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WSJ: Russia could attack NATO next month (www.dw.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/world@lemmy.world
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According to a Wall Street Journal report citing US intelligence, Russia could be preparing a limited incursion against a NATO member state within weeks. The report comes as the war in Ukraine remains largely deadlocked and the impact of the conflict is increasingly felt inside Russia.

Analysts cited in the report suggest Vladimir Putin may seek to open a new front rather than risk being remembered as the leader who lost Ukraine, raising fresh questions about NATO’s readiness and resolve.

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[–] 82 points 2 months ago (13 children)

This doesn't make any sense. NATO is much stronger than it was before the war. Russia is much weaker.

The Baltic States started the war isolated, partially surrounded by Russia. Today they sit in a NATO lake that can not only support the Baltics, but threaten St Petersburg.

Russia would have to defend a front stretching from the Black sea to the Arctic sea.

Even if the US declined to help, Russia starts in a position of great weakness. And worse still, everyone knows it.

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  • [–] 51 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Putin needs a defeat from NATO, not from Ukraine alone. If he loses to the biggest military alliance of the world, he might be able to somewhat sell it to the public on the home front. It would also play right into the propaganda they've been spewing that Russia is fighting the collective West.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    Are they specialised in this new type of war, though? I saw something about Americans being wiped out in simulated exercises against Ukrainian drone operators - and the Russians will be bringing that kind of experience to someone who has only been learning in classrooms from Ukrainians.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Although they did initially get "wiped out", but (from the article):

    by repeating the training scenario throughout the two-week exercise, US Army troops got better at figuring out how to disperse and hide from the drones while using countermeasures such as electronic warfare.

    Which is the point of these exercises. It’ll still take time to modify doctrine and train, but the US is now more practically informed on this type of warfare.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    It makes a lot of sense. You're ignoring what a realistic action and response would look like.

    The goal wouldn't be to conquer large swathes of NATO territory. The goal would be to test the integrity of the NATO alliance, and to see if the Russian sympathizer sitting in the White House will renege on the US's obligations.

    Imagine Putin sends a few hundred troops over the border and seizes a small amount of land. NATO is not going to use that as an excuse to launch a total war against Russia. Sure, if the full might of the Russian army comes storming into Poland, NATO would let loose everything we have. But a limited incursion like in Georgia? If NATO is living up to its promises, sufficient force would be deployed to drive them out. There would be no need to launch a total war.

    This would be a way to test the NATO alliance at relatively low cost and risk. We don't actually know how Trump would respond to this. He could very well say, "not our problem" and refuse to render aid. If he did command the US military to defend NATO territory, then the cost to Russia would be small. A few hundred casualties in a war that's caused hundreds of thousands. A rounding error. A small price to pay.

    But imagine what Putin gains if Trump doesn't offer assistance against even a small incursion. NATO's guarantees will have proven fruitless. Even if someone more friendly to NATO gets elected after Trump, the promise will still be broken. Every NATO member from then on knows that the NATO guarantees cannot be relied upon. A guarantee that is subject to the whims of which American political party is in power is not a guarantee that nations can rely on for their national defense.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    If he does send a few hundred to steal some land, and gets pushed out, its not simply a matter of small price to pay, it could potentially change the entire landscape of the Ukraine war by changing how other countries support them. Its a pretty big gamble that they'll do nothing.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    The opposite could also happen. Countries facing direct threats to their own territory are less able to provide military aid.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago*

    and to see if the Russian sympathizer sitting in the White House will renege on the US’s obligations

    That bus has already left the station, and the other NATO countries know it. The only open question is how weak Putin will have to be before Trump flip-flops so that he can still be on what he perceives to be the winning side.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    This is a half-formed thought but Russia is quite strong in exactly one way: nuclear warhead count. That doesn’t help him resupply Crimea but perhaps he’s trying to change the scope or scale of the conflict in a way that would make this strength more relevant?

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