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Comment by woodman | Hacker News Reader

> ... go back to MAD with a credible deterrent and credible defence. Whether it is technically feasible or not is one thing...

It isn't credible if it isn't technically feasible, it is just a waste of money and it looks foolish. While I can understand how Russia would be upset about NATO neutering its nuclear arsenal with anti ballistic missile systems, I have a hard time believing that intelligent people actually think NATO wants to invade Russia. It is just frustration over a censor bar being placed over the dick waving.

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My impression is that Russia (Putin) feels threatened by NATO. That may not be the threat of invasion. It might be just the threat of being no longer the dominant power in the neighborhood, and therefore unable to push people around.

But I think Russia may in fact fear invasion. Germany went from "no threat" to "building up their military but having a treaty with Russia" to "invading Russia" in nine years. If that invasion had been launched from the eastern Ukraine instead of from the middle of Poland, it very plausibly could have broken Russia.

Russia doesn't have half of Poland as a buffer anymore. It doesn't even have (most of) Ukraine. I think that Russia is extremely over-sensitive - even paranoid - given the current circumstances. But circumstances change, sometimes rather rapidly. Given history (not just Germany, but also France), Russia has some grounds for fearing Europe.

"But Europe is different now!" True... until it's not.

Look, I'm not defending Putin. But he's not totally nuts to be worried.

> ... threat of being no longer the dominant power...

That is pretty obvious, with the silly resumption of strategically useless bomber flights nearly 10 years ago.

> Germany went from "no threat" to ...

You might have a better grasp of the history than me, but it was my impression that by 1933 everybody was keenly aware of how dangerous Germany was getting - with the book burning and Nazi parading. Hopefully Russia has learned not to trust treaty partners that behave so. That is a pretty long lead time, and the only country that I can think of right now that exhibits similar behavior is Turkey. So unless Russia is concerned about a Neo-Ottoman empire invasion, they really don't have an excuse.

Germany was headed toward being a threat in 1933, for those with eyes to see. But they weren't a threat yet, because they had no military. It had been gutted by the treaty at the end of World War I. They couldn't have invaded Russia, or even Poland, with what they had in 1933.

In 1931 Germany's rearmament was public knowledge, and oddly enough the Soviets were well aware - because they were the ones training German airforce pilots. That plus the withdrawal from the League of Nations was a pretty big hint. Now I can agree with the argument that the Soviets didn't know that Germany was going to target them, but by 1933 it was clear that Germany was going to cause some major problems in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_re-armament

In 1931 Germany's rearmament may have been public knowledge, but it didn't amount to much. Police that could become military reserve? Training pilots? OK, that was breaking the treaty (and TIL that it was going on before 1933), but where were the actual non-reserve divisions? Where were the tanks? The airplanes? The warships? They weren't there. Conscription wasn't reintroduced until 1935.

> Where were the tanks? The airplanes? The warships?

I don't know about the tanks, but the airplanes and warships were all over the place - they just weren't property of the German military. Germany was building subs in the Netherlands, and aircraft in Russia - they got around the treaty by offshoring production and selling to other nations, allowing them to refine their designs and build their industry. They did a similar thing with the officer corps - they just changed their titles, but continued perfecting and growing their training program. Conscription is pretty much the last thing to happen, if you want to watch for trouble - watch the officer training program. All that was going on in the 1920s btw.

All this might sound like Monday morning quarterbacking, but the pattern is repeated throughout history. Watch Turkey. If they rebuild their officer corps before their economy totally collapses, they'll try to annex northern Syria and northern Iraq. They've started developing domestic production of weapon systems, dropped very strong hints that they aren't interested in remaining a NATO partner, and they have a madman as chief executive - enthusiastically put their by nationalists.

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