Comment by vlyan
5 hours ago
what exactly do you think is going to happen if article 5 gets invoked? did America's current Special Military Operation not make it clear that missiles alone don't win wars, and that there's fuck all you can do when the other side yeets their missiles at you in return?
also, a friendly reminder that all willing parties are free to go fight Russia right now. https://ildu.mil.gov.ua/
It will lead to a gradual escalation, probably air spaces closed over Kaliningrad, Belarus and Ukraine for Russian planes and army mobilization towards the eastern flank of NATO in the first steps.
Sufficient assistance can be given to the Ukrainians without deploying troops to the battlefield so that the Russians are pushed out completely. Losing Crimea would be Putin's death knell.
> did America's current Special Military Operation not make it clear that missiles alone don't win wars
not really. The operation accomplished all the goals: it removed the current leadership of Iran. Of course the results where completely predictable: meet the new leadership - same as the old one (often just the children of the old). Lets not pretend that it didn't get the intended results. It just got some other unintended results as well (which were mostly predictable)
There are limits to what war can accomplish. Depending on how you fight the war you can get different long term results.
>Lets not pretend that it didn't get the intended results
the intended result was a regime change to eliminate an enemy of Israel. did replacing IRGC moderates with IRGC hardliners accomplish that?
Maybe like destruction of Russian military command structure sparing just the silo based nuclear force?
NATO does not need to win a war. They just need to hurt Russia bad enough Ukraine wins.
Invoking Article 5 and winning a war are entirely separate operations.
In terms of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinberger_Doctrine if article 5 was invoked, one could set much clearer victory conditions - chase Russia back into Russia. Maybe arrest Putin war crimes or something.
It would still be extremely unpleasant, painful and expensive, of course; winning an exchange of blows still means taking a load of punches to the face. So the true winner would be China.
>did America's current Special Military Operation not make it clear that missiles alone don't win wars, and that there's fuck all you can do when the other side yeets their missiles at you in return?
Neither Putin nor his associates are religious fanatics happy to die for their cause, they're just money-loving strongmen. If faced with real danger they'd much rather do whatever they could to avoid dying, not risk being martyred.
Putin has backed himself into a corner. He has tied too much of his credibility to Ukraine, in turn if he loses Ukraine it is highly likely to loses his life in some "accident". He is smart enough to know that and so will double down as long as possible. Since his life is in danger anyway he has no reason to hesitate about using nuclear weapons if it looks like he is losing.
so in your educated opinion Putin will do nothing when NATO attacks Russia directly?