Comment by 9dev
5 days ago
> Attacking a NATO country would mean total war for Russia.
Is that so? I wouldn't trust the USA to commit to its NATO responsibilities anymore. The rest of NATO, torn as it is, could just as well find all kinds of reasons why this particular attack isn't a "real" attack, just to avoid the confrontation.
I wouldn't bet on that scenario happening, but as Russia, I wouldn't dismiss it outright either.
Europe has 4 times the population of Russia. The only successful attacks in the past 20 years have been against politically divided countries, like Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine (civil war since 2014). Iran is united, and so is Europe.
Lavrov has indicated he knows Russia would lose a conventional war against Europe by saying that an attack by Europe would start a quick (i.e. nuclear) war.
I agree that the US would stay out, especially if it is nuclear.
> Europe has 4 times the population of Russia
Multiple European governments are about to flip right. I’m not convinced a La Pen administration would send French troops to protect the Baltics or even Poland.
Lavrov says all kinds of things. Whatever he utters serves a purpose and has no logical relation to truth.
Don’t underestimate the capability of the EU to gridlock itself with decision paralysis. If we were decisive actors, we would have long stopped tolerating the hybrid attacks Russia is deploying against us today. Europe is anything but united now! We’re still purchasing oil from Russia. We can’t even agree on acting against the shadow fleet, or sanctioning all oligarchs, or applying second order sanctions.
A drone loaded with explosives targeting a German airport? We were merely lucky that it had a technical defect, or it may have been a disaster of epic proportions. Do you recall what the reaction to that was? I thought so.
Until we manage to gain some kind of unified agency, you better hope Russia cannot handle the logistics yet.