Final-Fan said:
AsGryffynn said:
Do you think invading Russia (or attempting to) isn't plausible as it is?
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Correct: I think the idea of the USA or NATO actually invading Russia is about as implausible as nuclear war with Russia. I simply do not know why they would have much reason to be interested in conquering Russian territory.
Suppose a no fly zone was created, and Russia chose to violate it, and the USA chose to shoot down the violating aircraft, and it continued to escalate into a real war. I expect that this war would be fought primarily in the air and sea as naval forces clashed in the world's oceans, and on the ground in Syria. Mounting a land invasion of mainland Russia just doesn't seem to make sense to me under these conditions. What would be the objective? If the USA wins the war around the NFZ, the Russian threat has been crushed; if they lose, I don't see how they would be in a position to gain by invading Russia which has air superiority by now.
Now, that isn't to say that there wouldn't be attacks on Russian air and naval bases or whatever, aimed at reducing their ability to project their military power into the conflict. But that is a completely different thing from a full scale invasion. On the other hand, if there was a war like this going on, who knows if someone on the losing side wouldn't go crazy? It would be a massively foolish thing to unleash nukes KNOWING that the other side has nukes as well and you can't destroy their ability to retaliate, but it's imaginable. Similarly, it's imaginable that faced with a losing war NATO would invade Russia out of desperation and panic, but it makes no sense to me.
It's imaginable, but it isn't plausible, to me.
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Well, given we have never seen how a war with Russia will unfold out, we can't say for sure. No one's really won a war against them. We don't know how it'd unfold. Thing is, how will the US react to bombers? Russia will probably expel them and use everything they can throw at them to do it. Since sanctions will have a negligible effect (they are already as closed off as they can be) the US will either have to keep shutting aircraft down and replacing what's destroyed. Odds are the moment the US says there's a NFZ Russia will simply destroy all US and NATO ground forces and employ heavier firepower to decimate Aleppo (I can see them giving the rebels an ultimatum and telling organizations within the city to run for it).
As it stands, a proxy war will have no winners, but I am not sure if the US will react violently to their aircraft and ships being destroyed. There's a substantial loss of power projection solely on losing a bunch of ships.