Ukraine

So is NATO now at war with Russia?

Just catching up on the news, it seems lots of countries have now promised lots of tanks to Ukraine. I want Ukraine to prevail, and I have no issue with everyone helping to that end. But I wonder how much longer we can keep saying NATO is not involved when we're supplying weapons, training soldiers, and providing intelligence, advising on tactics, and managing the information war.

 

Nat o broke its promise to Bear country that it wouldnt expand east. Bear country warned them to stay out but they ignore the warnings. Now we are where we are.
Fully support ukraine in its fight but dont trust our side at all. Look at past incidents in other parts of the world before trusting the words of any organisation.

 

Russia is getting drones from Iran.
I know its a bit different but amounts to the same thing.

 

Russia would stand no chance against nato. Problem is that at the end of the Russian bottom kicking, Putin would in desperation try to use nukes. In which case he would either fall out of a Kremlin window feet first or get food poisoning.

I reckon with Olaf there was a histirical reluctance to engage Russia _ he wanted all allies to agree before releasing the Leopard.

Bottom line :

Putin is a bully with small man syndrome. All bullies back down when they are confronted.

 

I think it points out that not many countries have the munitions to carry out a long protracted war.
Even a large country like Russia is struggling against a comparatively small country like Ukraine if that country is given backing from the west.

Without western backing it would be all over now.

 

I'm not convinced that's true. I think you're right in the sense that Ukraine would fall under Russian control, but I don't think that would be the end of it all. In no particular order of importance and relevance, I think the following would be true. Nobody outside of Russia would acknowledge that Ukraine is part of Russia. This would seriously strain international relations, in much the same way as nobody can decide if Taiwan is China. We'd also see continued fighting between pro independence Ukrainians Vs Russians and pro Russian Ukrainians. This would go on indefinitely. But also I think Russia would regroup, then attack other former Soviet countries, starting with those that are not yet NATO members, before building up the confidence to go after Poland, which is a key NATO player. I doubt if even Germany would be safe, remember that it's not exactly ancient history when part of Germany was at least pro Soviet.

Bottom line is I think with or without us, it was always going to be a long way. I just hope that by some miracle, it ends at the negotiating table. I see no sign of that though because pretty much nobody is willing to even talk to Putin. It seems the world would much rather just push a pyscho with nukes further into a corner.

 

Depends if you prefer fried boiled or blown to pieces.

 

I think where tanks are involved, you're always at the wrong end. If you're at the 'other end where the tanks are firing', that's clearly an unpleasant place to be. But equally if you're in the tank, you're somebody else's target, and I imagine it's hard to run away if you're in a big, noisy, slow moving metal box.

I thought the days of tank battles were largely over. At least in the sense of two groups of tanks slogging it out on the battle field. My very limited understanding of modern warfare involving tanks was that they'd always be backed by air support, with the tanks responsible for holding ground after the air forces had pummelled that ground into submission. I'm not hearing much about battles for air superiority in the Ukraine war.

 

I wonder what happened to the air war, mostly he who controls the sky has the advantage.

I can only think the Ukrainian airforce is very depleted and the Russians don't have all the electronic counter measures required to avoid surface to air missiles.
This is a very old fashioned war I think.
Probably better it stays that way.

 

I think there's a similar problem in this case, but this time it's Russia that has the problem, invading a country isn't easy and even if you manage to, if the general population is against you, you have trouble holding on to it