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Comment by cookiengineer | Hacker News Reader

The discussions in the Bundestag streams the last couple days were pretty unified in their decision making. Germany is now going to up their military defenses, and that seems to be the highest priority.

The dependency on gazprom kind of put us in "Schach", so we as a country can't do anything (as the chancellor kind of admitted in his speech).

Historically, Schroeder has always been the direct bridge to Putin. And he knows how to hold the mutual respect that Putin expects from others.

It seems as the current ruling parties don't realize that this is a game of strategy, not a game of moral or emotions. You can't win against Putin with moral code, so I kind of fear that they make it worse and he'll hold a grudge against Germany.

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Sometimes the threat of war and invasion cuts through a bunch of cruft and corruption. This is another miscalculation on Putin's side. Ukraine was the comfort blanket for Europe keeping them complacent.

This crossed an emotional line with the entirety of Europe. Heck, I feel it in the United States. Russia/Putin are nuts and not entirely rational. They are actual palpable evil: a direct threat to your survival and prosperity.

Remember the dogs thing with Merkel and Putin? I'm sure the "elites" of the EU have wanted to get more coordinated against Russia, but the populace was a bit ... soft.

Putin may have motivated far more people than just the populace of the Ukraine.

Looking at the map and the conduct of the war so far, this is a massive geopolitical opportunity for the West. Set fleets of drones into Ukraine and repulse the forces. Actually, I would sucker Belarus into invasion (they've already announced it, have they actually done it).

That would provide a casus belli for Ukraine (ahem NATO) forces to then invade Belarus, the other major buffer state between the NATO and Russia. Topple their autocrat.

Then put Belarus and Ukraine into NATO. Then there is a wall of NATO states at the doorstep of Russia.

I was thinking something similar recently. When an army leaves the safety of its homeland to invade another country, it becomes vulnerable to its supply lines being cut off and being stranded in a foreign country with lack of fuel, food/water, and/or ammo.

We’re already seeing scattered anecdotal examples of this happening to the Russian invasion force even without their supply lines being directly attacked. I wonder how difficult it would be for Western powers to assemble a fleet of drones, stick a bunch of Ukrainian flag decals on them, and then attack and disrupt the main Russian supply lines into Ukraine.

It would only take a few days of that before the Russian army runs out of material to fight the war with. Then Ukrainian troops can force a surrender, round them up, treat them appropriately under the Geneva Conventions, and then offer and encourage them to accept political asylum in the West. (Same with Belarus if they invade). Destroy or confiscate the materials.

Then boom, Russia no longer has an army. And without the West ever directly attacking the Russian (or Belorussian) homeland.

It seems last year one in five Russians were interested in asylum. Too bad the military likely avoids conscripting gays or domestic abuse victims or the Ukraine population would be increasing by every soldier sent in.

There is sort of a brother/sister relationship between the two countries and I suspect if the US agreed to float a basic income for a half a decade to defectors a good pamphlet drop on enemy troops could have them switching sides.

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