Russia is not weak, but it is also not strong. In fact, it is MUCH weaker than what Putin/Russians would want the world to think. It’s more like a pretty aggressive bee with a big stinger. Sure, it can cause pain and discomfort. Like a bee, it can scare off someone by buzzing about. But the day it uses its sting is the day it dies.
Great! So when can we start building modern day Pershings and SRAMs again???
They are very weak conventionally speaking. In a conventional fight, we could annihilate them. That really is beyond question. But there’s one big problem with that. The Russians have a very justified fear of invasions that put them into existential threat. Europe has invaded Russia four times since 1812. The last one at the hands of the Nazis was nothing short of catastrophic. We hold the belief that we may be able to have a short and sharp conventional fight with Russia and it will remain there. All of the New York icons, a few politicians, and frightening number of our generals actually secretly seem to want this. In their fantasy after a serious bloody nose, Russia backs down, apologizes, removes Putin, and accepts the New World Order.
But everyone involved gets a vote. Their post World War II doctrine is that anybody who visits an attack on them should expect complete destruction of their homeland.
It is an article of faith there that they will never again have their Homeland destroyed in an invasion. Today, an operation Barbarossa would have resulted in the complete flattening of Germany within about a half hour. That gives them a significant feeling of comfort in Russia.
So as we conduct our grand game, this parlor game for politicians, relentlessly moving NATO eastward, our leaders should stop and realize the consequences convincing them that we intend to invade them. And I would include our modern version of “invasion” in this, launching color revolutions and Civil Wars, such as in Libya, Ukraine, and Syria.
It’s very dangerous to convince someone they have nothing to lose.
I have a box of iodine pills. So if we get nuked someday I’ll just pop my atomic bomb pills and I’ll be fine, but I really do worry about the rest of you
Good analogy - the bees are in the hive and we have the poison smoke nozzle waiting to see if the hive will be allowed to live or be too much of a nuisance.