| Rather grim Hive Mind question: 13:26 - Mar 20 with 4858 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
I am just wondering what the mood is on this question, which for years would have been practically unthinkable:
What do you think are the chances of a deliberate Russian (or Belarusian or Wagner Group etc) military strike on a target in NATO territory within the next 12 months?
Please give your answer as a percentage, ranged from 0.1 to 99.9%.
If I get a few answers it will give us a Hive Mind average. |  | | |  |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 14:12 - Mar 29 with 422 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
0.001%. They don't need to if they can win information wars that they have proved very successful with so far.
EDIT: Just read the OP's summary reply on the second page and it does depend on what you describe as a military strike. It is clear Russia have used radioisotope poisoning in the UK on more than one occasion. I read the OP as a strike that is against a nation rather than an individual in such a manner that it would be difficult for it not to provoke a military response. [Post edited 29 Mar 14:17]
|  |
| |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 14:25 - Mar 29 with 399 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 12:55 - Mar 29 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
“ I think most of mainland Europe would be very grateful for cheap Russian gas again and trade with a market of 150million people. I think the sanctions have hurt us more than them.”
I don’t think this argument really holds up. Certainly the Russians were well prepared for sanctions, building up their surplus and cash reserves. However, the Russian economy contracted a massive 10pc - comparible to the impact of COVID on the western economies. No economies in the West have been impacted to anywhere near that level since the invasion. The Rouble was decimated when sanctions were ramped up and as a result the Russian central bank has had to raise the base rate upto 20pc.
mports have become incredibly expensive and western FDI is now non existent. In order to prop up their economy they’ve effectively moved to a total war footing. Western retail and financial services jobs in Russia have been replaced by low skilled jobs churning out shells. Whilst some oil and gas exports have moved to China and India, it’s well below the pre war levels. The pipeline infrastructure to move natural gas to China does not exist (as it did to Western Europe), and even were it to be constructed it would take years. Russian fossil fuel exports are not projected to reach pre war levels until 2030.
I also view the China-Russia relationship more of a shark circling a wounded prey - China are more interested in hoovering up cheap infrastructure and fossil fuels than helping Russia. Like Putin, Xi does what is to China’s benefit, and a weakened Russia is in their interest, especially with longstanding territorial disputes. |
I agree with your analysis here, particularly with regard to the "alliance" between China and Russia.
Russia has hugely overstretched, is using "meat grinder" tactics, and whilst it won't run out of men, they have run out of machinery.
China has chosen not to resupply those losses, in the main, as the threat on their Northern border is hugely reduced, allowing them to pursue their expansionist goals to their East. | | | |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 14:43 - Mar 29 with 384 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 14:12 - Mar 29 by Nthsuffolkblue |
0.001%. They don't need to if they can win information wars that they have proved very successful with so far.
EDIT: Just read the OP's summary reply on the second page and it does depend on what you describe as a military strike. It is clear Russia have used radioisotope poisoning in the UK on more than one occasion. I read the OP as a strike that is against a nation rather than an individual in such a manner that it would be difficult for it not to provoke a military response. [Post edited 29 Mar 14:17]
|
I meant an unambiguous military action against a military target.
The assassination of the defected pilot in Spain is arguable, but an assassination of Ukrainian pilots, or a sabotage bomb on an air base, or a missile attack on NATO territory wouldn't be. | | | |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 15:00 - Mar 29 with 380 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 14:43 - Mar 29 by ArnoldMoorhen |
I meant an unambiguous military action against a military target.
The assassination of the defected pilot in Spain is arguable, but an assassination of Ukrainian pilots, or a sabotage bomb on an air base, or a missile attack on NATO territory wouldn't be. |
"an assassination of Ukrainian pilots ... on NATO territory" would be no different to the attacks they have carried out on other individuals in the UK (a NATO territory). | |
| |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 16:06 - Mar 29 with 355 views | DJR |
The following shows the overwhelming military superiority of NATO as of 2023.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293174/nato-russia-military-comparison/
When it comes to Europe, in 2021, Russia spent around $66 billion on its military. NATO’s European members alone spent more than four times that. I haven't been able to find more up-to-date figures, but Europe would have the advantage in any conflict (if it were to go it alone without US support) of not being bogged down in a war (in Ukraine).
And the following from a recent article in the usually gung-ho Telegraph indicates that Putin couldn't win a war against Europe.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/06/russia-war-europe-nato-eu-ukraine-ec
"Russia simply can’t win a war against Europe. The mathematics are inexorable
Even if the US pulls out, Putin would be crazy to start something
There is much talk at present about how we need to prepare for war with Russia. How there might be conscription. There are articles in the press about how in the event of war parts of our industrial base might be converted to military production.
To an observer unfamiliar with atavistic Western concerns going back to the Soviet threat during the Cold War, equipped only with an understanding of the mathematics and economics of military power, this concern would probably seem surprising. Russia’s economy is fairly small, only around 85 per cent of the size of Italy’s. Its population of about 140 million is less than that of Germany plus France combined. It has been unable to defeat Ukraine – a country that when Russia invaded was the world’s 53rd largest economy, below New Zealand and Peru. Even if a future United States lost all interest in protecting Europe, should we really fear Russia could defeat the combined forces of the EU, such that it could reach Britain?
The relationship between military power and economic growth is complex and two-way. I have written before on these pages about how having a stronger military can boost long-term economic growth. Here I want to focus on the other direction: the extent to which having a higher GDP does or does not imply being more militarily powerful and what that means for the Russian threat and the Russian economy.
The classical startpoint for analysis of the relationship between military and economic power has usually been that military power is, other things being equal, a reflection of the resources available to the military. Obviously other things, such as geography, alliances, technology, military skill and experience, or morale, are typically not equal, and we shall return to that point shortly. But for now let us concentrate on this dimension.
The resources available to the military consist of those that have already been mobilised as military forces and those that could be mobilised rapidly, in the timescale required to be relevant, if they were required. Let us for now think of military forces as having two components: personnel numbers and equipment. (Other factors, such as the force balance – air/sea/land – obviously potentially matter as well. But let’s keep things simple.)
Consider two opposed countries. One has a larger population; the other has higher GDP. To create matching militaries, in terms of personnel and equipment, the country with the larger population need only devote a smaller percentage of its population to the military, but must devote a higher share of its GDP.
Suppose, instead, that the two countries devoted equal shares of personnel and GDP, and thus the more populous country had more personnel but they were less well-equipped, so each soldier is less effective – eg in killing opponents. In that case we can gain insight from an ingenious piece of military mathematics worked out during World War I: the “square law”. This tells us that, in pure attrition terms, if one military force is more numerous than another but less effective, then in order to win, the ratio of the smaller military’s effectiveness advantages needs to be greater than the square of the ratio of its numerical disadvantage. So, for example, that means that if you have 10 percent fewer troops, your troops need to be more than 21 percent more effective to win an attrition-based war.
The proportion of the population that different countries can mobilise to fight might differ. An authoritarian state might be able to conscript more of its population to fight. But an authoritarian state might also have what we might term a “morale” disadvantage – its forces might become unable or unwilling to fight at a lower loss rate than would be the case for forces fighting for what they regard as a more noble cause. On the other side there are those that would argue that some democratic liberal countries have become sufficiently self-hating or decadent that they do not regard their own cause as noble enough to fight for.
Let’s apply some of these insights to a consideration of Russia’s medium-term threat to the EU. The Russian economy is about 10 percent of the size of the EU’s. The EU spends about 1.3 percent of GDP on its military and the Russians have recently raised their spending to about 6 percent. So EU military spending will be about twice that of Russia. If we assume spending more produces greater troop effectiveness, then by the square law, to compensate for spending half as much, Russia would need to mobilise more than 40 percent more troops than the EU that it was able to devote to battle, if Russian forces continued to be able to fight at the same loss percentages that EU troops were. The EU’s combined militaries have about 1.4 million troops. So Russia would need to have around 2 million troops available in an attrition war. If we assume Russia would be attacking, and apply the classical rule of thumb that attacking forces need a 1.5:1 advantage across a theatre, Russia would need about three million. Russia has around 1.2 million troops at present, but notionally around 2 million reservists.
If the above analysis is correct, then, in the medium term, even setting aside any “morale” differences, in order to have a chance against a combined EU (and thus be in any position to threaten Britain) Russia would need either to double or triple its current military forces or roughly double or triple its military spending relative to GDP. A doubling of its expenditure relative to GDP would put it in the 12-15 percent range of the late Soviet Union – the level that caused the Soviet economy to collapse in the 1980s. A tripling would be even more crippling.
The Russian economy continues to be subject to Western sanctions. The oil embargo alone is costing it hundreds of billions of dollars. Doubling or tripling its military spending again would bankrupt it withing a few years. Russia can posture, and it can threaten or even invade its small, poor, neighbours. But the maths say that when it comes to threatening the EU, let alone Britain, if we in the West continue to believe in our causes enough to fight if it comes to it, Russia simply lacks sufficient economic resources to constitute a serious medium-term threat at all."
EDIT: the following indicates that the US doesn't really want the European members of NATO to go it alone.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/30/nato-europe-eu-defense-united-states [Post edited 29 Mar 16:17]
|  | | |
| Rather grim Hive Mind question: on 13:51 - Apr 19 with 129 views | giant_stow |
Wonder if this helps knock the fondness for Russia out of a few more of the German elite. |  |
| |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
