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| ▲ | HWR_14 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Who does Europe need to defend itself against? Russia can't invade Ukraine, and it has 1/10 the population (less?) and arms that are leftovers from European armories (and US armories). Is China going to roll troops across a continent? | | |
| ▲ | varjag 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | If North Korea does, why not China? Also worth mentioning that without the United States the present continental European militaries would struggle even against the battered ground forces of Russia. Can't really fight back with GDP of your service economy alone. | | |
| ▲ | HWR_14 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | North Korea is being being paid by Russia to supply troops. Russia cannot afford Chinese troops. And even if they could afford them, China is throwing its weight around Asia and wants its military intact there. | | |
| ▲ | varjag 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Sure, and North Korea wants to man its border for the eventuality of war with the South. At least that's what everyone would have said before it happened. NK troops in Ukraine weren't on anyone's bingo card. |
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| ▲ | vkou 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | North Korea is involved in it for the same reason countries send military observers to conflicts. It hasn't fought a war in decades, and it needs to figure out whether or not any of its shit/doctrines/etc works. It doesn't actually give a rat's ass about Crimea or Ukraine or Russian claims. It fully relies on friendly logistics to participate in the conflict. |
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| ▲ | belter 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Will your opinion change, when you see a photo of Polish soldiers looking at North Korean battalions across their fence border? | | |
| ▲ | HWR_14 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Absolutely not. North Korea is essentially selling mercenary services to Russia. They're the only country that will really do that, and they will have to rely on the pretty broken Russian supply lines to do so. And Russia probably won't even be able to afford to pay for a second wave from North Korea. |
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| ▲ | int_19h 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | What the war in Ukraine is showing is that Russia is capable of running a wartime economy, cranking out artillery shells etc at replacement rates, while Europe, so far, has not demonstrated the ability to do so, which is why supplies are dwindling - you can only run so far on existing stocks. It should also be noted that Ukraine has been preparing for this exact scenario since 2014, building massive fortifications in the east (which is precisely why the Russian advance there has always been such a grind). In the event of an open confrontation between Russia and European countries currently backing Ukraine, it's not at all a given that the latter can hold significantly better than Ukraine does today, without American help. European armed forces are generally in a pathetic shape, grossly undermanned and underfunded, and would simply run out of materiel before Russia runs out of bodies to throw at them. | | |
| ▲ | HWR_14 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Russia's economy is tanking fast. Their wartime economy, in addition to crushing the civilian economy, has already hit it's peak. Russia is pretty much running low on bodies just in Ukraine. They've already emptied the jails. Europe doesn't produce artillery shells because NATO (even NATO minus US) can drop bombs after air superiority instead. Most importantly, Ukraine is doing this well with politically imposed limits on what they can do with those weapons. In a Russia vs. NATO minus US war, Russia will have to defend against deep strikes on critical infrastructure. | | |
| ▲ | int_19h 4 days ago | parent [-] | | The problem with all this stuff is that we've heard "Russia's economy is tanking fast" already during the first year of the war, and yet... As far as "running out of bodies", the more accurate statement would be "running out of volunteers". While much has been made of Russia emptying its prisons, this ignores the fact that the majority of its fighting force are people who come to fight willingly, largely because of pay. Ukraine, on the other hand, has to rely on forced mobilization. At some point, Russia will do the same if needed - and yes, the regime doesn't want to do it because of political cost associated with it, but they absolutely can pull that off if and when they needed. The notion that you can "just drop bombs after air superiority" hinges on the ability to establish said air superiority. US might be able to pull that off against Russia, but I very much doubt that Europe can. Not to mention that bombs also run out. | | |
| ▲ | HWR_14 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Obviously bombs can run out. But that's why major NATO countries have stockpiles of bombs and the ability to produce them. The fact that they didn't maintain large scale artillery shell production isn't relevant to whether they maintained bomb production. I would guess that European NATO could maintain air superiority. The Ukrainians seem to have denied Russia air superiority without the benefit of anywhere near as large an air force. Russia has been importing soldiers from third-party countries. It does not speak well for the state of your armed forces if every growing percentages of your troops aren't even your own citizens. Meanwhile, Russia's economy has been collapsing over the past two years. Their central bank has a 21% interest rate, there a million jobs they cannot fill because those people are off fighting a war (it may only be 500,000 jobs, accounts differ). It's backstopped by being a petrostate so they have oil money as a country, but that only papers over things for so long. | | |
| ▲ | int_19h a day ago | parent [-] | | Like I said, we've heard "Russia's economy is collapsing" for 3 years straight now. I even believed it myself for the first year, but I have relatives actually living there - who aren't even pro-war - and the picture painted in the Western press has little to do with realities on the ground. Right now the economy is booming as far as most people are concerned. How sustainable it all is, is a good question, but given that the same people making the doom and gloom predictions long ago, I don't see why I should continue listening to them. As far as Ukraine being able to deny Russian air superiority, that is evidence towards my point that Russia would similarly be able to deny air superiority to any European force. Westerners are way too used to fighting colonial wars against people whose best AA weapon is an old Stinger, but these things work very differently against a more or less modern power. The lack of manpower is, again, for political reasons. Mobilization wouldn't be any more popular in Russia than it is in Ukraine. So they want to avoid it if they can by hiring mercs as replacement troops, whether from the heretofore neglected Russian province or from abroad like with NK forces. But make no mistake, Russia can do mobilization if it needs to, and they have more enforcement mechanisms for it compared to Ukraine, not to mention larger reserves. This is partly why the higher-ups are okay with such high losses, and it takes truly massive screw-ups for generals to get kicked out - the government doesn't see those losses as unsustainable. |
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| ▲ | fakedang 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If that was the case, Putin shouldn't have holed up in Russia during the BRICS conference in South Africa earlier this year. | |
| ▲ | cycomanic 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You're making two arguments it seems,
1. Who is enforcing the arrest warrant against Putin, which I don't get, how should Europe or an African or Latin American country enforce the warrant enforce the warrant without Putin travelling there? I seriously doubt Putin would travel to a country where risks arrest. Or are you suggesting countries should invade Russia to arrest Putin. I don't see anyone including the US (thankfully) doing that. AFAIK that would also constitute a violation of international law (mind you many western countries really only care as long as it suits them, the whole Israel situation being a clear example).
2. The question if Europe could defend itself against invasion without the US. Defend against whom I have to ask, the only possible aggressor would be Russia, but Russia is struggling with their Ukraine invasion, a much smaller, less trained, less equipped force than Nato even without the US. The suggestion that Russia is in any position to threaten Europe is absolutely laughable. The only way that would happen is using nuclear weapons, and once we go down that path the whole world is f*ckd. | |
| ▲ | aguaviva 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | No countries in Africa and Latin America would enforce the ICC arrest request for Putin. That's your straight-up speculation. Meanwhile, the fact that he hasn't visited any of those countries -- suggests he knows better. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 days ago | parent [-] | | It's not entirely speculation; South Africa certainly wanted to avoid it. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/south-africa-asks-icc-... > South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has asked permission from the International Criminal Court not to arrest Russia's Vladimir Putin, because to do so would amount to a declaration of war, a local court submission published on Tuesday showed. Brazil waffled, too. https://www.reuters.com/world/up-brazils-judiciary-decide-pu... > On Saturday, while in India for a Group of 20 nations meeting, Lula told a local interviewer that there was "no way" Putin would be arrested if he attended next year's summit, which is due to be held in Rio de Janeiro. | | |
| ▲ | aguaviva 4 days ago | parent [-] | | 74 countries across the two regions, last we checked. You've got 72 to go. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Only one - Chile - has affirmatively stated they’d execute the warrant. Small countries try not to piss off large nuclear powers with a history of polonium use. | | |
| ▲ | aguaviva 4 days ago | parent [-] | | So it's not "No countries in Latin America", then. And if we're going to use your dataset to extrapolate anything: probably half of them will enforce the warrant. More substantially: I don't see where you're going with these objections. It's not like I think the warrant will be hugely successful. But it has to be issued and -- until Putin shows a significant readiness to bend -- it has to be kept in place. And it will have some effect. The exact percentage of countries that can be counted on to enforce it on continent X is obviously irrelvant. I only jumped in because of the obviously vacuous, extremified formulation ("No country will ..."). Obviously they didn't mean it literally, but to underscore their point; but still -- it's a weird habit people unfortunately have on HN. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > And if we're going to use your dataset to extrapolate anything: probably half of them will enforce the warrant. Even Chile's stated willingness is probably a bit like "if I were a billionaire I'd do <great things>" - easy to say when it's not an actual decision ready to be made. I like being pedantic as much as the next person, but "small developing countries don't love pissing off big angry ones with nukes" isn't the outrageous conclusion you're portraying it as. | | |
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