justinian on Yik Yak | This feels like disinformation and propaganda to be honest, in what world would Russia be able to beat the EU? This headline reads like “The US military would struggle to defend against a North Korean invasion of California”

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US Politics 1w

justinian

This feels like disinformation and propaganda to be honest, in what world would Russia be able to beat the EU? This headline reads like “The US military would struggle to defend against a North Korean invasion of California”

US Politics 1w

This should not be public information should it?

#poll

Yes

23 votes

Anonymous 1w

if you read the article, it doesn’t necessarily say they technological couldn’t— it’s more like they couldn’t organize a successful response fast enough to prevent a lot of damage in the targeted area or to get Russia to back off once it was settled in Lithuania

Anonymous 1w

one thing that i think is interesting about technology mismatched adversaries is that the weaker adversary can make up a significant amount of the gap by moving the war effort higher up on their priority list. democracies in general tend to not want war— leaders prioritize protecting their economies and their civilians’ quality of life (and approval ratings), so they’re reluctant to sacrifice any of that to power a war effort unless they have to

Anonymous 1w

Even if it’s disinformation, it’s irresponsible to just put that out there. Granted, it may serve to motivate European states to move more quickly.

Anonymous 1w

i struggle to see any large scale invasions occurring with MAD. it would have to be incredibly incremental to just push the envelope

Anonymous

#1 1w

Yea its to make Europeans afraid of Russia, classic WW1 propaganda

Anonymous

justinian 1w

Russia is a brute, end of story

Anonymous

#3 1w

it’s public bc someone wants to pressure them to be more prepared to actually go to war if Russia starts being aggressive

Anonymous

#3 1w

I read the article. It would pretty much be a message to smaller states that they’re on the own, and we’re officially reentering the age of great power politics.

Anonymous

#1 1w

the EU is worried that the US may withdraw from NATO which would severely weaken it— they are planning for that possibility

Anonymous

#3 1w

That’s what I feel like, but I feel as though it’s negligent. Europe already knows what’s up.

Anonymous

#1 1w

yes and no. i think it precisely the message that is in the headline: if the US does leave nato, the EU is not prepared to defend smaller states against Russia. either the US need to recommit or the EU needs to figure out a plan, otherwise yeah it will be right back to great power politics

Anonymous

#1 1w

Perhaps, but they couldn’t even take Kiev, much less Brussels. Unless you are Ukrainian or Moldovan, fearing a Russian invasion is alarmist

Anonymous

justinian 1w

*or Georgian to be fair

Anonymous

#3 1w

autocrats on the other hand can basically choose to feed their civilian populations and economies to a war effort, consequences for the people be damned. so they can be much more aggressive, take much bigger risks, and violate more rules of engagement. especially in Russia, which has a huge population and forced draft, Putin doesn’t worry nearly as much as Europe about avoiding military casualties

Anonymous

#3 1w

democracies will typically (ofc there are exceptions) not respond to autocrats with full out war unless the autocrat feels like an existential threat to the democracy— moving it higher up the priority list for the population

Anonymous

#3 1w

this is basically telling Europe they need to be prepared to risk more and pay more than they are currently prepared for

Anonymous

#3 1w

the US plays an outsize role in this whole dynamic because we have a military that is orders of magnitudes bigger than anyone else’s and we currently have a lot less at risk bc technological gap is wider and also there are two oceans in the way. so we can provide a lot more to Europe while feeling it a lot less

Anonymous

#3 1w

at the risk of being alarmist the whole dynamic has some echoes of WWII but only echoes. i do think that is influencing europe’s response tho because its a very powerful traumatic memory in Europe and nobody wants to go down in history as chamberlain 2.0. so that might be part of why they are putting so much weight on these war games

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