That's totally untrue. Like I explained in my previous post, Germany absolutely does recognize Russia as a geopolitical foe, it just doesnt think that building more tanks is the right way of fighting back against them.

I should have added the caveat, "as much as the US does." Ultimately, Germany is significantly closer to Russia so it can't afford to escalate tensions unnecessarily. German-Russian relations have deteriorated over the past half decade but from my perspective they seem alright. You would know better than me though!

This post was edited by thundercock on Mar 25 2021 01:58pm

I'm not impressed by total ($) military spending. The Russians enjoy a significant PPP advantage because they produce the vast majority of their equipment in house. They have immense organizational advantages, and the countries they threaten are very close to their borders and relatively far from Central / Western Europe.

I feel bad for the Baltic states, because they are willing to resist Russian encroachment and have every right to be afraid. But Europeans are going to have to spend more of their own money on their collective defense. The United States is going to be hard tasked to defend Japan, let alone worry about what's going on in Europe.

Bold -- The most effective measure they could take is halting construction on a pipeline project which cuts the Ukraine out of the gas picture.

You're going to have to explain that more in depth. The extent to which they jeopardize American interests is rather limited. They want control (which they've historically had!) in Syria, that is not an immediate threat to the United States. Their influence in Asia is very weak, and their interests in Central Asia are in conflict with China, not the United States.

China is an immense military threat to the United States, and has, or will have soon, the functional ability to bomb American military installations in the Pacific and shut off American access to Japan / Taiwan / Korea / the Philippines / South-East Asia. I'm not even sure we'll be able to hold Guam in 10 years time.

Germany and Russia have always had a love-hate relationship. The facebook status would be "it's complicated".

Economically, Germany and Russia are natural allies because they complement each other so well. Germany has lots of money, but needs lots of natural resources and markets for its manufactoring sector. Russia has vast amounts of natural resources, but requires lots of manufacturing imports and foreign currency.

Geostrategically, Russia and Germany/Europe should be natural allies as well. If only they werent such antagonistic cunts.
And yes, on the political level, relations have deteriorated a lot over the past 7 or so years.




According to this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

Russia has a military spending of $65bn while France, Germany, the UK and Italy have combined spending of $174bn. If we add the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Poland, Belgium, Portugal and Scandinavia, Europe's military spending exceeds $250bn. Do the Russians really get four times more bang for their buck? I doubt it. And even if they did, they cant afford an all-out war with Europe anyway since they need to maintain sufficient forces on their south-eastern border to deter China from annexing resource-rich Siberia, on which the Chinese have set their eyes for decades.

In my estimation, for a large-scale military operation against Western Europe to be feasible, Russia's military spending in PPP would need to be at least 50% higher than the combined spending of Europe's nations.



Yup, the Baltics are the only place where a successful Russian invasion is conceivable. But why would the Russians do that? I dont see any way this could be pulled off without catastrophic repercussions. The costs would far outweigh the benefit.



Agreed. It's just that I think that Europe already is in a position to hold its own if really necessary. We must invest more in maintaining and modernizing our military, but the gap is not as large as the "percent-of-GDP-spent" figures suggest.


Bad idea. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is not as much of a geopolitical threat as special interest groups in America claim. At the end of the day, the main reason why the U.S. wants the pipeline stopped is so it can sell more of its expensive LNG to Europe

A great article on the subject:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/18/how-one-european-pipeline-is-derailing-bidens-america-is-back-promise-476901

Russia's goal is to destabilize regions that we want stable (i.e. Syria and Afghanistan). Obviously the reasons for destabilizing these regions are very different. In addition, I'd argue that we have substantial interests in Eastern Europe as well as the Baltics.

Those are hysterics. Our Navy is far larger, deadlier, and more agile. The invasion of Taiwan alone within 10 years would be absolutely devastating to China from a military perspective. China knows this which is why they are enticing other nations to economically depend on them. If the US lost Guam, that is considered an invasion and we'd retaliate with overwhelming force. Even Ghot would be drafted for that war lol.

The key to isolating China is to ensure we have strong alliances (economically, diplomatically, and militarily) with Japan, S. Korea, Vietnam, etc. As long as the cost-benefit analysis for China points negative, there's not a damn thing they will do because they aren't fools.

The bolded is just not true. Russia has similar problems with islamistic terrorism as the West, they do not have an interest in a destabilized Afghanistan, or an Afghanistan under Taliban rule which serves as a safe haven for these terrorists. When it comes to Syria, the Russians absolutely do want it stable - but under the rule of an ally, like the Assad family. That's why they intervened with boots on the grounds in the fall of 2015 and quickly turned the tide of the war. (Until that point, the Assad regime was in a downward spiral and on track to lose the war within a couple of months.) The Russians invested a lot of money and risked the lives of their soldiers to bring Syria back to the status quo ante - a commitment which neither the EU nor the US could muster.

I agree with you on China's military capacities.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 25 2021 02:48pm

yeah but do the Russian oligarchs really care nearly as much as the US if they get attacked and filthy vodka addicts get blown up in a decrepit subway?

What makes you think US oligarchs care about that any more than their Russian counterparts? If anything, an occasional terror attack is beneficial to them since the furor from ordinary voters would make it easier to funnel extra government money into the MIC.

Namely how subject they are to the population from democracy