Iran is overseas, and in a far better position to defend itself. Even an incompetent US would roll right over Canada between the numbers disadvantage and the geography.
Also, Trump has gotten plenty of people in Iran killed, so he’s certainly a threat.
It’s tough to say, and depends on just how much weaker (if at all) the NATO militaries are compared to Ukraine. Is Ukraine like a big dog protecting a bunch of small dogs from a wolf? Or is it more like France, the UK, Germany, Poland, etc. are also big dogs compared to a Russian wolf?
I suspect the latter. If it came down to NATO minus the US vs. Russia, Russia would lose fairly quickly (barring nukes).
How? They are throwing everything short of nukes at Ukraine, and can barely manage taking about 1 square km per day on the Donbas front line. Where are they going to get the manpower for these bigger intrusions? And other than the Baltics, how would they even get there? Through a Belarus that backs down when Zelensky threatens them? They would likely face Ukrainian attacks if Russia shows that they are staging units there - it’s not like Zelensky is going to say “oh, those guys are headed for Poland and not Ukraine? by all means proceed.” Through Kaliningrad? I think those are scenarios are extremely unlikely.
It’s my understanding that the Baltics are the most at risk because they are small enough that Russia could completely overrun them before a defense is organized. They don’t have the same defensive depth to absorb an attack and strike back as Ukraine.
Poland on the other hand would rip the Russians apart, I think. They do have the size for defensive depth, and would be facing an already badly damaged Russia.
Russia could launch a drone and missile attack against a Baltic state capital similar to what Kiev experiences.
It would cost many lives because the people wouldn’t be in shelters.
That provocation could trigger article 5 and force a NATO response.
I agree Russia isn’t prepared for a war with NATO. I think Putin wants to see NATO’s reaction. How much solidarity is seen among the member nations?
Would the U.S. take a leadership role?
That’s important information for Putin and his future plans.
They could, but I can’t imagine why they would.
1.) Russia is in a tough war of attrition with Ukraine and have lost a shit-ton of equipment and personnel. They’d be foolish indeed to risk opening up a second front under the current circumstance.
2.) If they really wanted that extra war, the smarter thing to do (still extremely stupid) would be to simply launch an all-out land invasion of the Baltics. Since you’re going to end up in a war with NATO either way, better to quickly overrun the Baltics to remove that salient and try to force NATO to take them back, which would likely be a bit of a logistics nightmare for NATO sans the United States. Though slightly less so than it used to be now that all of Scandinavia has joined.
3.) Even positing #2 it still wouldn’t be enough to fend off NATO minus the U.S., assuming NATO decided to actually go to the mat. And you can bet front-line nations like Poland and the Nordics would be pushing hard for them to do so. European NATO currently has a far larger and on average more modern combined air force than Russia. Currently way more functional armor than Russia (questions of modern efficacy aside - NATO would almost certainly be operating under air superiority which makes a difference). More ships. More soldiers. More money, far stronger and more resilient economies. More and better everything really, land-based air defense possibly excepted.
It would be beyond idiotic for Russia to start pounding their chest and just lob some missiles into Latvia to make some half-assed point. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen, because stupid is as stupid does. But it does make it unlikely.
Isn’t Ukraine severely constrained in their use of Western fighter planes? NATO countries wouldn’t have that constraint and would just eliminate Russian supply lines.
The US couldn’t lead itself out of a paper bag at this point – lost a war with Iran, blown up all of our alliances, and specifically stated that we wouldn’t help out. We’re practically on Russia’s side.
I’m not sure you’ve fully embraced the idea that we’re the bad guys now. We’ve always done some iffy things, but at least pretended to care about ideals like freedom and democracy, and pretended to be against strongmen like Orban and Putin. Not anymore.
As an aside, I really hate that we’re the bad guys now. There are probably tons of Russians that feel the same way, since the multiple invasions of Ukraine.
Like the way Russia rolled over Ukraine?
They already did that with the Falklands. Yes, they’re in the SOUTH Atlantic, but it was a member of NATO that had territory invaded. Leaning on the N of NATO as an excuse was pathetic.
Kyiv is hundreds of miles from the border. Canada’s capital and most of their population are right on the border.
There’d still be a very strong insurgency that would keep the US mired for years or decades, and help from abroad could eventually turn back the tide, but it’d still be a huge loss for Canada. Remember, every war has at least one loser, but not all wars have winners.
Highly likely over the next couple of years. Fortunately, Russia is so bogged down in Ukraine that any iinvasion of neighboring states is extremely unlikely in the short term.
The benefit (if it can be called that) of betraying our allies, is that Euro states are being compelled to significantly strengthen their military status, because the U.S. can no longer be counted on to supply aid if they’re attacked. Distrust and re-armament will probably continue long after 2028.
The treaty specifically rules out actions south of the Tropic of Cancer. Article 6:
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
- on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;*
- on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
The UK never attempted to invoke Article 5, because 6 made it moot. It wasn’t a pathetic excuse, it was the treaty as written. Trying to invoke Article 5 for the South Atlantic would have created a political shibboleth that I’m sure Thatcher wanted to avoid.
Yes, but I don’t see why it really matters. Russia can’t even conquer Ukraine. Russia would have to steamroll all of eastern europe to even reach western europe, and thats never going to happen if they get bogged down in one eastern european nation.
Also Poland is becoming a regional military superpower. If people think Ukraine put up a hell of a fight against Russia, Poland would be even tougher. They have more advanced military equipment. Poland has F-35s which they could use to target and destroy Russian air defenses, leaving the Russians pretty much defenseless.
Non-US NATO nations have a military budget of roughly 600 billion. They have 2 million highly trained soldiers, they have domestically produced high quality military equipment all over Europe. They also have their own nuclear weapons since the UK & France are nuclear powers.
Europe will survive w/o the US. It’ll be harder than with the US, but Russia is no match for Europe. Europe has better military equipment, more soldiers, better trained soldiers, more military spending, etc.
We’ve fallen before into the trap of thinking, “of course the Germans wouldn’t launch an attack in the middle of winter. They wouldn’t be that stupid.”
Glad to read the first sensible response to OPs question.
No, NATO leaders shouldn’t fear that they cannot count on the US if Russia attacks, for the same reason they shouldn’t fear the bogeyman.
The Russian army doesn’t have the resources to defeat Ukraine. It certainly doesn’t have enough to fight on a new front line three times the size.
For this reason and a few other similar ones, I personally think NATO, even minus US help, would stomp Russia. NATO was purpose-built to defeat the Soviet juggernaut. They have the weapons and the tactics to do it and I am sure there are a lot of NATO forward observers in Ukraine right now bringing back tons of intel on innovative Ukrainian tactics versus shitty Russian ones. If Russia decides to try anything against NATO, my money has Putin dead on the first day and NATO troops pissing in the Moskva River inside of a week.
There is a difference between thinking “of course XYZ won’t do ABC, but we’ll get prepared anyway.” and “of course XYZ won’t do ABC, so we don’t need to worry.”
ISTM that the tendency of certain NATO countries such as Poland is to prepare anyway.
The purpose of having the United States in a NATO war scenario isn’t to enable Europe to beat Russia in a war (NATO-Europe would suffice on its own,) it’s to make the victory much faster and more thorough.
Sure, with the US’s help, it will be over in two weeks, just like the attack on Iran was.