Trump tells Zelensky 'make a deal or we're out' in angry White House meeting
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40.000 is what is currently part of the reaction force - not the total force strength.
Active service/Reserve forces of the nations with direct borders to either Belarus or Russia:
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Norway: 33.000/60.000
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Finnland: 18.000/ 180.000-280.000 (And we all know how this turned out the last time)/18.000
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Lithuania: 23.000/104.000
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Estonia: 7.700/80.000(but almost half in rapid response readiness)
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Latvia: 17.000/38.000
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Poland: 216.000/670.000
That does not include the countries that are currently heavily investing in the Baltics.
Germany plans to have 4.000 soldiers stationed there permanently with 30.000 active personal rotating in and out.
Canada has also a brigade stationed there, the UK does the same and hosts the command in the UK.If you count the other Baltic sea nations that mostly have a very high interest in keeping the Russiand at bay you also have Sweden (24.000+22.000 Homeguard/32.000), Denmark (16.000/12.000+51.000 HomeGuard) and Germany (180.000/930.000) you have even higher numbers.
These are roughly twice as many soldiers as Putin currently can access at the moment - and he is heavily based on conscripts and semi general mobilization which is not part of the equations for most countries here, neither are other key players (e.g. UK 135.000/32.000), France (270.000/63.000), Spain(133.000/264.000), Italy (165.000/35.000), Romania (81.000/55.000) and the smaller but often highly motivated nations, e.g. the Czech Republic (34.000/4000).
Even though there are some countries who's motivation may be shaky (Italy, to some extend Germany and some smaller players like Hungary) Europe very likely would be united against a common cause in a situation like that. The most interesting point would be how Erdogan in Türkiye would respond - he has one of the largest armies on this side of the pond (481.000/380.000) and there are quite a lot of people who believe that Erdogan would actually stick with "European NATO" in this case simply he would be too afraid that Putin could either reconsider his "future" border (post Georgia invasion which is far more likely) with Türkiye or simply because he would be afraid of his old military guard.Would that guarantee victory against a joint Putin-Trump full on attack against Europe? No. Not at all. All sides would loose. Terribly.
In total soldier numbers Europe does actually surpass both the current Russian and all US armed forces combined (narrowly). Of course the US have a huge material advantage,but this is partially based on logistics from Europe (and often stored here). All this facilities would be lost then and Russia would be unable to easily supply similar logistical capacities - they simply don't have them and transport via eastern polar routes(as the western routes are within Norwegian and Finnish reach) or the eastern ports of Russia is bothersome.
While the US navy is mighty,it would be operating very far from home - further away than it has operated from any allied base ever and in very very hostile waters. (Actually the British navy is the last modern navy to have operated that far away from an allied base during a combat mission)
So the US would be limited to high flying stealth bombers (don't do that much damage and can absolutely be detected by modern western radar), stuff they drag all the way through Russia, whatever they can ferry through the pond which would be infested by various submarines that, while mainly non nuclear, are still a major treat to their navy (ask the Swedes).It would certainly not be enough for a D-Day like operation.So the other option is:
Well... intercontinental ballistic missiles.
While I am absolutely sure that the fascist orange wouldn't hesitate a minute to use this option if someone tells him it makes his golf course worth more as all of Scotland's course are now burned to crisps it would also mean that Putin and Trump himself would be fucked. Because the very next minute he presses the button someone else will press a button - either in London or Paris. France is already offering to place nuclear capabilities in eastern and central Europe for this very reason. In the end Washington would be nuked the same way Moscow, London, Paris and Berlin would be.
And while the Orange acts irrational his buddy Putler does not - the mediocre KGB officer understands what happens to him if his puppet in Washington overreacts. -
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I wonder how long until the US is nuked? Or at least actually attacked, militarily.
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Under Putin's Sock Puppet, most certainly. However, the US MIC might hold the key to bring the USA back to being the USA.
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US didn't spent most of it's money on army for nothing. Doesn't matter if the army is as powerful as it says it is, the image is strong enough, so nobody will dare.
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Huh. I guess it’s high time for the Norwegians to develop a sense of humour then.
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If that's your goal, then you need to understand that Americans give even less of a fuck about the framing you gave it. It's not the Cold War anymore; Americans have no concept that "Russia... expanding their borders and influence" would affect them in any way. Americans don't even have a fucking clue where the borders being fought over even are!
At least the "Ukrainian self-defense" angle has a clear villain and a heroic scrappy underdog to root for as entertainment. In terms of getting Americans to care, that really is your best bet.
(Source: am American. And if you think this viewpoint is even more cynical than yours, then congratulations, you're correct.)
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Indeed, especially during the first Cold War, the US Military Industrial Complex was everywhere. Germany and Japan were forced to buy out dated shit from the Americans. The magical button, tell the US military to shutdown all their European military installations and leave. What would the US MIC do then? I highly doubt they want to lose business.
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I'm sure Germany, France, or the UK would love to get the mineral rights that Trump is after.
I really want this to blow up in Trump's face. Rude strongarm tactics is a real bad look.
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You forgot to mention China. Unless the EU gets its shit together and resists the same forces that are destroying the US, China is going to become that unipole.
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Try telling the blue MAGA conservatives.
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Or a civil war.
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Of course liberals arent friends of democracy.
Liberals refuse to replace First past the post voting with a more representative electoral system. You can see them here, in this thread, circlejerking over the fact that people are unrepresented by their options at the polls.
We will most likely be using FPTP voting for the mid terms, and these same blue conservatives will be howling about 3rd parties existing. All while doing nothing to fix the spoiler effect that is inherent in the mathematically flawed voting system most states use.
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Democracy
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Before completely cutting off ties from the US showing the public attempts had been made for diplomacy and providing evidence of what a bad actor US has become is important.
Showing is way more impactful and supports moves made afterwards than just making claims and cutting ties.
So not completely pointless, since the public needs to be able to come to the conclusion themselves first before drastic foreign relation changes can be made.
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He’s made noise about NATO, but… he makes a lot of noise. He also, to a small extent had a point at one time about nations committing the agreed upon percentages of their budgets to defense. Regardless, today’s actions paint a pretty clear picture for Europe and the rest of the world.
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They have to send support. They could send a pallet of underpants and say they did their end of support.
I wish NATO was 1/100th what Russia and it's supporters think it is.
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All these years after winning it. That’s some special war-fightin right there!
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But he doesn't even understand how that works, he thought it was protection money. "Ya gotta pay your bills"
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