ww1 our elite are too greed evil and stuipid to realize that history show what comes after is usually worse and the russian elite have nukes
my comment was primarily about the position of the nukes, not about the current gear on some carrier or lack of a nuke Cert inspection. But if we have nukes in Europe, I suspect they are B61 gravity bombs which are compatible with some F/A-18, and F-35.
The Germans may wake up when it dawns on them that the Poles have the military capability to be a threat. That day is only a few years off. And the ancient hatreds in Eastern Europe may be sleeping but I doubt they are dead.
I agree that Ukraine should have lost a couple of nukes in a 'tragic boating accident'.
Note that at one point (at one point in history every country in Eastern Europe owned territory that is now part of another), the Poles also owned territory that is now part of Germany.
Poland has 1/2 the population and 1/4 the economy of Germany. Germany's biggest threat is the horde of non Germans living inside their borders, not Poland.
"the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are firing only 20 percent of the rounds they potentially could because of insufficient stock."
And if we gave them 5 times as much? They'd complain that our tubes burned out too fast ad ask for those.
The UK's may be modeling the Neo-AFU on the NATO model, but their Arty doctrine seems a bit Czarist. Not all possible targets need a BNx4
As fo the German Defense budget, too much goes to hidden social and green programs. Their spare parts supply would bring tears. The few planes, tanks and ships they have don't fly, run or sail.
Poland has 8 times the number of working tanks 1000 versus 250/2
A few years ago we had a president who asked the NATO countries to spend more on defense. He was ridiculed. He was considered a threat to the alliance. One retired SEAL admiral demanded that he be removed by any means necessary. What ever happened to that former president?
Kissinger sold out the 4th Allied Air Wing and other POWs during the Paris Peace negotiations. He was only required to ask for the US pilots actually in Vietnam not the remaining POWs in other countries.
Kissinger is still waiting in the wings to sell America downriver again if called out of retirement.
He likes to give the Economist interviews, explaining why we need to kowtow to the PRC. He's as ready to sell out Taiwan as fast as he sold out South Vietnam. The man has learned nothing.
For the last six months American's and others, military, embassy's, Businesses have been ordered to make up a bug out bag, the plan is the evac the people out.
Now this may be a precaution but it leaves a lot unsaid.
The US did not do this in Afghanistan maybe they learned, but maybe the plan is to do for Taiwan what we are doing for Ukraine, send money, weapons and media support while never actually fighting the Chinese to free them.
How they will evac them if the CCP plan is Blockade Sea and air I don't know.
It's exactly like when I play Hearts of Iron 4 and I have 1 day of oil and all my panzer and motorized divisions are losing and I am wondering why. Some things never change.
Trump was right. Drop Germany. Move most everything to Poland, other east European countries Finland, Sweden, Norway, etc. Keep airbases airbases in England and Air\Naval bass in Italy, Greece and Spain. Also drop Turkey. Do the European thing TO the Europeans. Talk the talk but no money, no action, no walk the walk. When the Germans complain listen politely, nod your head, then ignore them. Evaluate each country on what they do, not what they say or promise to do.
At this point I believe the RU war plan is to open and maintain a land bridge to their Black Sea Navy bases and ports to send and receive commerce.
Crimea is that goal not the take over of all of Ukraine that is impossible, should Ukraine lose the war Poland will step in on their border area and hold UAF ground to keep RU from moving in. It is worth noting the NATO plan for a war against the Soviet union was to nuke The Black sea Navy base and a large part of Sevastopol irradiating most of Ukraine. Because back then Ukraine was Russia.
What is needed is a cease fire all units hold in place and then a 50 mile wide DMZ arranged, 25 miles for each side along the front line trace. No arms shipments cross the Polish and UAF borders.
Then go to the UN and negotiate a way out of this meat grinder.
I suspect that if Ukraine loses, Poland would be more than happy to restore the Polish Republic borders of 1939 and reintegrate the Oblasts of Lviv, Volyn, Akarpatska, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, and Rivne.
Charlemagne weeps
Until your scenarios are a real threat, nothing will change. Who really believes that the Russian state that can't reach the Dneiper could reach the Oder?
What you reference as "socio-political inertia" is a product of kriegsschuld and decades of mea culpa and ambivalence about anything German. Bundeswehr recruiting ads get vandalized. The Germans walked like zombies into shutting their nuke plants down because that's what they protested for back in the 70s when their hair was tinted with henna. They're not going to give up their nice life to mobilize.
But they screamed like a little baby when Trump threatened their free candy and withdraw US troops. (They should be thankful the despised untermensch of Poland at least have some balls.)
Phuck them.
"But they screamed like a little baby ..."
Of course. That's a big chunk of change that left the German economy.
That's easy. USA stops - pick the reason; political, Yellowstone supervolcano blows, Alvin Canyon Fault slips, etc - sending weapons to UKR. Europe soon follows suit because they can't keep up. CHN sees an opportunity and significantly backs RUS play. UKR falls. POL fights hard but sues for peace when they can't hold Warsaw. France wants nothing to do with it due to internal issues, GBR's government just fell, and as the SDP refuses to join in a Grand Coalition CDU/CSU government as a 3rd wheel due to RUS influence operations, the Germans don't know if they want a SDP/GRN/FDP/Die Linke government or a CDR/CSU/AfD government ... so the RUS pivot west at the gates of Warsaw.
That could happen, but it could bring back the Blood and Iron part of Germany.
Scandis, Dutch, Spanish, Italians would also get riled up.
Maybe that needs to happen to an extent. They won't go fascist like last time so let's encourage them to stiffen their spines a bit.
NATSEC GenXers trying to bring back the Cold War, might eventually succeed.
We've been in Cold War II for several years now and it wasn't anyone in Washington who brought it back. Not that the establishment chickenhawks don't want one 'cause there's money to be made.
Strongly disagree with that. Neocons took to Mackinder's ideas and have been sowing nothing but strife for the last 30 years.
No longer enough NATSEC GenXers with their hands on the levers of power in Mordor. Of the top 100 Administration officials, Millennials and Gen Z combined outnumber Boomers and Gen X. The institutional memory of the Cold War is fading fast and remains only in the minds of those sliding into their dotage. The existential crises of the current and rising leaders are not national states but foibles and flaws of human nature and the destruction of the Earth itself. To them, autocrats have long since been relegated to the dustbin of history and it is time to turn to the proper function of navel gazing.
My Grandsons do not know what the original start of the Vietnam war was. And they are really smart, informed and wise.
"Of the top 100 Administration officials ... To them, autocrats have long since been relegated to the dustbin of history"
They should look at the scrambled brain of their current leader
From the POV of rising young political glitterati, the current Administration offers a once-in-a-career opportunity. Seeding tumor cells always look for compromised or disrupted tissues.
"The institutional memory of the Cold War is fading fast and remains only in the minds of those sliding into their dotage."
Thanks a lot, pal. Ya know, there's are quite a few of us ol' Cold Warriors who are still of working age. Harrumph!
I don't think it actually ever ended on both sides.
It just went into cold storage.
Actually, the Russians made honest efforts to establish peaceful relations between itself and Europe (even talk about joining NATO). They were rebuffed at almost every turn.
The Russians were given an opportunity to join the rest of the world. Western companies invested in Russia (lotsa natural resources to be exploited), we partnered with them in space and their navy exercised with NATO. Clinton got along fine with Yeltsin. Then an ultra-nationalist former KGB officer with delusions of a new Russian Empire got into power.
You're missing the point about Cold War II. Russia is a minor player this time. If it wasn't for their nuclear arsenal mostly left over from Soviet times, nobody would pay Russia much mind. This time the 'Evil Empire' is China. The roles have reversed.
Well, that's one interpretation of it. Another is that Russia was flat broke, everything was for sale (even subs for cartels) and, under vast corruption, Western corporations teamed up with local oligarchs to carve up the country. Yeltsin stood by drunk watching it happen, which is why he got along with Clinton. Russia was not going to go the way of India & China in earlier centuries, which is why someone like Putin arose and changed the country's trajectory.
China the new "Evil Empire" is a joke. Even the Military Industrial Complex says we can't decouple, our supply chains run there too deep. If only the US had an ultra-nationalist leader to cut that Gordian knot...
Except that Poland is a NATO member, Ukraine is not. If NATO won't back Poland, what good is it and why should we take up the slack? If it will, Warsaw will not fall. Russia just does not have the capability of defeating NATO, weak as NATO may currently be.
Poland wants their portion of Ukraine, pre beginning of the CCCP back.
I expect Hungary does too.
sort of like how the germans had a deal with the soviets to divide poland. I wonder once we run out of money to keep the ukrainians fighting if russia can do a deal to divide up ukraine with poland and hungry for peace
What runs out first, US money or Ukrainian military aged males?
I say let Ukraine and RU fight it out. deal with the winner.
We need to focus on China.
GER in 1939 - approximately 6.5M males between the age of 20 and 30. GER in 2020 - approximately 5M males between the age of 20 and 30. RUS in 1941 - approximately 9M males between the age of 20 and 30. RUS in 2022 - approximately 9M males between the age of 20 and 30. RUS has found itself in a position over the last 18 months of having to scale up industrial armament production. The rest of NATO? Best case, placing enough orders to fill the magazines as they are emptied. While it is possible that the UKR offensive will spend the next three months driving RUS forces into a headlong retreat across the Kerch Strait and all the way back to Ukrainian speaking enclaves in Abkhazia, I think we will have to wait and see.
How many of those 9M Russian males are actually ethnic russians? Because the Russian population is far less than the Soviet population
Estimating from the population pyramid in 2021, about 5.8 or 65%. I couldn't find that data for 1941, so Soviet breakdown is a black box.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Russia)
Russia no longer has access to non-Russian conscripts as they did in 1940
No to be flippant, but how many of the Germans are ethnic Germans? I recall reading Germany will be a Muslim majority nation by 2055
So far all they are doing is exchanging small settlements and open farmland between each Nation and only gaining more craters, ruins and an ever growing pile of expended Armor UXB, Mines and bodies.
It is a stalemate, My thinking is it becomes the 21st century version of Palestinians and Israelis. a Forever war.
I think the western elite want the russian goverment to break themselves with this war in ukraine think about it we feed in just enough to keep the ukraines fighting but not enough to win so the russians have to feed more and more of their society into the fight with no end it sight i believe our elite hope russia will collapse like it did during ww1 if they push hard enough and just like ww1 our elite are too greed evil and stuipid to realize that history show what comes after is usually worse and the russian elite have nukes
"No, the American nukes that are officially called “NATO nukes.” had a sad chuckle as I remember it was, and still is, the same for sea mines.
Maybe because they are sitting on NATO soil. Move them to a CVN, and they become US nukes again
Navy had SASS before and somehow they were removed.
I guess a CV Battle group can fight a Nuke war without nukes except on bases and Subs.
my comment was primarily about the position of the nukes, not about the current gear on some carrier or lack of a nuke Cert inspection. But if we have nukes in Europe, I suspect they are B61 gravity bombs which are compatible with some F/A-18, and F-35.
Oh OK, My comment was about Navy weapons, which in my time were B-61 a few other non specific Nukes. W-34, B-57 such as that.
I think NATO Europe nations do have the B-61 bombs I don't think they have any that are missile capable. The B-61 is the common Nuke of NATO it seems.
"Ach, less NATO expenses if we send fewer officers to Brussels".
The Germans may wake up when it dawns on them that the Poles have the military capability to be a threat. That day is only a few years off. And the ancient hatreds in Eastern Europe may be sleeping but I doubt they are dead.
I say may wake up.
There it is.
I understand Poland owned the area called Ukraine once, they may want that land back.
Ukraine never should have given up their nukes.
I agree that Ukraine should have lost a couple of nukes in a 'tragic boating accident'.
Note that at one point (at one point in history every country in Eastern Europe owned territory that is now part of another), the Poles also owned territory that is now part of Germany.
It is a mess LOL Mostly they accept the changes.
Poland has 1/2 the population and 1/4 the economy of Germany. Germany's biggest threat is the horde of non Germans living inside their borders, not Poland.
We'll check back in 2028 or so and see if the Poles are dictating to the EU. I think they will be.
"the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are firing only 20 percent of the rounds they potentially could because of insufficient stock."
And if we gave them 5 times as much? They'd complain that our tubes burned out too fast ad ask for those.
The UK's may be modeling the Neo-AFU on the NATO model, but their Arty doctrine seems a bit Czarist. Not all possible targets need a BNx4
As fo the German Defense budget, too much goes to hidden social and green programs. Their spare parts supply would bring tears. The few planes, tanks and ships they have don't fly, run or sail.
Poland has 8 times the number of working tanks 1000 versus 250/2
I remain fine with a weak German Army.
Perhaps they could hire some Dutch and Danish soldiers and sailors.
"I love Germany so much I'm glad there are two of them."
- François Mauriac (1967)
Germans learned from history: the last two times they rearmed, they ended up getting crushed in a war.
The days of NATO being an alliance are gone. NATO is one of the institutions used by the US to keep its European vassals in line.
A few years ago we had a president who asked the NATO countries to spend more on defense. He was ridiculed. He was considered a threat to the alliance. One retired SEAL admiral demanded that he be removed by any means necessary. What ever happened to that former president?
Was going to bring that up; thanks
Previous POTUS and Kim were BFF. He entertained Xi at his Florida mansion. Now we casually talk about war.
Anyone ever consider negotiating? Where is Dr. Kissinger when you need him?
Kissinger sold out the 4th Allied Air Wing and other POWs during the Paris Peace negotiations. He was only required to ask for the US pilots actually in Vietnam not the remaining POWs in other countries.
Kissinger is still waiting in the wings to sell America downriver again if called out of retirement.
He likes to give the Economist interviews, explaining why we need to kowtow to the PRC. He's as ready to sell out Taiwan as fast as he sold out South Vietnam. The man has learned nothing.
For the last six months American's and others, military, embassy's, Businesses have been ordered to make up a bug out bag, the plan is the evac the people out.
Now this may be a precaution but it leaves a lot unsaid.
The US did not do this in Afghanistan maybe they learned, but maybe the plan is to do for Taiwan what we are doing for Ukraine, send money, weapons and media support while never actually fighting the Chinese to free them.
How they will evac them if the CCP plan is Blockade Sea and air I don't know.
It's only a matter of time that we sell out Ukraine like we did South Vietnam and Afghanistan so why not hire an expert to do it?
In German war planning, it's not 30 days to the end of the war. It's 30 days until the Americans come save them.
It's exactly like when I play Hearts of Iron 4 and I have 1 day of oil and all my panzer and motorized divisions are losing and I am wondering why. Some things never change.
How many tubes has Germany that are actually able to fire?
See, the bundeswehr has far more than a 30-day reserve for the *checks notes* single battery operational with 3 months notice.
That sounds depressingly correct.
but it's a 105, and the 30 day WR stocks are 'saluting rounds'
Trump was right. Drop Germany. Move most everything to Poland, other east European countries Finland, Sweden, Norway, etc. Keep airbases airbases in England and Air\Naval bass in Italy, Greece and Spain. Also drop Turkey. Do the European thing TO the Europeans. Talk the talk but no money, no action, no walk the walk. When the Germans complain listen politely, nod your head, then ignore them. Evaluate each country on what they do, not what they say or promise to do.
If your frame was right, nothing would calm tensions in the East & focus the West like the removal of all US ground troops from Europe.
When you're running a protection racket, you need to keep a footprint in the country you're running the racket in.
Maybe just because they think/understand Putin/Russia just wants Ukraine and no more.
You seem to have convinced yourselves that Putin wishes to keep expanding when he’s said nothing of the sort.
You seem to be channeling Chamberlain.
At this point I believe the RU war plan is to open and maintain a land bridge to their Black Sea Navy bases and ports to send and receive commerce.
Crimea is that goal not the take over of all of Ukraine that is impossible, should Ukraine lose the war Poland will step in on their border area and hold UAF ground to keep RU from moving in. It is worth noting the NATO plan for a war against the Soviet union was to nuke The Black sea Navy base and a large part of Sevastopol irradiating most of Ukraine. Because back then Ukraine was Russia.
What is needed is a cease fire all units hold in place and then a 50 mile wide DMZ arranged, 25 miles for each side along the front line trace. No arms shipments cross the Polish and UAF borders.
Then go to the UN and negotiate a way out of this meat grinder.
That's not Chamberlain that's common sense.
I suspect that if Ukraine loses, Poland would be more than happy to restore the Polish Republic borders of 1939 and reintegrate the Oblasts of Lviv, Volyn, Akarpatska, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, and Rivne.
Russia already took Crimea in 2014. If that's all they wanted, all they had to do was nothing.
All they want is a land bridge to Crimea.
A good wide defensible belt of land. How wide is up to Russia. If Ukraine became NATO that belt would not be wide enough.
I watched the 2014 war, it was brutal to the civilians of the area RU or Ukraine. That war and this one are not an American Problem.
We need to focus on Re-building railroad Bridges and infrastructure, a Navy that can at least meet China and an even level playing field.
There are no clear answers. We don't actually know what NATO, US, EU Ukraine and Russia really want.
Ah yes. While the naves and fools chased after their shiny high tech toys the Queen of battle laughed and reined supreme.
Redleg, Redleg, Fire Mission.