Excargodog

The USSR at its peak had a population of 287 million people (1989 estimate) and had a land area of 8.65 million square miles. Add in the Warsaw Pact and it controlled another 0.4 million square miles and another 60 million people. Our best estimate is that they had about 45,000 nukes of various sizes including versions of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuke ever set off at about 55 megatons (that in fact had been derated to provide a lower yield).

Today the Russians have a population of 143 million (and both dropping and aging) and a land mass of 6.6 million square miles and an estimated 6000 nukes. The vast majority of the former Warsaw Pact nations are either now in NATO or at least EU oriented.

Yet somehow Hub and others are trying to convince everyone that Russia is out to conquer all of Europe and if they aren't pushed out of the Crimean peninsula and the Donbas they will be truly unstoppable, despite the fact that a far smaller NATO successfully deterred the much larger and more populous USSR from the end of WWII until the 1990s - although I grant you most of Europe was contributing more to their own defense then (albeit, half of Germany was then in the Warsaw Pact and hosting MiG bases for Russia rather than defending West Germany.

Hub picked up the phrase from somewhere - I'd never heard it before - of "right wing fear porn". This all sounds pretty much like interventionist fear porn. It doesn't seem to make any sense that an organization that deterred a much stronger, larger, and more capable USSR is not going to deter Russia - assuming the REST OF NATO actually funds enough money to repair the damage they have done to their own defense establishments through 30 years (50 years for most of them) underfunding.

Yet the interventionists are sounding more and more strident and alarmist.


And before people start saying, "but Putin...."

it isn't like Soviet leaders were real nice guys either

https://youtu.be/Mm0yQg1hS_w?si=Eymp-Ss_aDgXWnPQ

METO Guido

Good guess. Research is for lab techs and liars. The point..

It's a strategic loser that bleeds all who participate. Conversely, a competitive opening for economic rivals to outpace a US economy mired neck deep in yet another foreign war stalemate. Perfect timing for BIC to chase better objectives. Those favorable to market dominance going forward. Or something like that, I submit. Regardless, not my war. Go ahead, say I’m alone there. But I’m not. Isolationism is yesterday’s bs erection. I mean expression. Talk of fear porn makes me nervous.

Lowslung

You argue out of one side of your mouth that NATO is capable of deterring Russia while arguing out the other side that NATO is an outdated, largely incapable organization that we should turn our backs on. You don't get to have it both ways. Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that the fall of the USSR was a tragedy & that he would like to see its former borders reinstated. He has been probing NATO members, specifically Baltic countries, with cyber attacks, psychological warfare, and other less than kinetic actions. I'm not sure why you chose to believe that he won't do what he says he wants to. You may be correct in assuming that he does not possess that ability currently. One of the quickest ways for him to gain the ability to threaten more of his neighbors is to weaken NATO, which is an action you are a prolific champion of. Russian military capability is certainly inferior to NATO's at the moment. I'd much prefer to keep it that way.

Hawkerdriver1

I have really bad news for the Western allies: Russia will not loose the war because, unlike the West, Russia has no problem with lives being lost in order to achieve its objectives. I would not have believed this statement myself, but I spent time living both in Moscow & St Pertersburg.

The fact is, the value of life itself, is held to a far different standard over there. In addition, Russia has a vastly greater supply of conscripts than all Western allies combined ever will.

This war of attrition is already being questioned, after just two years, by members of Congress, NATO members & the public on both sides of the Atlantic due to its financial costs alone. Human costs, other than Ukrainian, are not being considered & are therefore entirely off the table. Why? Constituents from all of these participating countries would not stand for it. This is music to Putins ears......

The West believed, haphazardly, that technology alone could win the war. They could not have been be more mistaken.


HD

Excargodog

Please show me the posting where I allegedly said that. I've consistently maintained that NATO WOULD have deterred this Russian action if the non US NATO allies hadn't been underfunding their own defense budgets for the better part of a half century.


And Nikita Kruschev said he would bury us. He wasn't able to do that either, with resources disproportionately far more than the current balance of forces. I'm not sure why you believe he will ever be ABLE to get the USSR rebuilt. He's struggling now with just occupying 20% of the Ukraine.



. Hogwash. I've spent decades saying that the non-US NATO nations need to adequately fund their own military. They have spent decades taking "peace dividends" by shrinking their militaries. That isn't even subject to debate, they are now belatedly starting to say that themselves - only 30-50 years after every US administration since Truman has told them that.


"Russian military capability is certainly inferior to NATO's at the moment. I'd much prefer to keep it that way.[/QUOTE].

In which case our European and Canadian brethren need to get off their fat @$$€s and FUND THEIR MILITARIES. It isn't that they don't have the money, they have a collective GDP ten times that of Russia. It isn't that they don't have the population. They have three times the population of Russia. It isn't even that they don't have the technical capability or capacity. France is currently the second biggest arms exporter in the world after the US.

France still doesn't quite spend 2% of its gdp on defense, even including their gendarmerie who are really more of a national police than real military.

So, basically, your posting is pretty much wrong and certainly doesn't explain why you think Russia can somehow conquer all of Europe when the USSR couldn't. Apparently you are just taken in by that interventionist fear porn.

ReluctantEskimo

Who's Allie?

Excargodog

Apple Spellcorrectors version of "allies". Yeah, it pi$$es me off all the time too.

ReluctantEskimo

Pure speculation. How does Ukraine stay intact if Germany has fully equipped Panzer Battalions? It's a huge leap of logic to arrive at "Russia behaves if France pays 2%."

Nevertheless, it's more crying over spilled milk. It's 2024. Not 1994. What now? Some European tough love? That seems counterproductive.

Excargodog

Well, 50 years of asking them politely didn't work.

The fear porn issue is Russia taking over Europe, not Ukraine staying intact.

Ukraine is not going to stay intact. That was made plain when nobody in Europe did squat about the Russian takeover of Crimea for eight years and continued to be dependent on Russia for oil and gas. Hell, Poland is probably the most hard core anti Russian country in NATO and they either can't or won't stop their farmers and truckers from blocking the borders to shut out imports from the Ukraine.

https://gmk.center/en/news/losses-from-the-blockade-on-the-polish-border-amount-to-e700-thousand-per-company-eba/

https://kyivindependent.com/polish-formers-resume-blockade-at-krakovets/

Hawkerdriver1

Thanks.


HD