re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict.

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Again, defense spending and preparing for an imminent invasion are two separate things.

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But European countries need to be prepared for an invasion. Right? Imminent only if there’s evidence of s as build up near your borders. But how much difference is there? Your defense needs to be strong and ready to go on short notice edprcislly is a neighbor had shown a propensity to attack their neighbors.

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our defense needs to be strong and ready to go on short notice edprcislly is a neighbor had shown a propensity to attack their neighbors

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Isn't this what NATO is for?

It's not just some collective strength thing. It spreads the risk out among everyone in it so countries in more danger won't have to over invest in defense and suffer elsewhere

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Isn't this what NATO is for?

It's not just some collective strength thing. It spreads the risk out among everyone in it so countries in more danger won't have to over invest in defense and suffer elsewhere

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No, it's pretty much just a collective strength thing. We can argue over the best way to protect ourselves, but the individual strengths and weaknesses make it difficult with even the 2% agreement.

For example, Iceland, who is a member, doesn't even have a military. We can argue about whether or not this is fair but the size of its population and tax base makes it difficult. It's geography, however, makes it a key partner and so they don't spend any real money on a military.

Germany is another issue. Everyone knows about Germany's past, so when they reunified back in 1990 that, along with the fact that the USSR collapsed soon after, led everyone to look at the German's and say "Yeah, you don't need to spend too much on your military....." Again, it was about things like geography, economic power, and more. It's only recently that they've decided to rearm, which is a bad idea.

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You just said they were different

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They are. Just ask the Ukraine and Baltic States.

It's the threat of invasion that's the same.

Disagree

It's not really a question of whether you agree or not, it's the hard reality of geopolitics in a dangerous world.

There has been argument that who does what for NATO should be based on having what countries are good at something do that thing, leading to specialization. So, the United States provides the air power, the Brits provide Special Forces, the French artillery, and so on.

But I've argued to people that's a trap and inherently dangerous - who wants to be the country to provide all the Infantry, i.e. all the guys who are going to get killed? Furthermore, the front-line countries, like the Baltic States, Poland, Romania, etc. could get overrun leading to a lack of a key capability. If Estonia provides all the, say, Air Defense Artillery and the Russians overrun them, then the rest of us are without that capability.

The hard reality is we have to figure out who the common threat is and plan for and build against it, something NATO isn't on the same page for right now. You, like President Trump, say that the Russians aren't a real threat. Okay, but the Poles and Germans aren't going to agree with you on that which makes agreeing on how to spread out the risk if we don't agree to what the risk is in the first place.

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The hard reality is we have to figure out who the common threat is and plan for and build against it, something NATO isn't on the same page for right now.

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NATO exists 100% to keep Russia from gobbling up eastern Europe. There's no misunderstanding about this. It's the way it was in 1945 and it's the way it will be in 2045.

Russia will continue its cycle of expansion, collapsed, revolution, contraction, stabilization, and expansion. 1000 years of tradtion doesn't die on the fields of Ukraine with a mere 1 million Russian peasants. It lives until time immortal.

Western Europe knows this. Which is why NATO will be around for a long time

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It's not really a question of whether you agree or not

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It absolutely is.

You think NATO is only about collective strength. I don't, because it's not. It's really that simple.

NATO is strong not because a bunch of countries invest heavily in defense and are allies if one attacks the other , it's strong (in theory anyway) because we *don't* have to do that, because the risk is spread amongst the members. The economic stability that the protection of NATO brings to the smaller members makes them stronger and lifts everyone up with them.

It's also strong because it makes it less likely that Europe eats itself.

The raw collective strength being the core component is an extremely basic, hammer and nail mindset.

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Russia will continue its cycle of expansion, collapsed, revolution, contraction, stabilization, and expansion. 1000 years of tradtion doesn't die on the fields of Ukraine with a mere 1 million Russian peasants. It lives until time immortal.

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You're forgetting about the USSR when they were a completely separate people who didn't behave that way according to Leopold

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NATO is strong not because a bunch of countries invest heavily in defense and are allies if one attacks the other

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NATO is strong because the US is in NATO and if anyone attacks NATO we will be involved heavily in the defense.

It’s not complicated.

Russia is incapable of gobbling up eastern Europe.