Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Bofferbrauer2]

Nuvendil said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

That much was known already to most military analysts.

And it's even worse if Russia mobilizes it's citizens, since they lost too many senior officers to actually lead those into battle - or even train them to some degree.

Ka-pi96 said:

They're both EU countries though, right? So they should have a guaranteed defensive pact with the rest of the EU due to that already.

They do, but apart from France, most countries in the EU have a rather puny army, so they couldn't send much support. However, with most countries in the EU are now increasing their military investments by quite a bit, so in a few years down the line, they could actually send some very substantial support even without the rest of NATO having to do anything.

Even in their current "puny" state, the EU has a powerful collective miltary capacity.  Over a million active personnel and millions of reserves.  And unlike Russia, the EU has the industrial and economic capacity to field their full strength.  A lot of their equipment is also substantially ahead of Russia's.  And unlike Russia, the EU could produce their most cutting edge military equipment en masse if needed.  

And then there's the naval element, which would become important if Russia engaged the EU and the disparity is humiliating for Russia.  The EU collectively has 6 aircraft carriers.  Russia has one. An old and very vulnerable one.  

If Russia initiated a war with tbe EU, it would be suicide.  The disparity in military power is made infinitely worse by the disparity in economic power.  To be blunt, if you remove the nukes from the equation, Russia could hardly be considered a true major power.  The EU, if taken as a whole, is a superpower.  Russia isn't in the same league, in any category, when you really dig into it.

Yes, but they would be needed to spread out all the way from Finland to Romania, and many equipment parts need to be refurbished before they can be deployed. It thus would take some time before they would really get to full power.

But I agree, that would be suicide for Russia, even without NATO. It would just take a while to get to that point where Russia gets hopelessly outmatched.