this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2025
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They assert it is not a defensive pact, and that NATO will come for them as soon as they are powerful enough.
Sadly, that's not really something that can be disproven, so it's great propaganda.
People treated Russia as a superpower. They fucked up so bad they got successfully counter invaded by the country they were invading. They don't have 5th Gen fighters and they can't produce modern tanks. They're refitting older tanks and giving troops fucking golf carts. They've depleted a ton of soviet stock and their air defense can't even keep their oil infrastructure from exploding once a week. Prigozin nearly marched directly to Moscow with no resistance.
If NATO was planning to invade, they now factually know that Russia is a paper tiger and could take Moscow in days.
Also if NATO somehow forced putin to annihilate his own armor stocks and troops, then they are doing 5,000 iq illuminati bullshit and there's nothing to be done anyway. I tag those people as NATO propagandists because they're bigger western chauvinists than they even wish I was lol.
Which, as I understand the Russian military relationship with the Kremlin, came as a surprise to even Putin and would certainly incite some panic, renewed propaganda efforts, and saber rattling like we've been seeing him do lately.
And still: Europe is increasing it's military capabilities. How does that fit together? Genuine question.
Because of decades of chronic underspending on the military, as governments convinced themselves that a land war in Europe was unthinkable.
But "chronic underspending" doesn't fit together with "could take Moscow in days".
If you remove the US from NATO, the remaining Military Strength of the alliance would have struggled with the Russia Military prior to the Ukraine Invasion and absolutely would have been unable to launch a meaningful ground offensive into Russia.
Ok. That makes sense. But wouldn't it have beenmore accurate to claim that the US (and it's allies) "could take Moscowin days"?
Only if we're also assuming the none NATO allies of the US are being considered in the equation. I guess it would be most accurate to say that The US (with no mention of allies) could take Moscow
Yeah, that's where Isdisagree. Although I'm no military stategist. I simply don't think that a nuclear power the size of Russia could be conquered that easily without nuclear retaliation.
Obviously but the conversation was about conventional military strength
Chronic under spending doesn't mean no spending it just means that the size of the military has reduced, which if you don't believe there is much chance of a land war makes financial sense. But it's still got some pretty high-end tech. Meanwhile Russia has lost all there good military tech in a pointless war. So now Western tanks designed to fight other modern military vehicles are going up against stuff from the cold war. Multi-stage explosive shells designed to go up against metamaterial armour plating, are instead of being fired at pig iron, which is basically just rust held together with paint.
The assumption always was that if there was ever a war in Europe it would be a nuclear exchange, and therefore the size of your military wouldn't really matter, it would be all about readiness and contingencies. They never assumed that a superpower would just sort of disintegrate on its own, and then lash out. That would be an absolutely ridiculous scenario, that only it has happened because the Russian military command were too scared of Putin to actually tell him the truth.
I still don't really get why the spending has to increase if Russia's military is so desolate. Why is there discussioneof mandatory military service in Germany if it's simply to "defend" against an enemy that is too weak to actually be a threat?
Sorry, that is just motivated reasoning to frame Putin as an unstrategic maniac.
The Russians have shown great ability and resolve to switch to a wartime economy and ramp up military industrial production while Europe has struggled for years just to increase their artillery shell production. The belief is that if the war in Ukraine ends, it won't take Russia long to replace their loses.
That doesn't explain why Russia should have any strategic interest in invading Europe, though.
They didnt have a strategic case for Ukraine either. Its the personal whim of Putin.
That's just bullshit. Russian's military (it's not just Putin - he's an authoritarian, but he's not a supreme leader - he has to watch his step very carefully or the next authoritarian will take his place) definetly did have a strategic interest in the black sea. That's why all that annexation of crimea business started (afaik).
So it's the Russian government that's enforcing the nation state's interest here, definetly not due to the "personal whim" of someone.
Putin can't afford to be a mad king. He definetly isn't the only one in the Kremlin who can just disappear people...
Where do you get the impression that Russia isn’t a threat? Ukraine proves that it very much is.
Having a military that's in such a supposed desolate state is mutually exclusive to being a threat. That's like claiming a teenager with a slingshot is a threat to a gang of polige officers with assault rifles.
I don't follow. The invasion of Ukraine had a strategic motivation behind it (so did the annexation of Crimea). What possible strategic benefit would it have for Russia to attack the EU?
That's like claiming that the US is about to invade Mexico, because of the Iraq war(s).
To be fair, even most Russians in their Military and Intelligence thought a large land war in Europe was unthinkable.
Underspending because the US didn't wanted a military strong Europe. Every time Europe has said anything about becoming a military power on its own the US has pushed against it. The US has wanted Europe as a place to put military bases and little more.
Paper Tiger is the wrong word. Russia has a dangerous military but is in no way the powerhouse it portrayed itself before invading Ukraine. They had built a small core of a modern professional military that they used a couple of times to great effect but they acted like they'd done that to the whole military. Also, some parts of the Russian military ARE excellent: their electronic warfare capabilities are top notch. They also maintain advanced espionage capabilities.
To be fair, Russia has geological challenges to maintaining an effective air defense; especially in the age of drones. It's one of the reasons they couldn't bring their whole air force to bear in the invasion of Ukraine: they had a huge amount of country to maintain coverage over.
The irony of course being that NATO doesn't particularly have any interest in vast expanses of undeveloped potato fields giving away to frozen tundra, so they never had any impetus to invade. But Putin is now giving them one and at the same time demonstrating why the invasion would most likely be successful.
Lack of evidence isn't evidence.
Well, NATO hasn't carried out a single defensive operation in history, and has carried out (officially like in Libya or unofficially like in Iraq) several invasion wars.
So you're saying they were exceptionally effective as a deterrent to Soviet/Russian invasion
Clearly not, as Russia is currently on war against Ukraine. What NATO excelled in was turning Libya from the highest developed country in Africa into a war-torn hellhole.
Would you happily agree to Mexico's democratic right to host Russian military bases next to the US border if they so wanted? I'm from the EU myself, and it's obvious to me how if that were the case, this would lead to escalation, so I wouldn't Desire Russia to pursue a military alliance with Mexico.
You need evidence to disprove something.
Not legally. That's why you always hide the body.
Indeed, it's not something that can be disproven, as in it's nonsense that shouldn't be entertained in rational discourse.
Arguing in bad faith for the good guys is still arguing in bad faith.
Me reminding you that a hypothesis needs to be disprovable through observation in order to be valid and that the burden of proof is with the one making the claim, not the one trying to disprove it, is the exact opposite of arguing in bad faith.
But the claim was that NATO is a defensive pact. They said it's an un-disprovable claim.
No one needs to prove that NATO is a defence pact they need to prove that it isn't.
If you're accused of committing a crime it's not your responsibility to demonstrate to the court that you didn't commit the crime, it's a police's job to actually find some evidence. They can't go into court and go "well I don't have any evidence that he didn't commit the crime". That makes no sense.
Are you seriously comparing court rules of individuals with statements about treaty organisations? Thoes two things are completely different entities and not comparable at all.
NATO is definitely taking its time then, it's been around since 1949. Also the strategy of not ramping up military production until after your enemy attacks a neighbouring country, for the second time, seems like a risky one.
The fact that NATO could have utterly destroyed the Russian military at any point since shortly after the end of the Soviet Union handily disproves it and the further fact that most NATO countries let their militaries atrophy after the break up of the Soviet Union also disproves it. Great propaganda doesn't need to be rooted in truth, just establish an out-group who cause all the problems and hold the in-group blameless.