Are you saying Russia is better armed than Europe? You noticed that it could not win a war it started even without Europe joining?
Russians problems are about bad leadership. They have a lot of badly trained troops (their well trained troops do very well, but they are a small minority and running out). They have logistics issues. They have problems with leaders using well trained troops for things they are not trained for. They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans. They have problems with leaders there because they are political good not because they are great military commanders.
Do not fool yourself though. Russia is a very well armed country. They have problems, but lack of arms is not their issue in Ukraine.
> They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans
That for sure. This started at least when no one told putting he is terminally insane back in 2021.
he didn't think it, he said it. that's exactly the idiocy and ego
> Obviously if he knew it would end like it is, he wouldn't start the war.
putting could always end it. but yes, those things keeps him going, ego is more important than his own people and lives on both sides
Russia isn't going to win, it's going to slow burn to failure (again, military hardware exhaustion, parts of their economy on the brink of failure, working age demographics crisis leading to ~21% central bank rates to attempt to quell inflation to no avail), but Europe improving its military capabilities would derisk against potential tail risk aggression and losses as Russia stumbles to a failure mode. Putin will die eventually, although it is unknown who and what replaces him; Europe must manage that risk.
Europe is learning the hard way that you can't use economics to tame an aggressor (Nord Stream) nor can you rely on benevolent allies to be benevolent in perpetuity. This is objectively good, as it will force Europe to re-industrialize to an extent, and I argue manufacturing base and supply chains are of national security interest (gestures broadly at everything). Not your manufacturing base and supply chain? Not your freedom.
But that would require significant political change in all major players in EU, Leyden so far is pushing for it like there is no tomorrow and otherwise all is well and good. She seems untouchable. Germany prefers buying electricity from foreign coal rather than keep nuclear running for few more years. Also Germans will probably let half of Europe burn before they would make Wehrmacht the force to again reckon with.
Each country had 3 years to massively ramp up budgets and build factories, start recruiting. Poland and baltics did the moves since they had plenty of russian atrocities happen not so long ago, but the rest? We dont deal with strictly rational society here.
As I know, many European countries do not even have mandatory military training for their citizens. Military production is also very low, despite having much more money than Russia, Europe is not capable of producing a comparable amount of weapon and equipment (see how they failed to deliver a promised amount of artillery shells). While Russia could save and restore Soviet-built military factories. Also, European weapon is more expensive to produce. Also, psychologically europeans are corrupted by their rich comfortable lifestyle and are not likely to move from their comfortable homes into the trenches. Also, migrants in Europe might choose not to protect their new home land in this event. Also, historically, if you look at WW2, most small European countries were occupied in weeks or even days without much resistance.
Don't want to offend anyone but rather to remove a rose-colored glasses.