Vice new has been doing a great job covering the going on’s there.
This chart should terrify Russia's neighbors.
Today's Russia is much more hostile: it fought a war with Georgia in 2008, invaded Crimea in 2014, and is currently fighting in eastern Ukraine. There is a question that is increasingly asked in military policy circles in Washington and in much of Europe: what if Russia made some provocation in one of the tiny NATO states along its border? Would NATO come to its defense, as it has pledged to do? Or would the promise of Article V turn out to be a lie?
If it were up to European publics, the answer is a resounding "maybe, but maybe not."
Rather, they warn that Russia could repeat the so-called "hybrid war" provocations it deployed in the early stages of the Ukraine crisis: cyberattacks, propaganda meant to stir up panic or protests, armed "vigilantes," or even unmarked special forces shipped in to provoke small-scale violence. Such measures exist, by design, in a gray area between war and not-war.
Damn, so essentially people think we should dissolve NATO then?
I care a lot more about this stuff than chasing terrorists into the mountains. We have agreements with these people.
I've been following this for a while with Russia. I'm definitely worried about what our future with Russia will look like in 5-7 years.
I wonder if the third world war has started and we just don’t know it yet.
Some interesting numbers in there; in some cases, the unstated "Not Sure" or "No response" is the real surprise.
Not sure what to make of the fact that Poland and Spain are even on the "Yes".
Not surprised that the Germans aren't interested in fighting Russia.
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I figure that at least a third of the Germans would be against fighting even if Germany is invaded. In many ways it is a dying country with a lot of citizens who just want to live out their lives in comfort.
Most of Europe is heading that way, and so are we. Not good for countries who are depending on NATO's promises. On the (semi) bright side, Russia is a dying country too as its population heads down. Politically difficult to go to war to conquer the Baltics for some reason or other when your conscripts are their mothers' only living relatives.
Of course, in the longer term that leaves the issue of who is going to fill the vacuum left by Russia's decline. Russia is a problem under Putin, but a weak Russia in which a large percentage of the population is just living out its days, (like so many Germans and other Western Europeans now) is going to be an even bigger problem.
It's not outside the realm of possibility for Putin to be deposed should he initiate a disastrous campaign against the Baltic states or Poland, where Russian forces incur heavy and sustained losses. No matter how much he wants to be I.Stalin V 2.0, he's not. The Russians also don't have an NKVD to keep the conscripts in line, either.Originally Posted by Jeep
Germany is no surprise. You might remember in Gulf War I, Turkey (who was still an ally - not now) asked for some German forces to protect them if the war spread over their border. Germany refused.
Since the Europeans have dramatically reduced their armed forces to be insignificant, what do we expect? Not in Nato, but Swedish editorials pointed out that Sweden was almost defenseless nowadays. That's ok with lots of folks.
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