WSJ article from Wednesday has the rather unsettling theory that Russia is absolutely planning to invade NATO. The Ukraine armistice will merely start the clock on when Putin’s repair/re-arm process will support WW3.

seriously?

 

Putin's limited scope invasion couldn't be supported successfully against a lesser force in a bordering land nation...

He won't last a month facing down US and all of NATO. China jumps in? Who cares. The industry? Whatever; most of us will be out fighting to win the war.

 

Hopefully I get drafted.

 

So, taking a million casualties out of a population of 140 million is how you prepare for war these days? From a population that is reproducing at less than break-even rates?

Doesn’t sound very likely to me. Production of fit 18 year old draft eligible is what is called a long lead time process, requiring 18 years and nine months to be completed. By that time Putin will be 92 years old, and - if still alive - probably retired or senile. Life expectancy for Russian males at birth is only 68 years,

Now granted, our NATO allies in Europe have been short changing their defense establishments for the last 35 years, but surely 18 and 3/4 years is enough time for them to restore their own militaries enough to defend themselves - seeing as their GDP is more than 11 times that of Russia. And they have over four times the population.

 

Think the OP was referring to this article (sorry, it's behind a paywall). I agree that the 2029 date is probably hyperbole and that Russia would be insane to pick a bigger fight than the one it has impaled itself on. I also agree that Europe spent decades underinvesting in its own defenses, but am glad to see evidence that the large ship is starting to slowly turn.

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ger...s&pos=1&page=1

Germany's Secret Plan for War with Russia

"Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine ended decades of stability in Europe. Since then, the region has embarked on its fastest military buildup since the end of World War II. But the outcome of a future war won’t depend only on the number of troops and weapons in the field.

It will also hinge on the success of the monumental logistical operation at the heart of Operation Plan Germany, the 1,200 page-long classified document drafted behind the nondescript walls of the Julius Leber Barracks.

The blueprint details how as many as 800,000 German, U.S. and other NATO troops would be ferried eastward toward the front line. It maps the ports, rivers, railways and roads they would travel, and how they would be supplied and protected on the way."

 

Talk about damning someone with faint praise, Western Europe has not even begun to recover from 35 years of short-changing their militaries. Manpower numbers are at near record post WW2 lows, and they are only now - after nearly four years of active war (and a mere TWELVE years after Russia seized Crimea the major EU economies (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the UK) still haven’t gotten back to any where near the spending levels (as a percentage of gdp) they were spending during the Cold War - far less the troop strength levels.

 

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I read the article the day it posted.

My take is that DE is taking entirely reasonable (and 15 years overdue) steps to deploy a formidable deterrence to RU invasion, that doesn't depend almost entirely on the US. Such plans require budgets and milestones, so setting an arbitrary "deadline" by which to achieve a certain level of progress would be routine.

I don't take it to mean that anybody thinks RU will invade or even remotely hopes to in the near term. Do some far-right oligarchs and generals talk trash over too many shots of Beluga? No doubt. But they're barely hanging on with UA, and probably learned their lesson, at least until they do some major restructuring and rebuilding.

You could make the reasonable estimate that absolutely worst case, if RU settles the UA conflict right now that they might be able to restore some measure of combat capacity by 2030, and fix a few of their obvious structural problems. Even then, any modest deterrent should be adequate. NATO/Article 5/USA would be more than enough deterrent, but the Euros are thinking that US backing is no longer an absolute in every potential alternate future reality.


Also, rationally, they cannot win against NATO. UK or FR would nuke them if it looked existential, and DE has options too.

Silver lining to the UA situation...

1. RU got exposed as to how bad they really are. Hard to kid themselves now.
2. RU has had their armor/mech inventory mostly deleted. Gonna do the Fulda gap with prison conscripts in technicals?
3. Euros got a big wakeup call, and will hopefully get serious-ish about their NATO obligations.

 

They need 25 years to replace all the men they've lost in the last 4, that's if the women get busy. No-way are they pushing into NATO after this huge debacle.

 

Unfortunately I am commenting from my phone. So it will have typos, no editing to speak of, and lack expansion of basic concepts.
1. I haven't read the article, but my assumption is it c
onflate aspirational plans with operational plans.
2. Russia is going through a millenarial transformation. It's second in just over a century. As in 1917 She sees herself as messianic. Putin and others see Mother Russia as Mankind's bulwark against Western depravity.
3. Russia deserves to dominate Eurasia. From the North Sea to the Pacific. Restorationof the former Tsarist empire is a minimal aspiration. It is also a moral imperative.
4. Ukraine is viewed as part of Russia. Not just part ol Her empire.
5. Point 4 means that all who talk of a negotiated settlement of the war in Ukraine are being idiotic.Any settlement is only to provide a pause for Russia to replenish Her battered economy and military.
6. Putin is trying to take advantage of a compliant America to acieve gains poltiically that heis unable to achieve ny force.
7. Any expansion into NATO territory that is currently contemplated is counting on the Atlantic Charteer being permanently reptured and the USA either withdrawing from NATO or ignoring its treaty obligations. Putin recognizes that he has benefitted from possibly Russia's greatest intelligence success since the Cossack uprising against Poland. He wants to leverage this new Overton window to Russian advantage, yet not blow it up into a full scale war.
he will find this an almost impossible challenge, but he sees it as too great an opportunity to not risk the gamble.
8. Russia Has far greater resources than any other majot power, including the USA.
Fortunately for the world Russia has the most corrupt and inept governance of any of the major powers. It is oligarchical fascism using organized crime and the police to run the country. It's core of expertise has long ago been hollowed out in favor of direct looting of the Nation's wealth. It would probaly take another revolution, such as began in the late 1980s Soviet, and was basicallly concluded with Putins consolidation of power early this century, to make Russia an effictive administrative state.
If that happens, and current Putin/Dugin/Russian visions of a Messianic and Holy Russia are still in place, Russian goals would change from aspirational to operational.⁸